Unsuitable Proposal

Chapter 44: Aftermath

Kashvi Acharya

It had been almost a week since my fall out with Antarang. After that evening I was expecting things to get worse. I had prepared myself to face his wrath. But to my surprise, opposite happened. 

I was no longer made to run trivial errands for my colleagues, no more tedious 'documentation' work, and no more fetching coffee and lunch for Antarang or others- they had now started ordering via phone or app. And finally, I was getting real work that I was supposed to do all along. In all, I was being treated like any other respectable software engineer hired at the company.

If I had known that quarreling with Antarang was going to bring this change, I would have done it sooner. Though since then not a word passed between us. We seemed to be content at stealing glances of each other in meetings or hallways. His blazing gaze still had not lost its effect on my body, turning me into a hot, red mess. I wondered if he would ever stop having effect on me.

I didn't know where we both stood now, but I hoped Antarang had demoted me from his hit list.

"Did you debug the code?" Dheeraj asked me, maybe because I was sitting ideal. His work desk was next to mine.

I nodded. "Also uploaded it, you can see it," I replied. Now that I wasn't running around to do chores, and doing what I was actually good at, I had lots of free time on my hand in office. I even helped my colleagues.

"Aren't you a smartie?" He jibed.

I threw him a sweet smile and shrugged. Dheeraj and I had become sort of work buddies. I had learned he lacked a filter between his head and mouth, but didn't have ill intentions. 

He asked me to help him with some modules, and since I had nothing better to do I helped him.

"There, watch, puppy face Mona," Dheeraj said as we were working, signalling me to look ahead.

I followed his eyes and found Antarang walking in the direction of his office, followed by Mona. Dheeraj's description of Mona wasn't far off. She was tailing behind him like a dog ready to please his master... Or my point of view was skewed because I didn't like the idea of her harboring feelings for Antarang. Petty, I know.

On cue, Antarang's brown eyes found me behind my laptop's screen. His gaze was intense as ever, and like falling dominoes my body reacted. My breath hitched and blush took over my features, but I couldn't pull my eyes away from him. After what felt like eternity but were merely few seconds, it was him who looked away and marched ahead to his office, disappearing from my sight just as he came. 

See, this was what I was talking about. There was no denying that something burned between us, but whether it would set us aflame and turn us into ashes or give us that desired warmth was yet a mystery.

"Don't tell me you got crush on the boss too." Dheeraj's words snapped me out of the daze.

"Don't talk rubbish," I rebuked him. It seemed I had to be careful at not being too obvious of my feelings. It would only create trouble for me and Antarang if his employees found out about us.

"If there's any consolation I think Antarang likes you too," Dheeraj said, looking at me like a detective who was about to conclude his case. "Perhaps, he'd pick you over Mona." 

My blush darkened. "I think you can do rest of the work yourself. You clearly don't need me if you pay attention to your work instead of surveilling people and coming up with ridiculous conclusions," I retorted slash threatened to stop him from digging into it further. And it worked.

A while later my phone rang. My eyes widened seeing it was Antarang. 

"Well well, at least I don't come up with ridiculous conclusions," said my nosy work buddy, who had seen my phone screen too.

I glared at Dheeraj. It wasn't a big deal for your employer to call you during or off work hours and he knew that. He just liked digging at me. Though what was a big deal was for Antarang to call me when we hadn't spoken a word to each other after that big argument, which Dheeraj didn't know about.

"Hello," I picked up the call. 

"Come to my office, right now," he ordered and without waiting for a reply cut the call.

Dheeraj was still looking at me. "I have to go," I told him, standing up and running a hand over my wrinkled kurti. I sighed when a teasing glint appeared in his eyes. "You know what? I'm not going to waste my breath. Think whatever you want," I said, walking away and stumbling over nothing. His chuckled followed me. Stupid man!

On my way I ran into Aman. He smiled at me and gave an acknowledging nod. I returned his gesture with an awkward smile of myself. This past week Aman's behavior had changed too. From ignoring me all together he had now gone to wishing me good mornings and exchanging small pleasantries. He didn't look at me as an enemy now. I suspected this change in his behavior too circled back to that fight between Antarang and me. Aman was his friend after all. I wasn't complaining though, I could always do with less hostility.

I smiled at Hazel who was sitting on her desk outside Antarang's office and talking to someone on the phone. I took a long breath before knocking on the devil's door and entered inside. He better not ask me to bring him coffee. 

*******

I just moved to the hostel. Updates are going to be regular once I'm settled in.