Page 19 of That Same Old Love

And she did look into his house, into his bedroom through the upper balcony. The lights were turned off and she could only see some over-the-top motion sensors that were set up like laser beams all over his bedroom and most likely his entire house.

She grabbed the land papers and set out to his house to drop them off as a peace offering, and also to apologize again to him for her past actions. After that she had another boring evening to look forward to at her house.

“Good God! It’s only four in the afternoon,” she muttered, staring at her phone.

She somehow doubted that Samrat would be home and grabbed a sticky notepad to leave a message on his door. In their very brief exchanges last week, he hadn’t provided his phone number for her to contact him.

Maybe it was deliberately not provided.

When she opened Samrat’s gate, she was surprised to see a very young and very pretty girl waiting on his doorstep in a school uniform. The girl was listening to music on her headphones and was staring down at a device.

Mahi approached her slowly, not wanting to startle the young girl. But soon the girl felt her presence and looked up from her device.

Mahi frowned a little as she felt something very familiar about the young girl.

The girl stared and removed her headphones. “Who are you?”

“I’m Mahi. Samrat’s neighbor and uh… friend. I’m here to drop off something. Are you waiting for him as well?”

“I’m Srishti,” the girl replied. “I’m waiting for my uncle and to drop off something too. Something very important for him.”

“Have you been waiting here for long?” Mahi asked Srishti with a tentative smile.

Srishti had a bemused expression as though she was still trying to recall something. “Hmm… no. I’ve been here from thepast fifteen minutes. I got dropped off from my school bus. According to my mother, my uncle was supposed to be here at home this afternoon. Maybe his flight has been delayed.”

“Samrat is out of town?”

“Yes. He flew to Hong Kong… I think for a couple of days for a show or something. I really hoped he would be back by now. I’m sort of starving and it’s so hot out here.”

Mahi stood there uncertainly. It was a minimum courtesy to offer Srishti to wait at her house, and then offer her something to eat and drink to cool off. But she wasn’t sure how Srishti’s parents would react to that. And before she could make any decision, she felt Srishti’s eyes assessing her shrewdly.

“Hmm, you said you were my uncle’s neighbor and friend. So can I wait in your house? You can call my uncle and let him know I’m waiting there.”

“I… uh… don’t have your uncle’s phone number, but sure, you can call him from my phone and… wait in my house.”

Srishti dialed her uncle’s number, but wasn’t able to reach him. “He’s not picking up.”

Mahi almost wanted Srishti to call her parents and ask them to pick her up from Samrat’s house, but she stopped herself from suggesting it, as she had nothing to hide, and wasn’t going to cause any harm to the young girl.

So Samrat will pick up Srishti from her house. Big deal.

Writing a quick note that Srishti will be at her home, she stuck it on the main door of Samrat’s house.

“Okay… let’s go to my place. I live right across the street and your uncle can pick you up from there.”

As soon as Srishti stepped inside along with Mahi, she heaved a sigh of relief at the cool air from the air conditioning.

Mahi offered her a glass of cold water. “I have some chocolate ice cream as well. Would you like some?”

“Oh definitely!”

Mahi brought out two bowls of ice cream along with some pieces of cut mango fruit and some banana chips.

While they were eating, “So what kind of music did you get for your uncle?” Mahi asked curiously.

Srishti told her about an extensive playlist, most of which Mahi didn’t identify.

“Sorry, I’m not that up to date with the popular music. Actually, not with popular Indian music,” said Mahi.

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