OS {Series}: Happily Ever After (Part 1)

OS (Series): Happily Ever After

Part 1

 

Payal, my elder sister always loved baby sitting. And specially Anjali, her boyfriend's younger sister. But as she didn't want to waste a single minute without Akash Raizada, that's her boyfriends' name. She left me baby sit Anjali.

I sighed as I began giving Anjali some special tips on how to find your perfect match, a match maker that I was from birth.

A sacred job it is!

"The ideal position for your date to put his arm around you is your waist. Any higher ' kick him in the balls and run, any lower ' give him a shot of pepper spray in the eyes."

"Well . . . around the shoulders is sort of . . . friendly, right? But you want him to be more than your friend, and the waist is more intimate. Definitely not how you'd touch a friend."

Suddenly Payal bobbed her head up and down solemnly as I imparted a sacred slice of knowledge us females have of the male psyche.

"Aimee, what the hell are you doing?" She asked and I blinked innocently at my older sister, who decided to poke her head around the door, and currently looked as if she were about to eat me. The cannibal.

"Nothing." See that ring of light around my head? It's called a halo.

She eyed me suspiciously. "Were you teaching Anjali how to pick up guys?"

"Of course not!" I replied indignantly. Honestly, do I look irresponsible to you? "I was just giving her a brief rundown on the fine line between boyfriend and predator."

A pause. "She's seven."

"It's never too early to learn." I smiled knowledgably. Anjali just glowered back, obviously not buying into my incredibly logical reasoning.

"Payal? I have to go now. My brother's waiting in the car outside." Akash strolled into the living room and wrapped his arms around Payal.

I tapped my foot, patiently waiting for them to finish their goodbye kiss (because I'm such a thoughtful, accommodating sister)

Waiting. Waiting. Still waiting. Oxygen anyone?

And that's when I remembered Anjali, who's not allowed to watch them, let alone witness her big brother in the midst of a PDA session with her ex-babysitter. That's Asian parents for you.

So I did what any good sister would do and covered her eyes with one hand and gently ushered her out of the room to the kitchen.

I heard the sound of the doorbell.
"How about you get the Jalebi dough out of the fridge and we'll start some serious making?"
I grinned at Anjali and she beamed back enthusiastically. Jalebi dough itself should be one of the five main food groups; it is that good.

I opened the front door and froze.

"Hi. I'm here for my sis 'I know you."

He was one of those broody, silent yet dangerous types. You know, the ones you didn't want to meet in a dark alley at night. He even looked the part ' tall, black hair, black clothing, never smiling, gorgeous in a terrifying kind of way. But for a guy who emitted a come-within-two-metres-of-me-and-I-will-crush-you-under-my-pinkie aura, his eyes are surprisingly chocolate brown. The kind of eyes you could melt into. The kind of eyes ninety-eight percent of the female population would want to melt into ' possibly including me.

"Arnav Singh Raizada?" I stared at him incredulously, partly because I couldn't believe sweet, life-is-wonderful Akash had a badass for a brother, and partly because good-looking guys don't exactly turn up on my doorstep very often. Feel my pain people.

His eyes narrowed and he grunted. Employing my extensive knowledge of the English language I deciphered that as a yes.

Unperturbed, I gave him my best hostess smile and motioned him in. "I sit behind you in Maths." And daydream about resting my head on your broad manly shoulders, I added silently. He grunted again. Did I mention he doesn't talk much?

We stood in the hallway shuffling our feet and staring awkwardly at each other trying to figure out what to say. Okay, so maybe I was the one doing all the feet shuffling and staring but he wasn't exactly being Mr. Talkative, standing there with his arms crossed, frown firmly in place looking like The Terminator minus the machine gun and Austrian-American accent.

"Do you want to wait in the living room?"

"No. I'll wait here." Wow. Four words. Must be some kind of record.

Silence.
More shuffling.
More sidelong glances.
Aside from the occasional sorry-for-bumping-into-you or excuse-me said by moi, (he'd just stare at me witheringly) we'd never really talked before. He suddenly leaned towards me . . . . . . to get a closer look at the family photo behind my head. (Yeah. Not what I was hoping either.)

"You look like your Dad."

"Thanks?"

He raised an eyebrow (and what a very lovely eyebrow it is).

"Can you smell something frying?" He wrinkled his nose distastefully.

I inhaled deeply. Sigh. Heaven. "Anjali's making Jalebi's in the kitchen."

"I hate Jalebi," he scowled. He isn't remotely human. He's a monster! (Albeit, a very nice looking one.)

One look at my horrified expression and he flashed me another one of his tummy-tingling half-smiles.

"You disagree?"

The shock of discovering my first Jalebi-hater coupled with a glimpse of his smile, I'm surprised I hadn't yet gone into cardiac arrest.

"Disagree? Are you kidding me? You've probably just broken the law."

He frowned, puzzled. "What law?"

"The uh . . . law regarding how thou shall not dislike the sacred Jalebi," I replied giving myself a mental pat on the back for my quick thinking.

"Right." He stared at me like horns had just grown out of my head with little bells on the end that jingled to Christmas Carols every time I moved.

I rolled my eyes. "You need to liven up more." I don't know what surprised him more. My statement or the way I grabbed him by the arm and hauled him into my kitchen, intent on tying him to a chair and force-feeding him Jalebi.

Which is kind of how I came to spend my afternoon baking with Arnav Singh Raizada.

***
Keeping my eyes trained on my sister and her boyfriend, I ducked behind the lemon tree and set up my vantage point.

I smiled triupiently as I saw them in deep conversation. It was me who had made them realise that they were in Love.

It was me who forced Akash to go upto sister and propose her after training him for days together.

Now that Akash was going to propose Payal for marriage, You didn't really think I was just going to leave them there did you? I wasn't going to miss this scenario of watching them finally being together.

"What are you doing?" A familiar voice behind me caused me to jump and hit my head against a branch. Ouch. Rubbing my forehead, I whipped around and saw Arnav standing there wearing a (god forbid) blue shirt (he must have run out of black ones) eyeing me suspiciously.

I glared. "Shh! Keep your voice down! You'll blow my cover!" I whispered furiously, breathing a sigh of relief as Akash and Payal seemed oblivious to anything but each other. "What are you doing here anyway?"

"Akash forgot his specs so I brought it over," he muttered. Aw, what a sweetie. No Khushi. This is not the time to be mentally coo-ing over your sister's boyfriend's brother. Focus.

Right.

I turned my attention back to the lovebirds. Or at least I tried to. It's hard to concentrate when you have someone practically breathing down your neck. And it doesn't feel all that unpleasant.

"Is that a video camera . . . are you filming them?!" Geez, he didn't have to make it sound like I was committing first-degree murder.

"Yes. No. Maybe."

"Ever heard the term 'violation of privacy'?" His voice was dry. That's all I could tell because I was making a point of keeping my back to him.

"Can't say I have," I replied nonchalantly.

"What have you filmed anyway?" He stepped closer and craned his neck to get a peek at the screen of my video camera. He wasn't touching me. But he might as well have been. I felt like I was melting. And okay, so I technically might have been filming my sister and her boyfriend without their initial consent, but I'm sure they'd appreciate this fifty years down the track when I showed their grandchildren video footage on how their love blossomed on a sunny Saturday afternoon.

"Aren't they just adorable? They're totally crazy about each other but they're also the shy bones. I mean, I love them both and all but they're a little oblivious if you know what I mean." He raised an eyebrow.

I continued clinging to words like a lifeline. "And because I'm such an awesome sister I've decided to play a little match-maker and try to set them up. I've already gotten Akash to admit his feelings to himself, not that he was all that happy about it, and now look at them." I smiled softly as I watched Payal blush as Akash curled a stray hair behind her ear.
"They deserve to be happy. And being together makes them happy." I glanced up to find Akash staring at me intensely and felt my stomach flip. If I just stood on my tiptoes and tilted my head up a bit them we would be '

"Bet you one thousand they won't end up together."

"Excuse me?" I blinked, stunned.

"I said: bet you a thousand they won't end up together," he repeated slowly.

"What makes you think they won't end up together?" I admit, I may have come across as defensive with a little rage thrown in.

"Come on. Don't tell me you're one of those girls who believe in 'happily ever after'. This is reality. You don't just meet a guy or girl or whatever and ride off into the sunset on your white horse-drawn carriage. People fall out of love. People cheat. People die. Happy. Endings. Don't. Exist." He ground out the words through gritted teeth.

I opened my mouth to retort when I remembered something Payal mentioned before about how Arnav, Akash and Anjali's parents divorced when they were too young. I was a bit fuzzy on the details but apparently Arnav took the ordeal really hard. I fought the wave of sympathy that crashed over me. If he knew I felt sorry for him he'd just get angry. I settled with, "I disagree."

His face easily slipped back into cool indifference. "So, what do say? A thousand?"

"A thousand? No way!"

"Cheap ass," he drawled.

I frowned at him through narrowed eyes. "In case you haven't realised Mr. I've-got-great-big-wads-of-cash-that-I-can-just-use-to-fund-my-gambling-addiction, we are in the wake of a global financial crisis and unlike you, some people are doing it tough in the recession."

He didn't even blink.

"A thousand and a plate of Jalebi."

"Deal!" The second he mentioned the word's 'Jalebi' every single one of my taste buds went berserk. It's like trying to stop smoking when you've been going at it for forty years. Only ten times worse.

"Mmm . . . jalebi. . ." I sighed dreamily.

"Deal" Finally she replied.

***

I just wanted to lift of my mood by writing it!

Hope you liked it!