Too old.
Too tall.
Too rich.
Too out of my league.
That's Aryan Arora, the billionaire CEO for me. But apparently, he is the perfect marriage material guy according to the world's pushiest parents of mine.
Getting married was neve...
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A gasp left her lips when she saw the multicolored bracelet that was placed on the palm of her hand. She met my eyes in disbelief, and asked quietly, "You made this?"
Amused by her dumbfounded reaction, I replied in the same low tone that she had used, "I did."
"It's beautiful," She said breathlessly, as she picked it up to inspect the details. It was nothing too extraordinary. But I had tried to make it as unique as I could have. The simple yellow dots made the base of the band but the distinctive, vivid charms were what made it special. I had searched through the diverse trinkets available in the DIY kit for more than half an hour to finally gather these particular ones.
Holding the wristband, she flickered the charms with her finger as the tinkling sound of bell beads rang noticeably, feeble and soft.
She observed every piece, as her attention got attached to one of them. She asked, "A Book. What this is for?"
I grinned. "Because books with half-naked men on their covers are your choice reads. They are scattered all over the apartment at this point, I think, christening every nook and corner." The teasing tone was highly evident in my voice as I emphasized on her obsession with romance novels.
My bookshelf, which was earlier filled with non-fiction, was now crowded with books that had weirdly sexual titles like Mine Till Midnight and Seduce Me Till the Sunrise.
She bit her lip with a fascinating flush of red coating her cheeks and ears as if a child were being caught with a hand in a cookie box.
"They are great stress relievers," She muttered under her breath, avoiding my eyes.
Getting a kick out of her discomfort on the topic, I said, "Then maybe you will let me borrow some of them, perhaps? I have been feeling quite stressed lately..."
Her sharp narrowed gaze met mine when a snicker burbled through my mouth. She hit me lightly on the arm, mumbling angrily, "You are the worst!"
I upped my hands in surrender. "Let's not resort to violence. Take a look at the other ones."
Her touch lingered a little longer on the red angry bird charm, as she glowered at me.
"I don't like this surprise, at all," She huffed.
I bumped my shoulder with hers, saying, "I wanted to use a cactus charm, but it wasn't available in your collection. Because you are like a spiny prickly cactus on the outside but with a mushy soft heart on the inside. Would that have been better?"
She yelped, disagreeing, "I don't have a mushy soft heart! Whatever that means."
Even though she denied it, I knew how her soul was as soft as molten candle wax. How she communicated with the kids. How she cried silently in her room when she had a bad day at work, or when she read and watched an emotional scene in those books and movies of hers. How she contributed a major chunk of her earnings to an NGO, without telling anybody (I came to know about it while peeking into her monthly budget on her laptop, this afternoon). How she called her Dad every day to ask if he had taken his medicines or not. All of it, and many more, were effusive expressions of how caring and sensitive she actually was, even if she pretended otherwise.
