“First of All, Why Did You Think I Won’t Believe You?”

“I don’t trust him. There is something fishy about him,” KT whispered to me while walking next to me when we were following HG. I looked at him with a done face but did not say anything. “Why do you even like him?” I raised my eyebrows at him but again said nothing.

“Why are we following him? What if he will take us to some deserted alley and kill us both?”

Finally, I said in a lowered tone, “I won’t let that happen. It’s a gentle-WOMAN’s promise,” and now it was his turn to look at me with a done face. “And if anything happens to me, you would protect me right?” I bat my eyelashes at him in a flirty manner and then winked. He just rolled his eyes and smiled.

HG was walking ahead, and we were following him. He reached a spooky-looking building. KT and I looked at each other. He opened the door and entered. We did the same.

To our surprise, there was nothing scary about the room. If anything, it was decorated with festoons and candles, and flowers. A cake was kept in the middle of the room, lit with candles. He walked up to the cake, and we stood by the door. This whole time he did not acknowledge KT, and I did not miss that.

Everyone came out of the room shouting, “Happy Birthday,” and we got startled a little. There was lots of cheering and screaming, which made me smile. For a second, I thought everyone wished HG but no. A little girl came out wearing a cute little pink dress. She was wearing a birthday cap. It was all so adorable. I looked at KT and mouthed, “SO CUTE.” A frown was clearly visible on his face stating that he wasn’t liking whatever was happening.

The kids had not noticed my presence. They asked that little girl to cut the cake. Once the cake was cut, they asked HG, “Dance for us, please!”

He looked at me for a split second, and I smiled at him. One of the kids started playing, “LONDON THUMAKDA”

The song started, “Tu hogi one to two…

…tu ghenti Big Ben di” when this line played, everyone looked at me. I wasn’t sure if I was being invited or not. But HG smiled at me and nodded a little. So, I removed my sling bag, put it on the table, went up to them and said, “…pura London thumakda” and they screamed. We kept on dancing for god knows how long! While I was dancing with the kids, I could feel someone boring the hole in my back. After all, I was in a short black skirt and a black sweetheart-lined crop top. I had applied blood red lipstick and was wearing black boots. So, it could be any one of them looking at my a**, or it could be both of them. But I didn’t mind because I was pretty confident about my body today. I was pretty confident about looking sexy today. It is a once in a rare phenomenon, but today was the day I looked hot.

It got pretty late when we were done dancing, and KT and I were returning home to our boys. No, we do not have kids — the boys means his friends, and now mine too. In fact, KT is one of the five boys with whom I talked the least. Others were KN, SG, JH, and JJ. But I wanted to chat with him more because I had a huge crush on him. Somehow, it wasn’t possible the first time, but since I am back with them, he has been searching for ways to talk to me.

The first time when I left them wasn’t because of anyone else but just him. I didn’t feel hurt that they forgot about me while busy being friends with my best friends, but instead, he (precisely he) forgot about me. It felt like I did not mean as much to him as I thought. I wanted to mean too much to him, but…

Nevermind! I have his attention now. But along with him, I have this other man’s attention too. So initially, no one stared at my cheeks, and now there were two people, rather two handsome men. One, on whom I had a huge crush, or maybe still do, I don’t know; and another, whose attention I thoroughly enjoyed and wanted more. Call me selfish, but I am having the best time of my life.

Anyway, KT was awfully quiet while walking home. I know the feeling. It comes when you are guilty, have been wronged, or have lost. I get this feeling often. The last time when I saw him getting closer to my best friends, I had become reticent. Because I thought I had lost him. And when you feel like a loser, all you want to do is run as far away from the person as possible and cry.

Your heart hurts. Mine did, and that too, like hell. I was hurting so much that I did not bother to bid goodbye to the boys or my friends and just left. I had disappeared into thin air. I threw away my phone, so they wouldn’t contact me, nor would I be able to contact him or any of them in case I got weaker.

I interlinked my arm with him, rather interlinked his arm with mine, and asked, “What happened, KT?”

He shook his head. I saw a bench, pulled him there, made him sit, and kneeled in front of him. He asked me, “Sierra, what are you doing?”

“Proposing to you — Will you marry me?”

“What?”

“It is a simple Yes or No question”

“Si…”

“Okay fine, but let us talk about something more important. What happened? Why are you so quiet?”

“I don’t know I just…I feel like…I don’t know as if something is breaking inside me. Like I am losing something. Like something extremely special is going away from me.”

I smiled a little and cupped his right cheek with my left hand.

“You know what is meant for you is never going to go away from you. It is always gonna be yours. All you have to do is take a step towards that special thing.”

He held my hand, made me sit on the bench, and kneeled in front of me.

“Please trust me when I say that HG is a suspicious guy. I don’t have a good feeling about him. Like he won’t treat you correctly and the way you should be treated.”

“Okay.”

“What?”

“I said okay.”

“You do believe me?”

“Yes.”

His face had surprise written all over.

I continued, “First of all why did you think that I don’t believe you?”

“I don’t know…I…umm…”

“When you said that HG is not a good person and that something is fishy about him the first time itself, what made you think that I won’t believe you?”

“I don’t know maybe after whatever happened last time…”

“KT I believe everything you have to say. And if you are saying something smells fishy about him, I believe you. No questions asked. I put my faith in you. I trust you. Just because I was dancing with him doesn’t mean I choose him over you. It is YOU. How can I not believe? How come you have no idea how much you boys mean to me when all I do is to express my fondness for you the whole day.

And besides I have a habit of observing. So just because a guy is celebrating a kid’s birthday and dances with them doesn’t impress me. Doesn’t necessarily make him a good guy. A bad guy dressed in pristine white doesn’t make him an angel. You have gotta give me some credit. I am not an idiot like you guys.”

“Sorry…” he said with a puppy dog face.

“You annoy me.”

“And I truly am sorry.”

“It’s okay. I know either he is using me, like he is not serious about me and is playing me for my bod…” before I could complete the sentence, he cut me off saying, “…I will murder him if he so much as lays a finger on you.”

I blushed looking down. After a few seconds, I cleared my throat and said, “…or he has some kind of ulterior motive and I have to be close enough to him to see what it is.”

“And we are not doing it at the cost of your safety. I am not letting anything happen to you.”

“Aww someone is whipped…” I pulled his cheeks and messed up his hair. He became annoyed but still let me do it. “BTW…”

“Yes?”

“If he won’t treat me correctly as you say, who will?” I asked with a smirk

“I will…” he said with a seriousness in his eyes. I tried to find humor in his voice but couldn’t.

But then he laughed. I felt a tinge of sadness but I did not show. Instead I rolled my eyes, gave him a look, stood up, and was about to walk when he turned me around, and pulled me to him. His fingers were playing at my waist, making my breath hitched. All I wanted was to melt into him and it was becoming hard to control myself.

“KT…” I was about to say something when he put his finger on my lips and said, “Sshhh…”

He looked at my lips and came closer to me. I closed my eyes in anticipation. But I felt his lips coming in contact with my forehead. I opened my eyes and smiled at him. It was the sweetest kiss on the forehead I had ever received. He smiled back at me.

He took my hand, intertwined his fingers with mine, and started walking toward the villa that boys had booked for the vacation.