An enormous red velvet cake arrived at our class during the afternoon recess next day. Suhrit sir arrived a few minutes later announcing that it was his treat to our class.

"You have Riya and Zoya to thank", Suhrit sir said cheerfully when everybody looked politely confused, "They found my wallet for me".

I and Riya tried not to look too pleased with ourselves though we knew we didn't deserve it. I had taken only a few seconds to find the wallet and Riya hadn't done even that.

"You should lose your wallet more often sir", Reyansh said earnestly as laughter rang around the room.

"I wish he was teaching us. Too bad, we don't have History after tenth grade", Riya said licking the remains of her cake slice from her fingers.

"I'd vouch to switch him with Loukya mam or Romil sir anyday", Abeer said, "He might be a bit of a duffer.."

"He is no duffer!", Riya said immediately.

"Yeah", I nodded earnestly "He made a big fool out of us."

I and Riya had crept into the library right after lunch to find the question papers. There had been no question papers, however. Only a very angry Ms Fanaa who had chased us out if the library like we were dogs.

"Serves you two right for trying to cheat", said Mishti "Why can't you try and learn eh?"

Riya ignored her pointedly and said, "Abeer, I'm going to wash my hands. Wanna come?"

I looked at Riya in surprise. Was she actually going to take my suggestion to go out with Abeer, seriously?

As the two of them left the classroom, I got up and unabashedly ran after them.

When I reached the stairways leading to the washbasins on the second floor, I could clearly hear Riya and Abeer talking. I didn't have to be creepy anyway. If things got too intimate, I could always turn around and run back.

But Abeer and Riya it turned out seemed to be doing absolutely nothing on that zone.

On the contrary, Riya was telling him about Mrs Arora! That was the last topic I would have expected her to talk about to someone. That too Abeer.

"The poor lady. I feel so bad", Abeer was saying.

"I feel that too", Riya replied "But I do have a plan to cheer her up. But the plan takes a lot of guts and we need someone really ballsy to carry it off".

"Well, who's ballsier than you?", Abeer asked, as though this was the most obvious thing in the world, "Why don't you do it?"

"We need a guy to do this, Abeer", Riya said with the air of someone about to drop a big news, "I mean how can I pretend to be Mrs Arora's grandson and go and cheer her up?"

Oh. My. God.

"That's your plan?", Abeer asked now sounding more nervous than excited, "Riya that's crazy!"

"Come on Abeer! What's wrong with a little by play if we can make Mrs Arora happy for awhile?"

"Riya, isn't that.."

"It's not wrong", Riya said confidently "We're doing it with good intentions. But the only problem is...we need to find someone to do it".

"Er...what about Reyansh?", Abeer asked.

"Reyansh is too fair", Riya said temptingly "We need someone duskier. Like you or Varun. But since we're no longer speaking to Varun..."

Riya could be very cold and insensitive if she wanted. But inspite of her hardness and malice, she had more guts than our whole class put together. Which was the reason for people liking her so much. 

I could tell Abeer looked upto her no end just like so many of our classmates and juniors and was keen to impress her.

He had probably liked Riya way longer than we realised. Maybe even longer than Varun had liked Mishti.

How could we end up being so mistaken about the guys we had known since kindergarten?

"There's no need to involve Varun", Abeer said determinedly, "I'll do it".

"Are..are you sure?", Riya asked pretending to look surprised though I could tell she had got exactly what she had wanted.

"Of course!", Abeer said, "Shall we tell the others?"

"No I think, it should be just you and me".

"Just you and me?"

I didn't want to find out where the rest of the conversation went. I turned and ran back to class feeling troubled, thinking about how Riya's eyes had danced with wicked amusement when Abeer had agreed to her plan.

It was not at all like Riya to feel concerned for Mrs Arora and ask him to pose as her grandson. There was definitely an ulterior motive. And I was almost certain that it could be nothing nice.

"What are you doing?", Rahul asked me on the phone.

"Fighting with the vegetable vendor", I said.

"Cool! Okay listen, I wanted to tell you that our tour's been officially confirmed".

"Hey that's great Rahul! Where are you going?"

"Oh all over. Delhi, Chandigarh, Dehradun..."

"So you've been signed?"

"Nope. This agency is just sponsoring us. After we come back, we might get signed very soon if we're lucky. We're hoping for a bigger label to be honest".

"That is fab Rahul! I'm so excited for you".

"I know...but this also means we won't be seeing each other for the next three or four months".

"Oh..that's not so fab, is it?", I asked.

"That sucks", he said.

There was a second of silence.

"When are you leaving?", I asked.

"Saturday night".

"Can I come and see you off?"

"I'm not going if you don't come and see me off".

My insides were melting like ice-cream.

"Okay, see you tomorrow, then".

As the cab halted outside the airport, I could make out Rahul's band members standing way ahead of us and talking.

"Are you sure you don't want to come and meet the troop?", Rahul asked.

"Yes...I'll meet them after you come back. I'm not feeling very..uh..social right now", I said trying not to show that I was scared.

"Alright", Rahul said caressing the inside of my wrist with his fingers, "See you as soon as I can".

And the next thing I knew, he was kissing me. He was kissing me like never before. And I was kissing him back. He moved closer to me to eradicate the space between us.

"Good luck", I managed to mumble.

"I just feel so nervous".

Nervous? Rahul?

I looked up to face him, "Have you forgotten who you are?"

"What? Who am I?"

"You are Rahul", I said moving forward to kiss him some more "freaking", I kissed him again, "Saxena. And you're gonna go and set the country on fire with that insane voice you've got".

"Oh, now I don't want to leave", Rahul said.

"Come on.."

"Who am I, again?"

"Enough", I laughed slapping his shoulder, "Get going...."