The partnership

5

It took almost 17 days for Meera to cheer Prithvi up in regards to his previous performance, by the time she managed to do so, Prithvi had to go for the Bangladesh tour in the next 10 days. Meera too got busy with a project in her office but she would still be awake when Prithvi came to her house in the middle of the night, tired and in need for a severe morale boost.

 Meera hadn't told Prithvi about how she had a crush on the captain, mainly because Prithvi knew about Meera's fetishes about Indian skippers and 2ndly because half the country crushed on the captain yet Meera often thought about her day with the captain. 

Relationships were really never Meera's cup of tea, mainly because she thought that no one can handle her spontaneous personality, she was quite different in her own way, extremely understanding, for her everyone was nice and everyone's actions were justified with respect to their circumstances, but this was what posed a problem for her, if only the entire world could understand her and not judge her the way she didn't for her unique behavior and 'philosophies', but again, the entire world's view didn't matter to Meera. 

Prithvi soon left for his Bangladesh tour and to Meera's relief, performed quite well with one century and 2 half centuries throughout the tour. His efforts were appreciated by the public and didn't go unnoticed by the board either. Meera couldn't wait to go and embrace her friend and congratulate him on his efforts. 

Finally the day arrived when Prithvi came back, Meera took an early leave from her office and rushed home. She immediately went to prithvi's flat using her spare key but opened it to find it swarming with people whom she immediately recognized as the players of the Indian team, the house seemed extremely crowded and Meera hated crowded places or crowds in general, yet she somehow crossed the crowd and spotted Prithvi in the middle, she ran and hugged him "Pritzzzz, you did it, you were so amazing like mann you killed it!"

Prithvi took Meera into and embrace a lady standing beside him was taken aback, "Meer!! I missed you so much ya, you staying up till 2 has made us win" Prithvi said teasingly leading to a quick laughter by both of them. Judging by the expression on the face of the lady next to prithvi, Meera added, "You must be Devika!" and hugged the woman who was rather surprised by this who replied with an "err yeah". Both the woman engaged in a short conversation before Meera decided to leave the party, seeing the Beer cans she decided she could take one with her, as she was about to pick one a familiar voice called out,

"Meera?"

She turned around, surprised 

"Captain, what an honour it is to meet you again" she said with a wide smile

The captain hadn't stopped thinking about Meera since they'd met, the life that she had in her, her opinions, he would've loved to know more about her, besides Meera was rather pretty in her own way, a quirky mischievous smile that could make the charming man bow.

"By the way congratulations on the win captain!" Meera said as she formally gave out her hand for a handshake which Arjun gladly shook. 

"Where are you leaving to by the way?" the captain asked Meera

"It's rather crowded in here and the weather outside is amazing, so I'm going for walk or jog, whichever my current energy level permits" Meera said with a short chuckle

"What a coincidence, I'm actually going for a walk too, why don't you accompany me, there'll be lesser chances of my cover being blown!" the captain said as he put on a large cap and broad shades. The duo set out for the walk, a walk that both of them would regret.

~

".......So let me get this straight, you would've asked me out if I hadn't 'dumped' you that night" the captain said with a snigger as a reply to Meera's revelation of her wish to ask her out.

"uhuh" Meera nodded in agreement, they'd been walking for almost 20 minutes and laughing for 30 as they took stops in middle just to calm each other's laughter fits.

 It had begun to drizzle and as much as the captain hated drizzles he walked for he was enjoying the company. The sky had become darker for this time in the evening, suddenly they heard lightning and the drizzle soon escalated to a heavy rain, both of them ran to take shelter under a tree  which was the only shelter around. 

It was a rather lonely road for passers by with cars passing seldomly. 

"you know, I've read somewhere that standing under a tree during a thunderstorm is dangerous but lightning always hits the taller person first so in a likely event, you'll be the first to die" Meera said with a childish innocence

"you have such disturbing thoughts Meera, I'm concerned about you" Arjun said as he tried to process her words and in this process removed his cap and shades

"Me too" Meera replied with yet another snigger.

At that point a car came speeding away splashing water everywhere and Arjun pulled Meera towards him to avoid her from getting wet.

 Their bodies were really close to each other, Meera's waist held by Arjun. A gust of wind scattered her hair all over the place and she began trying to place them together as Arjun helped her put them back in one place, maybe it was the moistly humid day or just destiny as arjuns hand some how were stuck between meera's strands of her, both of them froze at this point, and the moment seemed to be at a pause, suddenly their eyes met, faces came close, and their eye lock broke into a passionate kiss, but both of them pulled away, Arjun realized their presence in a public place while Meera realized the consequence of having strong feelings for someone which she was having then. 

"I should leave" Meera said as the rain came to a halt.

"Meera wait" Arjun held her hand and then left it as soon as he realized he was holding it, "It's dark, let me drop you home"

Meera didn't reply to that, she started walking, very swiftly as Arjun caught up with her and walked beside her, no one said anything through out the walk. As they reached the building, Meera skipped steps and rushed to her house without saying a word to Arjun, although puzzled at her behavior, Arjun decided to not give it a thought, if only he knew, that he'd have to give it a thought.