Page 33 of Red Flags and Rishtas
Aadar, unlike me, was not a picky eater. He picked out the safest thing from the menu (a red sauce pasta) within seconds of the waiter handing him the menu, who had to return twice to inquire about my order. Finally, I settled on a plate of garlic mushroom toast, a dish I hadn’t seen before on Café Hudkins’s menu.
The two of us were seated in a corner booth that overlooked the street behind my office. It was in the quieter part of Greater Kailash, a few secure kilometres away from the madness of the M-block market. If a few weeks ago, someone had told me I’d be grabbing lunch with Aadar Chauhan, that too voluntarily, I would’ve laughed in their face. Even now, I was acutely conscious of the oddity of our relationship, if you could call it that.
‘The Best Man thing … was that your idea?’ asked Aadar as the waiter cleared the menus and poured water into our empty glasses.
Even though he had already expressed his interest in the idea, I wasn’t completely at ease answering his question. I didn’t want him to pick it apart once I confirmed that it had, in fact, come from me.
‘Um, yeah. It was,’ I said, feeling a lot less confident than I wanted to sound.
His face immediately broke into a smirk as he said, ‘I knew it.’
‘Why do you say it like that?’ I squinted my eyes and raised my chin in his direction.
I liked to believe I wasn’t an extremely defensive person, but there was something about this man that always made me want to take a step back and cross my arms. It was as if everything he said to me had a degree of mockery lingering in the background.
‘It’s just that,’ he said and cleared his throat, ‘for someone who claims to be so against the institution of marriage, you seem to be obsessed with it.’
I opened my mouth, lifting a finger to silence him, ‘You either have bad hearing or a bad memory. Either way, you should see a doc.’
I did not have a problem with theideaof marriage. I had a problem withhisidea of marriage.
He chuckled, taking pleasure in the knowledge that he’d ticked me off again. We continued to bicker about all kinds of nonsense until the food arrived, at which point he decided to bring up the reason for meeting me.
‘So, I wanted to talk to you about the other day … about the bet,’ he said, some of the playfulness exiting his voice.
‘You want to call it off, don’t you?’ I said matter-of-factly.
He paused mid-bite, his fork full of pasta hanging in the air dangerously.
‘On the contrary, I’m quite pumped about kicking your ass,’ he said, placing the food in his mouth.
‘Like hell,’ I said, rolling my eyes. ‘So, what is it, then?’
My toast was dripping with mushroom gravy, and I shoved it into my mouth for a quick bite, only to discover that the bread was rock hard. A piece fell inside with a loud crunch after I used considerable force to bite down on it. Drops of the gravysplashed onto my face and I had to wipe it off hurriedly while Aadar silently observed me from across the table. If he wanted to poke fun at my clumsiness, he decided to shelve the opportunity for later.
‘I want to lay down some ground rules,’ he said after I’d set down the embarrassingly stained table napkin.
‘Hmm. And what might those be?’ I asked, pushing my plate away.
There was no way I was eating this crap. Noticing the apathy I’d developed towards my food, Aadar moved his plate to the middle of the table. I picked a fork from the cutlery rack and dug in. I made a mental note for later – it’s okay to order safe, boring dishes sometimes, especially when in such disagreeable company.
‘We must keep each other in the loop. You can’t just spring a boyfriend on me out of nowhere,’ he said.
‘So, what?’ I scoffed. ‘You expect me to email you minutes when I’m on a date?’
The corners of his mouth lifted ever so slightly as he said, ‘I’m sure that will be extremely entertaining, but let’s settle on weekly updates for now.’
‘And what purpose will that serve?’ I asked.
‘It’ll keep the competitive spirit alive … knowing how the other person is doing,’ he said, looking me directly in the eye.
‘Fine,’ I said after a few seconds. ‘I’ve got a rule too.’
He placed his hands on the table and leaned back all the way, so his spine was touching the back of the faux leather couch.
‘We can’t fake it. If we find out the other person is fabricating their relationship, they lose face,’ I said, imitating his posture to show him I wasn’t backing down. ‘Along with the bet.’
But I hadn’t accounted for the height difference between us, which meant I had to practically lie down to reach the back of the couch.
