Page 21 of Mrs. Pandey
He smiled sinisterly, two dimples appeared on either side of his cheeks and his hazel eyes were mysterious. "Because apparently, asking nicely is too boring."
I sighed in relief as a big car rolled toward us.
"Look at her," Prashant boomed theatrically, tossing my bag into the trunk. "Always graceful, but I'm just the unlucky person carrying her fancy bag."
I didn't blink. "You offered to."
He grinned wider. "I was scared you'd stare at me until I gave in if I didn't."
I walked past him, smooth and unbothered. "Back seat and be quiet because I am allergic to nosy people."
"Oh no," he gasped, placing a hand over his chest. "Already sent away? And I thought we were becoming friends."
"I don't become friends with loud people. Obviously," I said, sliding into the back seat. God, Prashant and his drama. Deepdown, I knew that the smile he wore wasn't genuine, it was just another one of his masks, something he put on to make others believe he was okay but he was not. And yet, for a fleeting moment, I chose to indulge in it. I let myself believe in that facade, just to feel like we were back in those good old days again, when everything felt real and effortless between us.
"That's not what you said when I saved you from that lizard in the office break room," Prashant shot back, climbing in beside me.
"That was about saving myself. For me," I said flatly, turning my head toward the window.
Saurav laughed from the front seat. "How do you two even work together?"
"She ignores me," Prashant replied with mock pride. "I talk about her life like a TV show."
"And I pretend he's not there," I said, without turning away from the view outside.
Aryan glanced back at us, exhaling dramatically. "Two days of this and yes great."
They had no idea. I scoffed at the thought. What they didn't know and what I sometimes forgot was that Prashant wasn't just that charming, goofy officer with the perfect timing and perfect smile. That was the version everyone knew. The one that cracked jokes in the break room, and flirted harmlessly with anything that breathed.
But beneath it there was another side. A version he never showed unless he was alone with me.
I felt it. The quiet moments, after missions, when the world was asleep and his mask slipped just a little. He would look at nothing in particular, his smile gone, his voice hollow, and had things no one else had the clearance to hear. Not military secrets but personal ones. The wounds that hadn't healed, the shadows that clung to him no matter how brightly he laughed.
He was a storm in disguise, and I had learned to recognize the shift in air before it hit.
As he turned his attention to Avni, laughing about something in that easy, and careless tone of his, I clenched my jaw. He was good at pretending. He easily became the guy everyone liked, the guy who didn't feel too much, or think too hard, or lie awake at night questioning the choices he had made in the uniform.
I slipped in my earbuds, pulled up Squid Game on my phone, and leaned against the door, determined to let the chaos around me fade into background noise.
Because the truth was, when it came to Prashant, I didn't know whether I was the one who saw him clearly or the one being pulled into the storm without even realizing it.
______
We were sitting somewhere in the garden, enjoying Avni's handmade food. She really did cook delicious aloo paratha and dal makhani. I usually ate whatever I liked I wasn't the diet-conscious type. Luckily, I had a cooperative body and afast metabolism. With the amount of calories I consumed, I should've looked like a baby elephant, but somehow, I didn't.
"Are you not hungry?" I asked Karan, who was sitting off in a corner, wearing his usual stone-hard expression. That man was the most tight-lipped and intense person I'd ever met. He thought less and did more. I didn't know much about him, except that he was the best medical officer we had.
"I'm not hungry," he said matter-of-factly.
"Are you even human?" I poked a finger at one of his ridiculously large biceps. God, this man wasn't just a doctor but he was one of the hottest doctors I'd ever seen. His biceps were the size of my thighs, and his chest looked like a damn fortress.
"What are you doing, Lieutenant?" he hissed, grabbing my wrist, his grip firm and surprisingly fast. "You planning to poke more things on my body, or just this?"
I glanced at Prashant and caught him watching us. "Only if you let me..." I said loud enough for him to hear. "Are you single?"
"Yes," Karan replied. "But I'm not looking for a date. I only do one-night stands."
"I don't do one-night stands..." I said, I could feel Prashant's eyes on us, who was still lingering nearby. "But you might be an exception." I winked at him.
