Poles Apart

Chapter Fifty-Eight

"I thought you didn't dance," Arjun teases as the first song ends.

I roll my eyes, but can't find a befitting reply. "Shut up."

Cheekily, Arjun smothers a kiss against my neck, causing me to giggle because of his beard.

I return his kiss with a wet kiss against his cheek. The expected response satisfies my soul.

"Janaki," Arjun whines, scrunching his nose.

I giggle happily and kiss the other cheek. "Why are you so cute, Junnu?" I ask, pulling both of his cheeks.

Arjun throws his head back in annoyance. "I'm not cute."

"You're the cutest, sweetest, smartest, handsome-est, loving-est, beautiful-est husband ever," I continue to tease him, squeezing his face between my palms.

Arjun chuckles, amusement obvious in his features. "Did you get drunk without the wine?"

"Unlike a lot of people," I explain to my husband, "I don't need wine to be honest."

"Ouch," he winces dramatically, clutching his chest.

I laugh, cupping his face and rubbing my nose against his sharp one. "I love you," I whisper to him, before rising onto my tippy-toes and hugging him fully.

Arjun hugs me back, enveloping me in his comforting embrace. "I love you, too."

A weird anxious feeling settles in the pit of my stomach, but I try my best to live in the moment, with my husband, who's still here.

"I have something for you," I remember, struck with memory all of a sudden.

Arjun's eyebrows raise at once. "What is it?"

I grin. "It's a surprise," I stage-whisper before running into the closet to find it.

How could I have even forgotten?

It's a Rolex watch that I saw on the internet. Except, it's only available in London. So when Prithvi flew to Paris on one of his recent trips, I'd begged him to take a detour to London and bring the watch with him.

It took a lot of convincing, especially since he had to cut his trip a day short and take a train over to London, get the watch and then fly back home.

Curiously, his trips to Paris have been way too frequent. I've not known him to travel to the same place more than a couple of times, and certainly not within such a short span of time.

I close the closet door before picking up the settee to elevate me to the topmost shelf, where I hid the watch along with my chocolate stash.

Before I married, I'd had to hide chocolates from my mother, and now I have to hide them from my husband.

When can I have an open relationship with the love of my life?

I bring out the Rolex watch from behind the chocolates and close the cupboard so that Arjun can't get an idea of where I'd hidden the chocolates before returning the settee to the original position and stepping out of the closet.

"Close your eyes," I demand of him, hiding the box behind my back.

"Okay." He obliges, closing his eyes.

I walk over to him on my tippy toes. "Open your hands."

"Savi once did this to me," Arjun relays to me, stretching his hands. "I ended up getting an eclairs from her."

I set the box on his outstretched hands, chuckling. "Did you eat it?"

Arjun doesn't answer the question as his eyes flutter open. "Seems heavier than an eclairs," he says, looking up from the box.