The Nerd and The Brat ✔️

18. A Special Friend

"Because I don't trust you and you haven't been doing anything other than flirting with me since the time we have met", muttered Nandini.

Amidst the music, Cabir had to strain his ears to listen to her and raised an eyebrow at her words. "If I am not wrong, you must have been through numerous proposals already, aren't you?", he asked. In his large range of real-life experiences, he knew when a person's temper rose.

"Isn't that an art which your clan has mastered it for years? Pretend to be the best boy in the whole damn world, trap the girl and use her to satisfy your male chauvinism before leaving her alone", she screamed.

Cabir glared at her. "There are exceptions, Nandini. Every single boy doesn't reach your expectations."

"Of course, there are exceptions but you are not one of them."

"Woah! Woah!" Cabir looked around to see if they had gained any audience but everyone was in their world. He pulled his seat just beside her so that he could have a conversation without entertaining the crowd. "You know what? My confidence will commit suicide if I talk to you for another five minutes", he told her.

"I didn't beg you to talk to me", she said and sipped her drink.

"No. I was desperate to talk to you", said Cabir and rolled his eyes. "Listen, I just want to thank you. Could you go for ten minutes without snapping at me?"

She scrunched her eyebrows. "Thank me?"

Cabir nodded. "Can we go away from this music?"

Nandini scrunched her nose. Is the scary head girl doubting his intentions? She sighed and nodded before gulping her drink all at once.

"Slow down, lady hulk", commented Cabir. "How many drinks can you handle without getting drunk?"

"That's none of your business", she snapped and walked away from the bar.

Cabir rolled his eyes and followed her.

XXX

They found an abandoned bench at a far corner of the premises of the club. Cabir tried to frame the sentences inside his head but they were jumbled up and suddenly he felt the scarcity of the alphabets in the English language. He fared well in front of the Nyonika Malhotra, Nandini wasn't scarier than her, he motivated himself. But Nandini is as close to Nyonika, conspired a part of his brain.

Cabir sat beside her, bouncing his knees in nervousness. The head girl stiffened in her place. It was subtle and Cabir wouldn't have noticed if he wasn't explicitly searching for the signs of parental domination or abuse. He waited for her to relax.

"Do you want to sit here all night?", she asked.

He chuckled. "I am sorry. I don't know how to start?"

The head girl looked astonished. "You said sorry? I thought you only 'apologized'. Isn't it a Malhotra trait?"

Cabir gasped, covering his mouth with his hands. He gave his best serious face and pinched his throat. "I swear that's just my weird brother. Who the hell even uses such complicated words instead of a simple sorry? He has so many other weird habits too like reading books and visiting libraries and bookstores."

"I never thought you would be bitching about your precious brother", she teased.

"He is a bit different from me but he is mine. He is my", he trailed off defending his brother as Manik's face resurfaced in his mind. He was upset with Manik and sneaked off without informing him about coming to the club. It's not a compulsion but he was deliberately ignoring his Manik, the boy who only knew how to love him and care for him. Suddenly, he wanted to hug his brother and erase the last grey feeling, however small it was.