There's only the sound of elevator pinging faraway. Kiyansh is standing two steps away from me. It's so quiet that I realise he is waiting and I don't know what to do. I can't avoid him forever.

"You still have this." He says motioning towards the glass, there's an edge to his voice.

I nod stupidly even though I know he isn't looking, and staring at the glass he won me at our school fare.

He turns towards me and gives me a long look, like his brown gold eyes can scan through me, "Sit, I will make you a decaf."

I inhale a ragged breath. "It's okay, I don't..."

"Sit." He orders.

I bite my lip and sit awkwardly at the lounge chair. He nods his head and turns towards the hallway leading to the Kitchen.

*****

It's after fifteen minutes that he comes walking out the Kitchen holding a large tray in his hand, while I am replying to all the text that I was withholding to reply to. One of them is of Kiyansh's mom asking me to come to her house.

I hit send to, "Soon, I promise." And keep the phone back on the coffee table, my breath uneven.

Kiyansh looks at my phone then at me. There's something about him dressed up in Brioni, his arms flexing, his fingers wrapped around the tray. I almost want to take a picture of him and fix it as the wallpaper on my phone. A strand of his brown hair is falling on his eyes, my fingers ich to touch that silk strand, you clumsy addicted hands.

He keeps the tray on the table, and looks up at me with those long lashes, I realise I am hardly breathing.

My eyes move towards his lips so pink and full, that my mind goes back to the time it once barely touched mine. The soft silk crush of it, the breath which I knew so well for years, the minty breath of it, mine for some seconds.

And then, how after that it never again was, how for years it stayed close yet so far away that I watched it meddling with others, becoming theirs. The lips which made me want to claw my fingers and scratch that one memory which haunted me for years, which still haunts me. The lips that made kissing someone else feel like pushing on an impenetrable wall of disappointment. The lips which asked me to kiss someone else.

I close my eyes and move back, pushing my legs up on the lounge with the stupid Jimmy Choo stilettos I was wearing, I try to pick them out my eyes still close, I didn't want to look up at him, not with those thoughts plunging in my head again.

I feel him coming close to me, I swear I feel his hands on my calf before it even touches mine. My hands freeze, my eyelids squeeze my eyes so tight, I see red.

His fingers brush the underside of my calf, I force myself to not shudder. "Open your eyes." He whispers as if there are others in the room and he's telling me a secret.

His warm fingers touch the cold zipper of the stiletto, and very slowly he starts to open them. The sound of the zipper being opened, the feel of it so haunting and personal that I want to wrap my arms around myself.

He lets it fall on the floor, his hand moves to the other, his fingers stroking above my calf. "Open your eyes." He repeats, his fingers stalling above my calf not going towards the zipper.

I inhale an unevenbreath and open my eyes. My chest hurtles when I look into his eyes. It's soliquid so brown and so gold, It's like staring into a pit of warm sun. Hisfingers stop on my calf. "Did you kiss him?" he asks

Even though I was angry at him before, all I can do right now is gulp. "No."

He closes his eyes inhaling a ragged breath

No, I was thinking about you.

He opens his eyes, "Were you thinking about kissing him?" he asks again, his voice uncharacteristically feeble. His hands slightly shiver on my leg as if, as if he is scared about the answer. 

I shake my head, my heart knocking on my chest.

He takes a shuddering breath. His fingers reaching under my calf to the zipper, he starts to open them, "You took him to uncle Sam's" His voice is slightly accusing.

"Yes." I say, impassively.

The stiletto thuds to the floor.

"Why?" he starts to press his fingers on my toes, massaging them.

I know what he is asking, why did you take him to our special place? "What do you mean by why?"

He looks up at me, his eyes pointed. His fingers go under my toes and press on a sore point, Oh god. "Why?" he asks again.

The words are out of my mouth even before I register what I am saying. "You took her there." My tone is so pathetic, I should be ashamed of myself.

His fingers stills on my toes. "I didn't take her there."

"What?"

His hands reach to mytoe fingers, threading gently, he takes a second to answer. "She found out about the place after looking at my phone wallpaper. One day she suddenly told me to turn the car towards CP and when I did, she told me she had a surprise for me at the K block. When we reached there, she pointed towards the Bistro and said surprise." 

My chest starts to boil so hard that it takes a minute to process his words, What wallpaper? Just as I am opening my mouth to ask him, he gently puts my leg back on the chaise lounge and gets up.

He picks up the tray from the coffee table and sets it on my lap. I look down to see a mug of sweating brewed decaf, and a plate of bread pizza, my mouth waters when I look at the amount of cheese, corn and oregano sprinkled on them. "Let me heat up the coffee for you." He says picking up the mug while I stare at the pizza like a mad head.

I am still staring at it, when he amusingly says "You can have it." and turns towards the way of the kitchen.

I wait until he goes inside the Kitchen, then I gleefully pick up my phone and take several shots of it. Finally after taking at least twenty shots from different angles, I pick it up and take a bite of it, groaning and thanking heavens that I keep groceries and vegetables in my refrigerator so I can stir fry them, even when other than that all I can make is muesli and who knows whatever shape Roti's I can manage which again, I had with milk.

I am still groaning when he steps out the kitchen and force my mouth to stop doing such inappropriate things.

He puts the brewing hot coffee on the table and sits beside me. I start to reach it but he shakes his head and nods to the bread pizza in my hand. "Finish it up first."

I enthusiastically nod my head and take a big bite. "Aantsome?" I ask my mouth full of it and bring the pizza to his mouth, literally pushing it at the seams of his lips. God, I feel like Ayan at the Bistro.

He looks down at the bread pizza then up at me. His mouth tilting to that corner that I love so much, he bends down and takes a bite, it's so sexy, it's like he is acting for a TV commercial.

I rip the last piece into two and offer him the other, he bends down and eats it from my hand.

I force myself to not look at him like a hawk, and pick up the mug of coffee, putting my legs up on the table and switching on TV.

We wordlessly sit through two episodes of The Mindy Project. For that time it feels like old times, except I know that it's not. Because first, we were sitting far away from each other, as if we were being cautious.

Second, we always used to quote lines which we loved. Like we loved that scene where Mindy was in prison and she gets bailed out and then she says to the officer, 'Before I leave, would it be possible to get a tour of the special victims unit?'

The second episode ended and I pause the show. "Thanks for the decaf." I said putting the chipped mug on the table and pressing my toes down on the grey shag carpet to not bounce them up and down like some crazy lunatic.

He gives me a brief nod and stands up. "I should get going?"

I whip so fast I feel I have been slapped by air, What? NO. "I mean where did you find it? Even I didn't know I had Trader Joe's decaf in my kitchen, honestly" I wave my hands like the stupid person that I am, "you should show me um where it is, so ..so that whenever I want I can have it." I say so lamely that I want to slap myself.

"It's in the drawer up by the glass shelf, the black and gray one." He puts his hands inside his pant pocket. "You okay right now?"

"Yes." I fake laugh. "Totally okay, I mean it was lame honestly."

He takes a step and I wait for his hands to touch my face or move through my hair, it doesn't, he doesn't. He is standing one decided feet away from me.

The disappointment in my stomach hits so hard, that it takes second to resolve back my face into a normal one. I force myself to smile. "You should get going then."

He doesn't budge an inch, his is looking at me in that way that makes me want to hide somewhere and stare at him, at the same time. His face, is so thoughtful and impassive that I don't know how it's possible for someone to have those emotions together. When we were kids, it wasn't like this between us, I didn't have to think about what he was thinking, I just knew because he showed me everything, like there was a wall between us and the world and I was always so sure, that we were going to be on the same side, every moment, like he would never put that front for me. But there was, and it wrecked me.

He finally starts to move and I almost take a breath of relief because I couldn't pretend anymore. I move to open the door, something holds me back, it's his hand on my arm. I inhale a shuddering breath and do not turn around.

A beat passes and he is turning me, his hand on my chin tilting upwards, he makes me look in his eyes, "Nothing in the world you feel is lame, nothing." The hand on my face, the assurance in his eyes is so serious, it makes me want to ugly cry. "Remember when we had to sit through two lab punishments because we said no to dissecting frogs in the practical."

I puff a breath and nod, his hand moves to the back of my head, fingers scraping through my hair."I was going to dissect the frog like everyone that day, and then I saw you. You were so brave, arguing with the teacher, telling her that typically killing and selling animals for the sole purpose of dissection was wrong. I was so proud of you. You weren't looking but other people were listening to you, some nodded their heads. You have never been the one to feel average things in life, never to move in a herd. You have always been the one that question things, telling them when they are wrong, being hurt when someone else got hurt. You care, you care so much, it's one of the things that I love about you."

My heart stops in my chest. It's so still that I think I hear the beat of it being stopped, the blood flows down to my solar plexus. Then it wiggles and pulsates rushing to my mouth. I think I was going to tell him that I loved him, maybe by some miracle he loved me too. How could I keep it inside me anymore? I open my mouth, my heart soaring.

And then, "That is the reason you are my best friend, you make everything alive, you are never afraid to feel."

My heart plummetes back to my chest, into that small suffocating space. Best friend. I was always going to be his best friend. He would never see me any other way, never love me the way I loved him.

He was wrong. I was afraid to love him, afraid to get my heart broken again.

I take a step back, but his hold tightens on me, he doesn't let go.

"You are a miracle Shanvi, you are not lame, you are real." Only if you loved me. "Now let's put you to bed."

What? Before I can say anything else, his hand shifts to my arm and we are moving through the living room to the hallway, to my bedroom.