You're Mine, Remember?

13. Attraction?

The couple jumped back in panic, and quickly came out, making an attempt to move past them, but somehow Nidhi caught the mischief in the girl's eyes, and before she could register what exactly happened, she was pushed harshly.

And, in slow motion, she felt herself moving towards Shivam, his eyes widened in surprise.

And something happened. Someone came in between them and grabbed her shoulders and made her turn to the other side and quickly vanished from sight.

No one knew what exactly happened as everything happened in a matter of seconds. Nidhi turned back to ask Shivam what happened, but he was already looking in the direction from where that guy disappeared.

Who was the guy?

----

"I hope you didn't mess up this time Rehan!"

The guy entered and leaned in front of the old man sitting in the wheelchair.

"I didn't mess up Hukum. I saved Yuvrani from a complicated situation. Though Yuvrani doesn't need my help, today I myself did. But I must say, Yuvrani is just like Hukum” the guy praised in the monotone voice.

The old man chuckled and some tears sprinkled down his wrinkled cheeks.

"I miss her Rehan. Can I see her anytime soon? Just one glance will be enough” he pleaded, craving to have just one look of her, his only grandchild.

"I'm afraid I'll have to disagree with Hukum. Yuvrani sa doesn't know anything about my existence." Rehan made an apologetic face and looked down.

(Hukum= Your highness. Yuvrani sa= Princess)

"Then why haven't you approached her yet? And what's with Parth, where has he disappeared?" the agitated voice boomed down the hallway, and Rehan flinched in his place.

"Hukum, Parth's brother-in-law has got doubts about Parth working for something other than his part-time job in our cafe, so he's spending the vacations with his family so that he can erase the doubts from his brother-in law's mind. He'll join in very soon. Probably next week."

The old man sighed and slumped into his wheelchair.

"I just hope I can see her soon. You might have taken a photo of her right?” he asked, hopeful.

Rehan made an apologetic face and looked down, "Yuvrani sa is very sneaky. Never stays in one place and keeps moving from one place to another."

The Old man laughed loudly, "She's indeed as sneaky as her mother! Like Mother like Daughter!" he caressed his daughter's photo.

---------

4 days to Fresher's Party

Nidhi slowly opened her eyes and took out the phone from behind her pillow and snapped the alarm off. Thanks to her presence of mind, she had peeked upon how Kavya had set an alarm on her phone, and she had silently learned the way to set an alarm.

She groggily opened her eyes and stretched her arms lazily. She could feel as if someone was watching her, so she turned left to look at the window, and the curtains moved a bit. She shrugged the creepy thought away, maybe the curtains were moving because of the wind.

She nonchalantly shunned away all the nonsense thoughts and got up, ready for the day ahead.

Just 4 days were left for the fresher's party and she had to have her dress changed. The fitting of the dress was not correct, and to what actually had happened after that blunder that day at the mall, she didn't get the time to try the dress and see whether it will fit her well or not.

'A very shocked Nidhi came back to her senses as she felt someone shake her. It was Shivam, who had a scowl on his face, as he motioned her to move with him.

Guess she was not in the mood to try the dress. Well not anymore. She would always remember that this was the day she had ever witnessed a make-out session. Sure she had seen some movies which showed these scenarios as if it was normal.

She sneaked a glance at Shivam who had already started walking away. She quickly joined him and walked beside him, with no intention to share a glance with him.

The ride to college was silent, as she could feel Shivam becoming more conscious of her presence and driving the bike at full speed.

Once he parked the bike, he nervously glanced down and cupped his mane, not sure what to say.

'Thanks for today, you actually helped me with going to the mall, or otherwise, I had no idea how to go there. So thanks!', She had said those words, by gulping down her pride. This was too much to take, and somewhere she felt all this was just a joke for him. But she let that thought drop.

'Sure, After all, what are friends for?', he quickly dashed away, but not before giving her a sweet smile.

A smile which was enough to do funny things to her insides.

She felt butterflies in her stomach as she recollected how his sweet smile had her heart fluttering like anything. She knew whatever she was feeling was weird and she shouldn't like that. But she couldn't snap out of that smile. She seemed to be so lost that she didn't hear Kavya coming in.

"Nidhi, good you woke up early. We have Vardhaan Sir's class today. You know our seniors were saying that he's very strict. And he's very punctual so You should hurry up."

And with that, she was gone with the wind. Nidhi blinked confusedly as she processed the bits and pieces she heard.

'Woke up early',' Vardhaan Sir's Class',' Strict', 'Punctual', 'Hurry up', etc. She shrugged as she knew it was better to do her work quickly than to ponder over what that confused girl said.

-*-

She appeared right next to Shivam as soon as she reached the class. She glanced at him, as he did too, resulting in a mini eye-lock. They searched something in each other's eyes but found only one thing. Confusion.

"What are you doing there? Come inside already!” a very angry voice boomed and both looked at the source of the voice.

To Nidhi's surprise and Shivam's shock, there stood Vardhaan in front of them, with his hands stuffed inside his pockets and staring at them with his calculative eyes.

Nidhi stared at him in shock. Her Gummy Uncle stood in front of her. Gone was the charming and bright smile he always, as he wore a scowl on his face, unlike the welcoming smile, Vardhman always wore.

"Guess you are not interested in attending my class. You can gladly not attend my class for the next 4 years” his angry voice boomed in the silent room and Nidhi bet she had goose bumps arriving on her arms.

Shivam almost felt goose bumps as he stared at Vardhman with nervous eyes. So without giving a thought, he got hold of Nidhi's arm and dragged her to two empty seats and sat down quickly.

Nidhi had no idea what was going on until she felt herself sitting on the seat beside Shivam. She looked at Shivam who looked intimidated with Vardhman himself and was slowly scribbling something on his book. She scratched her head, confused.

Vardhman seemed very different, once he started with his class, not once sparing her a glance, and most glaring her occasionally.

What the heck?? Why was Vardhman acting like that?

-----

Shivam dumped his bag as he crashed on his bed with a thud. After Vardhman's class, all the classes went with a blur, but he kept thinking about only one thing.

Why did Vardhaan look like someone familiar? He felt he had seen somewhere and it was frustrating as to how he was not able to remember why that man looked familiar.

And he felt a lot worse at himself as he had let a good opportunity slip out of his hands. He was this close to having Nidhi get a good taste of his revenge, but he was too busy getting intimidated by the man that he completely forgot about his plan.

'Damn you Nidhi!!', he cursed out loud, slipping his gym clothes and dashing towards the gym.

-----

Nidhi dabbed the screen of her phone to zoom into Vardhman's picture. The heck, whoever made this thing called 'mobile phone'. She seriously had to learn everything about this device before she goes mad.

Kavya appeared in the room and sat on the chair beside Nidhi's bed. Looking at Kavya a thought appeared in her mind, but quickly dismissed it right away.

She was not going to sabotage her image in front of Kavya that she can be friends with her, because technically she didn't want to be friends with anyone, not just at the moment.

So just like earlier, she started spying secretly on how she manages the phone, and it helped quite a lot. This spying thing did make Kavya a bit suspicious but she didn't say anything and indulged herself back in her phone.

Fortunately, few things were easy, and Nidhi learned that to zoom a photo, you should just hold the photo and keep your thumb and index finger in a position like you are taking a pinch and then press the image outwards.

This actually helped, as she zoomed in to the picture of faculty members on the website. 

And BINGO! It actually zoomed and she could clearly see the picture.

The man in the picture was actually Vardhaan, or maybe looked like Vardhman. She was terrible in remembering people's faces, and sometimes even felt that she will develop the face blindness disease.

She just shrugged as she stuffed the phone back to where it was, under the pillow, and laid down. She felt the itch that she should go to the gym to work out some so that the cells in her brain will start working. But she felt lazy that she didn't want to get up.

So she just closed her eyes and laid still for a moment. But she felt a finger poke on her ribs and she opened her eyes to see Kavya smiling brightly at her.

"Want to give a hand in cleaning?" she flashed the broom and cleaning mop for her to see. Nidhi felt stupid for rejecting the idea of going to the gym. The idea seemed more appealing to her, now that she had her muscles literally screaming for her to dash towards the gym. It was better than cleaning this big room.

She was so done cleaning dirt. She was well experienced in this forte but she was just not interested in doing that anymore.

So she quickly got up and flashed a fake smile. "I actually forgot I had to go to the gym! Sorry can't help yea!"  She quickly fished put the gym clothes from her cupboard and walked out.

Kavya kept looking at her retreating back and shrugged pitiably. Guess she had to do the cleaning of the entire room all by her.

God...Why her? Out of all people, why did she have to get Nidhi as her roomie?

-----

Nidhi reached the gym, only to find it deserted. She felt a bit weird the gym empty but could hear the music pumping on in full blaze. Someone was definitely there.

She walked some more as she dropped her sip bottle on the bench and her heart stopped beating the moment she found out who was the other person in the gym.

Shivam stood in front of the mirror, admiring his abs with a tough look on his face. He was sweating badly, and sweat beads were trailing down his back, disappearing in his sweats.

She gulped and turned, but he had already caught her glimpse and had moved towards her, now staring at her.

Again their eyes locked together. She quickly broke it as her gaze traveled down, admiring the sweaty mess on his abs. He followed her gaze and saw her checking his abs out.

He suddenly felt conscious and bent towards the bench and grabbed his vest while wiping his sweat and covering his abs from his gaze.

She realized that she was caught staring and looked away. "Why is the gym deserted today?" she wondered out loud. Loud enough for Shivam to hear.

She looked back at him and now he was wearing the vests. Fortunately or unfortunately, Nidhi felt weird, as she was relaxed that he was covering that hard toned body from her, but at the same time, she felt a part of her heart sigh in disappointment. She felt she had gone crazy for having 2 thoughts at the same time. One thought was dirty, and others were sane. 

Sane enough to tell her to get a grip upon herself!

"Whenever I work out, I tend to get snappy and don't like disturbance, so I shove everyone out when it's my time."

The reply was so simple, but the husky voice made her squirm somehow. Maybe he was tired out of his wits because of the entire workout, and the sweat trickling down his mane was the proof.

She shook her head to clear her mind as she could feel her gaze zooming onto the sweat drop disappearing inside his vest, maybe trickling down those amazing abs,6-8 packs or whatever that are, and wished she could peep in the hot mess. She scolded herself for definitely going crazy and behaving like a desperate bimbo.

She was far better than those idiotic girls who dreamt of only sleeping with guys like this Shivam or wrapping themselves in these guys' arms like a second skin.

I would kill, to be in those arms though. Another thought popped in and she felt the need to face-palm, for the thoughts that were coming up in her mind, were too sane to be true. 

"Are you going to shove me away too?"

However, her tongue just processed the inner desires, as she asked with anxiety, her voice unclear. She knew she couldn't expect much, but still somewhere a part of her heart was expecting something else.

Something dirty, provocative..