Page 23 of Always? Forever.
“One day will come when I’ll have a chance to say I told you so, but since you’re my favorite friend I won’t,” He said with a satisfied smile and walked towards where the girls were sitting
“I’m your only friend” I muttered under my breath following him.
Samaira
As Kartik and Aarush walk towards the kitchen, I grab Aria’s hand and make her sit on the sofa. “Spill, NOW!” I say. She rolls her eyes, “Later, but first tell me what is going on?” She looks concerned. Fair enough since these guys are practically strangers. I fill her in on everything and wait for her to process it. She cocks her head to the side and looks at me as if waiting that I'll laugh. When I don’t, she holds me by my shoulders then moves her hands to my face as she squishes it, my best friend is crazy is an understatement. “Why?” is all she asks. “You know why.” what I say comes out muffled as she is still holding my face. She thinks it over, “I trust your decisions but I want you to know that no matter what happens I am always here.” She says still squishing my face before she lets go and hugs me.
The boys enter the room as Aria gets a call from her boss, who is a pain in the ass to come for an urgent assignment. “I can drop you.” Aarush offers, making all three of us turn our heads at him in amusement. Aria looks annoyed more than amused. Yup, in three to four years, I’m gonna be an aunt. Can’t wait.
Aria just glares at him as she walks out leaving him stunned and sulking.
“That was something”, Kartik says after a good ten second silence.
“No, that was Aria”, I reply to what he just saw was my best friend being herself.
Chapter 18
Kartik
I tell Aarush everything while Samaira answered a call from her mom. Apparently, word got out and someone told her parents that she was planning to get married to a guy she barely knew. Now Samaira was telling her mom the story we had spun, that she knew me from my mom, her boss, which technically was true.
Aarush was very quiet when I finished the story and how it would be a marriage of convenience. I sighed, putting my plate down. “Well say something” I finally urged him to speak up.
“Let me put this in the best possible way you understand, brother. You are either going to break her heart and walk away while leaving her a mess or you are going to break yours.”
“What the hell do you mean?”
“Look at her, when we went to her place that day did you look around her house?” Before I can answer he answers it himself, “Of course you didn't. It is filled with romance books! She’s a hopeless romantic while you’re just…hopeless”
“I don’t know about breaking hearts, but I am going to break your bones if you’re not clear with what you’re trying to say,” I said, trying really hard not to kill my only friend.
“She’s is the kind of person who loves love, there’s a 90% possibility she’s going to fall for you and you’ll lose her before you realize that you are in love with her”
“How do you know this stuff?”
“I just do”
Aarush for the first time looked like he really knew something I didn’t. I was afraid he might be true but it was a little too late to take a step back. Aarush left quickly after saying goodbye to Samaira who had just gotten off the call with her mom.
Samaira
Aarush left in a hurry after getting a call while Kartik brought out food. “I brought food from your favorite Chinese place because I know it’s 7:30 and that's when you have dinner because you wrote in the index cards. And I brought you some Mint Chocolate Chip Ice cream just in case our friends don’t react the way you them want to and you get upset, so here’s the guilty ice cream.” Kartik saysbefore pulling out the said index cards and then moving to the freezer to keep the ice cream.
He remembered such a small detail. My heart was beating faster than it should. Maybe I was having a heart attack and didn’t know it. Yeah, that was probably it.
“Thank you,” I said. That’s all I said because I had no idea how to tell him that such a small thing also meant the world to me. He gave me the cutest grin ever and my deceptive heart that was beating fast started beating faster than I knew it could. My eyes started welling up at the fact that he remembered the little things and we weren’t even friends yet. It was just one or two index cards that told him some things about me, yet he remembered it. No one outside of my family had done such a gesture for me. Sure, I had great friends. I had an amazing best friend. But this was different.
Kartik
She came and sat beside me on the sofa with a thud with the mint ice cream in her hand. She placed the ice cream tub and a spoon on the coffee table.
“I’m so tired…” she exclaimed.
She let her head fall back and closed her eyes for a moment with a sigh. I couldn’t help but look at her. She looked gorgeous. She looked normal. She looked human. The last time I had an interaction with a girl in such close proximity, she dumped me and married my brother. I don’t remembera time that my ex looked anything close to a human, she always had to look perfect. Samaira, on the other hand, also had the need to be perfect but something about her didn’t seem so fake. I knew what my brother said would come true if I kept looking at her like a creep. Clearing my throat, I started to get up. She opened her eyes and grabbed my hand to stop me. I sat back down in an instant.
“Where are you going?”
“To wash the dishes while you rest, it’s been a long day for you,” I said with a smile as my hand instantly shot up to her hair to caress them.
