tales of Suchita

What’s a girl like you doing in a place like this?
On a quiet night, what are the odds?

Rahul could not sing. He knew that thank you very much. But he couldn’t help himself. He was happy, flying on cloud nine, filled to bursting with an unnameable energy. His sister would have called it the first flush of love but calling it love when he had met her only two weeks ago felt premature, even from his standards. He knew he was the type who could fall in love hard and fast but he was being cautious this time. He was! He hadn’t even tried to find out her sun sign yet.

He had learnt from the fiasco with Gaurang, no matter what his sister said. He shuddered as he towelled himself dry, remembering his over eagerness. Rahul had done a sun sign matching, birthday matching and numerology matching before they had even had their first date. Even though on paper they were a perfect match, the reality had been quite different.

He made a face as he checked for nose hairs in the mirror. Compared to Gaurang, he was moving at a glacial pace with her.

He continued singing as he dressed for his second…well, first date. Second because they had already met for coffee and first because did coffee dates count as dates? Were they half dates or full dates? It didn’t matter. He was going to have dinner with Pramila and sweep her off her feet.

*

What’s a guy like me doing in a place like this?
I could have just walked by, who would’ve thought?

Pramila had little interest in dating, or going on dates, or anything remotely related to love. She had just got her baking business off the ground and she was too busy cursing burnt chocolate, burnt fingers and burnt almonds to really worry about anything else.

When she had first spoken to Rahul, he had given her a complicated order for a cake for his sister’s graduation party. She had thought it was a joke. Did anyone give graduation parties these days? She had been pleasantly surprised when she saw there was indeed a sister, who had completed her PhD after five years of fighting all kinds of red-tape and bureaucracy.

She had been touched by the sweetness that surrounded Rahul and when he had asked her out for coffee, she hadn’t been able to say no.

Now, as she stepped into the restaurant for their second date, she was mortified to realize there were flutters in her belly. She was excited, nervous, and her heart felt like it was being squeezed from all directions. That had to be an anomaly, right? Did people feel this happy seeing someone who had not existed in their space two weeks ago?

And then he smiled at her. The nerve of him. All her careful plans of only focussing on her business and getting it to scale melted into a puddle of dark chocolate. She unconsciously licked her lips and saw his eyes dilate. Blushing, she sat in front of him and had the distinct feeling like she had plunged head first into Alice’s rabbit hole.

*

Rahul didn’t know if he had managed to sweep Pramila off her feet. But she had managed to do that to him. He knew he was breaking every promise he had given his sister by falling too fast. He couldn’t deny that he felt like his soul was doing a jig up there somewhere. And going by the way she was blushing, he could tell she was dancing with him.

It would be great. He just needed to contain himself enough so he didn’t scare her away. He could do that right? 

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Song: Chances by Backstreet Boys

Check out the other posts for 2023 here. Written as part of #BlogchatterA2Z

Header image: Photo by Jonas Jacobsson on Unsplash