Page 32 of Born in Ruin

Honest to god, that nose had a lot of opinions.

“Oh.” Dhrithi stared thoughtfully at him. “That’s true.”

“Dhriths. Goody.” Ishaan ignored the other woman, speaking to the sane one. “Listen to me. I need to know where you are, okay. Or Amay will worry.”

“Oh,” Dhrithi said again. “I don’t want Amay to worry.” She rattled off the name of the bar they were at. “Tell Amay not to worry, okay? He worries too much.”

Kids and drunks always spoke the truth.

“He does,” Ishaan agreed. “You guys have a good time. I’ll see you tonight.”

“No!” The nose shouted, giving him a side view of her chin as well. “You won’t see me tonight.”

“And thank God for small mercies,” he retorted making her chin quiver with the force of her annoyance.

He hung up before she could snipe back at him. He took a moment to text his team about his early exit. And then, he ran for the door.

EIGHTEEN

Mayukhi

This was the best time ever! Mayukhi had forgotten how cool it was to blow off work with a girlfriend and just go party. Maybe because she’d never had a girlfriend to go party with in the middle of the day.

“Jello shots!” she shouted, flapping her hand in midair to get the bartender’s attention.

“Yes. Yello shoss,” Dhrithi mumbled, her head on the table.

Mayukhi stroked Dhrithi’s long, tangled hair. “Lightweight,” she told her. “We will work on your capacity.”

“No, you won’t.”

The furious words were hissed from somewhere above her right shoulder. Mayukhi glanced around and spotted Ishaan glowering at her. Was it Ishaan? Or was it a hallucination? If it was a hallucination, it was a very realistic one. Mayukhi reached out and pinched him on his arm, except the hard muscles under that shirt made it hard to get a proper grip. The hallucinationsmacked her hand away before walking over to Dhrithi. He lifted her head gently and peered into her eyes.

“Talk to me, Goody,” he said. “You doing okay?”

Mayukhi flexed her stinging fingers and stared at him resentfully. Even a hallucination of him wasn’t nice.

Dhrithi mumbled something that no one could understand. The server arrived at that second with their jello shots.

“Yay!” Mayukhi cheered. “Dhriths, the shots are here!”

“Yay!” Dhrithi echoed weakly.

Mayukhi tapped Dhrithi’s hand. “Come on, let’s do this on the count of three. One…”

“Two,” Dhrithi said, sitting up, her grinning, groggy face emerging from the mass of hair obscuring it.

“And three!”

But when Mayukhi went to reach for the shots, they were gone. She got a glimpse of the last of the second one disappearing down Ishaan’s throat. This damn hallucination! Was he actually here? Because Ishaan was only this annoying in real life. In her dreams…Mayukhi shook that thought off.

Ishaan glared at her, like he was going to bore holes into her with his gaze alone. Oh shit, the dick was actually here.

“Those were ours!” she snapped.

Ishaan ignored her. “Dhriths, Amay is on his way. He’ll be here in a few minutes to take you home.”

“Amay,” Dhrithi murmured with a dreamy smile. “I love Amay.”

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