Crave

the safe zone

“Please come to my cabin,” Dinesh mentioned as Anushka looked up from her phone. She was reading another one of the books online. She loved romance books and would prefer them any day over her textbooks.

She walked to his cabin, straightening the white t-shirt and pants she was wearing today. It was the least bit professional, but she did wear a sweater over it, so it was fine.

As usual, knocking on the door twice, she walked inside as he gestured to her to sit, “How many countries do we deal with?” He asked all of a sudden.

“USA, AUS, GERMANY, NEW ZEALAND, CANADA,” she answered. This was simple information mentioned by them once, and ever since then, she has tried to keep this in mind.

“Okay, let’s over the map of Canada. "These are the states of Canada, and I want you to learn about these along with their location on the map,” he mentioned as he handed her a paper.

Why was he suddenly taking a test of my rattaficationry self?

“You know this information needs to be shared with potential clients and Visa counselors charge somewhere around 40-50 thousand for this job,” he mentioned as he looked at me.

“Revise these, you have an hour.” No, he was

Not giving her a choice was a command. For some reason, her eyes had gone to his hand veins when he gripped the pen. A pen.

DAMN f*****g PEN!

An hour later, she had all her memories as she walked inside his cabin. “Write them all,” She nodded and wrote all of them, but got stuck at just one.

She looked at him as he smiled, looking at the sheet.

“You know… there’s this prince who has this island…” He smiled as her eyes widened in understanding.

“Prince Edward Island, yes, that’s the one I was forgetting,” a giggle escaped her lisp as she wrote that down on the piece of paper.

“Now tomorrow, I want you to locate all of these on the map,” She nodded and walked out of the cabin with a smile.

The ladies looked at her with curiosity, “Why are you reading this?” Preeti asked her.

“Orders,” she stated, simply taking a printout of the needed things, and then there was this series of work she needed to finish.

“Let’s leave?” Preeti said, picking up her things.

“Yeah, just wrapping up,” She needed to wrap up the mess she made at her table while trying to memorize everything.

“Hi, I wanted to inquire about classes.” There, it was a client who had just arrived at the moment. For a second it was hard to hide her disappointment, but she had mastered the fake smile and assisted the client.

“Sir, there’s someone who would like to know about immigration,” she mentioned taking the form to him.

“Now?” he asked, looking at the clock. It was 5 minutes to 4.

“Send him in,” he said, taking a seat. Anushka did the same, but the meeting got extended. It was 15 minutes past 4 when she received a call from her parents.

“Where are you? Nonu?” her mother asked.

“Mom, there’s a client who is in a meeting and till the meeting is finished I can’t leave,” She explained the situation to her and spoke to her for a few minutes.

“Okay, call me when you are leaving,” her mother said.

“Sure, Maa,” with that she hung up the call. She looked at Dinesh from outside as he explained the whole procedure for immigration to him. It took about one and a half hours for the meeting to be over.

Dinesh and Anushka looked at each other and smiled. This was supposed to be a half-day at work.

“Good evening,” she murmured to him before going forward with her bicycle. This time, perhaps she was relaxed in her moments. No fear of judgment because she had not seen that glint in his eyes the last time. It made her happy.

Somehow, somewhere, he was becoming a safe zone.

Sneak peek

“I have another tattoo on my chest as well…” he mentioned as all of us walked towards his car.

“How would we know,” The words slipped down her lips before she could even recognize her voice.

He turned back, his gaze holding that teasing glint as her eyes widened, realizing what she had just said.

“Shirt utarwane ka tarika accha hai,” (Nice way to get me shirtless), he said as her cheeks reddened. She looked at all the others who laughed as well.

Perhaps none of them took it seriously. If that was the case, then thank f**k.

“That was not what I meant,” she said, blushing hard; her face had turned red.

“Accha,” (Oh yeah?) He teased again.