No Strings Attached

one

"baby, i wanted to tell you something." he said, clearing his throat.

now she was definitely nervous.

"yes?"

kabir crossed his hands on the table, not meeting her eyes.

"kabir? is everything okay?" ananya asked, because he was starting to freak her out.

"uh, yeah. i just wanted to talk to you . . ." he trailed off, crossing his fingers together.

huh? why was he acting so shady about it?

"okay, tell me." ananya nodded, pretending to be calm about it, because at least one of them had to fake maturity. 

"it's—" kabir cleared his throat again, "uh, it's my parents. they, uh—they want me to get married." he said, fumbling with his words a lot.

oh . . . uhm . . . ? she had thought about this before but, she was definitely not ready for marriage. yet. she really needed some time to think about it, because it was a life-long commitment. and sure, she'd known kabir for over two years now, but she was still finding her stability career-wise. she wanted to make something out of herself before she tied the knot.

"kabir, i'm not yet ready for—" she began, but paused when she saw the way her boyfriend winced.

what if he had felt bad? she should word it more softly. she didn't want him to think that it's his fault.

"it's not you, babe, but you know how i'm not so sure about my job right now and i—" she began again.

"ananya—" kabir interrupted, flinching.

why did he look like he was about to throw up? was she being too harsh?

"kabir, hear me out—" she began.

"no, ananya, you hear me out." he cut in again.

ananya frowned at him. 

it was . . . weird for kabir to cut in when she was talking. he usually listened, no matter what she was talking about. in fact, ananya often thought that kabir wasn't actually listening to her—like he was either on his phone or his laptop, and she just kept talking. but it didn't matter as long as he he nodded or said 'yeah' in between, right? (she kept telling herself that all his red flags didn't really matter, when it very obviously did)

but in this situation . . . kabir was acting really odd.

wait, was he gonna propose?

"ananya, i—" kabir took both her hands in his as he talked, "my parents want me to get married. to aisha. my dad's friends daughter." he said.

. . . what?

haha. nice one, right?

for a moment, ananya thought he was playing a joke on her. like what other reasonable explanation was there behind what he just said? this was obviously a joke! and kabir's sense of humor was dry as fuck so this would definitely be his idea of a joke. well, however shitty the joke was, she had to appreciate the effort.

kabir was watching her anxiously, his hold tightening on her hands, "say something, ananya."

ananya leaned back in her seat, shaking her head, "nice one, kabir." she said, laughing.

"ananya, i'm serious." kabir frowned, sitting up straighter.

"you have a terrible poker face, kabir. i can't take that seriously when you're doing that." she laughed in reply, drawing her one of her hand back from his hold to brush her hair away from her eyes.