Obscured Glimmer

5. Candle light

Sea Lagoon Beach Resort 10: 30 PM

NANDINI :

Pressing the ground floor button he stood sideways resting his back on the wall of the lift. Manik folded his arms near the chest with those golden-brown eyes continuously boring into me. It felt uncanny, in a good way.

There was no way I was going to let it go by that 'I'm mesmerized' kind of look in his eyes. So, I stood there not even giving a single glance at his face.

Manik raised his one eyebrow, "Don't you think you are a little bit overdressed?"

"Excuse me, it's my choice which attire I want to wear and which not. Who are you to comment on that?", I narrowed my eyes questioning at the audacity of the man standing in front of me who just stayed silent with a significant smirk on his face.

Putting a hair strand behind my ear, Manik winked at me saying, "Don't think that I don't have a come back on this. I can tell you who I am to comment in ways you might love a lot."

God. The guy still had the guts to flirt with me. ME?!

Not being able to control the agitation, I roared at him in vexation, "Hello, Mr. Flirting-Is-My-Birth-Right, don't you dare try to get your ways with me. First of all, you came one and a half hours late. Weren't we supposed to meet at nine? Where did you disappear? And then you call yourself a gentleman?! Is it some rule from your 'How to be a gentleman' book that you should make a girl wait for this much time? You know what you should just change that book."

Manik paid no heed to my rant, instead, scrunching his nose he said, " Wait, girl? Are you? Seriously?! You throw that 'I'll break your bones' threat on anyone, you are super skilled in Mixed Martial Arts, on top of that you have applied some strange manly perfume."

"Just shut up Manik. Don't try to cover up your mistakes. At least, not like this.", I retorted. For a moment it seemed like his eyes had changed color and his face showed something unknown.

"You know what, you look cute with that flaring nose.", he flirted with me, again.

"Do I look just cute?", I played along with a sly smile while Manik looked at me befuddled.

"You know there are a lot of ways to describe a girl. Cute, hot -", I said in a fake husky tone but before I could complete my statement he jerked me closer by holding my waist. We both were lost in each other's eyes until the sound of lift reaching the ground floor made us conscious. I turned in the direction of the lift's door as it opened making me aware of the world other than Manik.

I heard a laugh before I could decipher anything further Manik immediately removed his hold from my waist. An old couple was laughing at us as we both stepped out of the lift.

The old man chuckled, "Kuttikal iva divasannalil {Kids these days}."

His wife teased us mumbling, " Love is in the air."

Without reacting to the snarky remarks of the old couple, we moved out of the resort.

"Where are we going? Because according to your approach and your time-bound nature, I doubt you even booked a table for dinner.", I barked rolling my eyes.

Manik just looked at me, his face being unreadable. We reached a restaurant 'Perrie Perrie' which was by the side of the beach at just a walking distance from our resort.

Manik asked the waiter about his booking by the name 'Nandini Murthy', which made me bewildered. It was a secluded table for two, very well decorated with violet orchids and white roses. The lighting was perfect! The arrangement seemed like that of a candle-light-dinner. It occurred to me that Manik really had taken efforts about the dinner and Navya's words echoed in my ears 'Nandini is going on a date'.