Zaroorat

Chapter 12 & A/N

'Here you go Aditya, ice creammmmm yummy!!!' She swung her head from side to side, showing how much she was enjoying her ice cream. Aditya laughed as he devoured his ice cream too, his eyes never leaving Zoya's beautiful face.

Even though Zoya had 2 ice creams and Aditya only had one, she finished hers first and began looking around her restlessly.

'Adityaaaa I want moreeee ice cream!'

'Zoya! You've already had 2! You'll get a cold if you eat so much ice cream!'

She pouted again to show her displeasure but didn't fight it.

'Ok fineeeeee but I want to try some of yours! Gimme gimme gimme!'

Aditya couldn't do anything but laugh and obey her command. Her tried to pass her his ice cream cone but Zoya had a different idea. She decided she was going to get her way today and nothing could stop her.

She had noticed that he had a little bit of ice cream on the left corner of his mouth and she wanted it so she got up off her chair and sat on Aditya's lap. She snaked her arms around his neck and then brought her mouth down to the corner of his mouth and licked the ice cream off his face.

Aditya sat there frozen. His heart was racing but he couldn't move a muscle.

'What just happened?!' He asked himself but his brain couldn't form a coherent response.

The proximity to Zoya and her actions had stilled him. What was he to do? He knew what he wanted to do but he couldn't. Zoya wasn't in her senses and he knew that she would regret anything that happened that night. He had to be the mature adult in this situation.

Zoya was staring at his face intently as she spoke,

'So yummy. See I told you, you're yummier than the noodles.' Her eyes gleamed with mischief.

Aditya tried to get control of his breathing so he could stop her before she did anything else but his mind was a mess.

'Zoya' he gasped.

He had to stop her. This was it. A lot of lines had already been crossed tonight and he wouldn't allow anything more. He didn't want her to think he had taken advantage of her drunken state but he knew she would wake up and feel like she had taken advantage of his feelings for her.

He slowly edged her off his lap as she frowned.

'Zoya, it's time to go home now. It's late and you have to be up early tomorrow. Let's go.'

As he held her hand and tried to get her to walk to the exit, she forced him to stop. There was a pained expression on her face,

'Aditya, are you angry at me?'

'No Zoya, I'm not. It's just late. Let's go home.'

'Don't lie to me Aditya. Did I hurt you? I'm sorry Aditya.' She whispered as if the gravity of her actions was finally hitting.

'I'm not hurt Zoya I promise. I don't want to hurt you. It's late. Let's go.'

He kept his answers short. He wasn't in any state to give her long answers and she wasn't in a state to understand them. A discussion would have to wait till the next day.

'I'm sorry Aditya.' Zoya's voice gave away her distress.

As if to comfort him and herself at the same time, she hugged him and Aditya hugged back but soon her body went limp in his arms. He realised she had fallen asleep and he would have to carry her to his car and then home. Thank god Wasim Siddiqui wasn't at home.