Call It What You Want (to be revamped & restarted soon)

Track 2.11 | let me keep you company

"What were you going to call me?" She rephrased her question, a little more polite this time when she realised her fears were invalid. After all, this was her best kept secret for a reason.

"Princess." Oliver confessed.

Priyankha stayed silent because her voice would immediately give away what she was feeling. She was so wrapped up around protecting her untold tale that the implication of his statement dawned on her too late. He called her beautiful.

You look beautiful either way, Pri— The moment she replayed his voice in her head, all she could feel in her stomach were butterflies.

When Priyankha didn't react, he began explaining. "In my defence, you dress exactly like that one Bollywood movie — uh, I can't remember the name... The one where this Princess pretends to be a commoner but her heart of gold gives it away-" He stopped midway when he realised he was ranting.

Why did she make him so nervous?

She turned to face him this time, letting out a sick laugh when their eyes met. "Please, I'm no Princess. I like being the ordinary person that I am."

If only she could look at herself from Oliver's eyes, she would realise she was anything but ordinary. She was the rainbow on a rainy day, the one who instantly added colours to his gloomy days. She was the sugar he craved after drinking tons of bitter coffee. And she was the only person he wanted to keep close forever — even if she would only end up hurting him in return.

No, Oliver. He scolded himself. Stop slipping into your old ways.

"There's one person who calls me his Princess though." She smiled and he noticed the way her eyes sparkled. "Also treats me like one."

"Who?" Oliver couldn't hold his curiosity, a bit worried that she used the present tense while talking about him. This wasn't just someone from her past.

"My Appa." She answered and Oliver breathed a sigh of relief, knowing there wasn't another man in her life. Just her father. "So no one else gets to call me that. Not even you." She joked, wanting to facepalm herself for freaking out over nothing.

After that unfortunate night, she lived life on alert mode, judging every possible action that could mess things up. Maybe she needed to live life a little freely, she noted. If only life would give her one chance; she promised to hold onto it this time.

Emptying a spoonful of tea leaves and some grated ginger into the pot, she simply shrugged when Oliver asked her if Grace would mind him cooking here. "Right, the stuff I make is garbage anyway." She recollected and hissed under her breath, thinking he couldn't hear her from the pantry.

"Hey, by the way, I don't want to assume and I'm curious." He yelled at the top of his voice from behind the pantry door. "So are you vegan by any chance or do you eat meat?"

"I'm a vegetarian." She replied, cringing at his choice of small talk. Was this his subtle way of flirting by getting to know her? "And you?" She asked in return.

"I'm moody." He huffed and placed the ingredients he had gathered from the pantry on the counter. Strawberries, bananas and tons of packets that hardly ever made an appearance in Priyankha's scope of work. "By the way, those cookies you made? Best cookies I've ever tasted. And I've had a lot, just saying." He spoke between bites while munching on a washed strawberry. "Totally better than Dio's batch, anyday."

He mixed the dry ingredients into a bowl and rolled his sleeves before he began whisking them together. Priyankha wanted to look at the sight just as much as she wanted to look away. How could he make such simple actions look so effortless and endearing? Or maybe she was the one hyping them up. Agreeing on the latter, she focused on her tea and reached out for the milk carton on her counter — completely ignoring Oliver's existence, as if she could — not knowing he was doing the same thing.