It's Kinda Complicated

18. More damage than an atom-bomb

But I didn't go. Why? Because, Sara sent a girl from marketing to keep an eye on me and she followed me everywhere . After some time, I gave up the idea of slipping away from this place unnoticed and made small talk with her.

She was telling me about her clingy, possessive but loving husband when my phone buzzed, showing an incoming message. It just read

'Where are you?'

He is mistaken if he thought I would reply to his dumb message in seconds. I continued to listen to my new friend when my phone vibrated again. But this time he was calling me. My first instinct was to ignore it but then again, he never called me. Like ever.

"What?" I said being my usual mannered self.

"Riya, where are you? I will come and meet you," is it just me or did he really sound desperate.

"I am not meeting you, Ash. What makes you think...?"

"It's about Sasha" there was a pregnant pause and once I recovered I told him to meet me in the office canteen.

*************************

I was looking at Ash with a serious look and he was just staring at his glass of water. Two tables behind him was my friend/bodyguard for the day, happily sipping her coffee. It has been twelve minutes (yes, I have been checking my phone every minute) and he hasn't uttered a single word yet. It was fine with me because I was not in a mood to listen to him.

You are never in a mood to listen to him.

That's because you asked me to ignore him for the rest of my life.

True that. I really wonder what Nick is doing right now. He hasn't called back yet.

And I wonder what Ryan is doing, considering the fact you have been throwing numerous ways of ambushing him at his house all morning.

Yaa that..., guy. But Nick is...

Oh, shut up you Nick-freak.

Ash's throat clearing pulls me out of my reverie "so you and Ryan? Who would have thought? I was surprised; I mean... you know..."I lifted my pointing finger, asking him to pause

"Ok first of all it's none of your business, second he is not my boyfriend. Third what do you mean? That I can never have a boyfriend? And lastly I am not here to discuss about my love life."

"Riya that is not what I meant. I...just..." he was exhaling constantly. For a second I thought he was suffering from asthma. Then it came to me that this was Ash, he did not suffer from any kind of common ailments, he was an alien, golden boy in medical history and star athlete. He was just taking his time for constructing sentences carefully because one wrong word from him could do more damage than an atom-bomb did to Hiroshima.

After a lot of contemplation, he finally looked up confidently and spoke,

"I met her at the dinner."

"I know, I tried to stop her from coming. But it didn't work."

"She was not exactly happy to see me."

"Who is ever?" I was not happy to see him. Sasha, I can only imagine. My mother would start weeping the minute she sees Ash.

It looked like he wanted to say something else but instead stopped and said, "You were" with a smirk.

Ha-ha, so funny. Even if Ash was my boss, who was on the verge of giving me a promotion, even then I would have never cracked a smile for what he said. So, I gave him an unimpressed look.