The alleged Happily ever after || COMPLETED

4. A Love Like That

~ Love is a four letter word that is the home to four hundred different emotions together ~

Nandini twirled around in her apartment, a song playing on her phone while she danced while beating the coffee in her mug simultaneously. Raima had already left for office, and she still had good two hours before her first meeting today. When the mixture turned raw golden, she put the milk on the stove, and picked up her phone to change the song, but before she could choose one, her phone began to ring.

"Good morning mumma!", Nandini cheerfully greeted her mother, while Shanno Murthy shared her enthusiasm and wished her back.

"How did you wake up so early today haan?", Shanno questioned and Nandini giggled.

"9:30 isn't early mumma", Nandini laughed, turning off the gas and keeping her mug at one side, she put the phone on speaker and began pouring milk into her mug.

"That's not fair Maa, you wake me up at 7", Nandini heard her baby sister Chandni's grumpy voice and giggled again.

"Obviously it's not fair, but even Mumma loving me more than you isn't fair either!", Nandini teased into the phone, and heard her sister whine some more and her mother's loud laughter, "Believe me next time when I say we picked you from the garbage bin outside the society", Nandini continued, and then picked up her phone and the mug, walking toward the balcony in her room.

"Mummaaa", Chandni cried in frustration and Shanno patted her back, trying to scold Nandini.

"What is this Nandu? Why are you making my child cry?", Shanno tried to speak in a stern voice, pacifying Chandni but Nandini only giggled silently, before taking a deep breath and making a serious voice.

"Only she is your child Mumma? I am not? Just because she is close to you and I am far away in another city? I didn't expect this from you, Mumma", Nandini's choked voice put Shanno in a split and she was about to break into a manofying spree when Sumit Murthy, who was uptil hearing the conversation silently, broke into loud laughter.

Hearing her father, Nandini and eventually Chandni also started giggling, while Shanno pouted, blabbering under her breath about how everyone had vowed to make her life impossible.

"By the way Nandini, how is Manik?", Sumit winked at his wife who fought back her smile, while Nandini spit out her coffee hearing that.

"Appaaa!", she spoke into the phone, glad it wasn't a video call, or everyone could see the heat rising up her cheeks and her flustered form.

"What Appa? Since two weeks all you talk about is Manik this, Manik that with Chandni, and now you are shying away?", Shanno stated, laughing and Nandini heard her sister chuckle in the background.

"Mumaa", she gasped, "I was...just talking about him randomly", she stuttered, making plans in her head to bury her 'sweet sister' ten feet underground.

"I stalked him on Instagram", Sumit said, "and we will meet the Malhotras for the wedding anyway. Tell me, do you want us to ask his hand for you?", Sumit dropped the bomb so casually that Nandini couldn't even understand what happened. When she did, the mug fell out of her hands and she was only grateful that she had finished her coffee.

Hearing the prolonged silence, Shanno chided her husband.

"Stop troubling my daughter. Nandu, he is joking", Shanno clarified, and Nandini felt like she could breathe again, because despite the blush Manik's name brought on her face, she knew he still wasn't warm on the idea of love or marriage.