Though they are poles apart and are rather involved with different people, Aditya and Nandini discover how easy it is for them to fall in love with each other.
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Coming across each other in the exotic and vibrant city...
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Tapping her pink-painted nails on her workstation, Nandini had her eyes fixated on the computer screen in front of her. For the last eight hours, she was trying to resolve the bug in that particular snippet of code, but the results were still inconclusive. Disappointed after a long day of fruitless activities, she shut the flap of her laptop, stuffed her belongings into her bag, and made her way to her boss's cubicle.
The entire floor of the fifth story inside her office edifice was split into multiple cubicles, separated by wooden panes—four feet in height—and a cluster of four such cubicles, facing each other at right angles, formed what they called a square in their office. Eight different clusters were assigned particularly to their team as the windows overlooking the gigantic parking lot beneath stood opposite those squares and were lined with a series of indoor, shade-loving plants. Bright ceiling lights illuminated the entire path from her cluster to Pete's square, falling directly on the blue and grey carpet below.
Knocking at the wooden pane behind which Pete was leaning closer to his monitor, his nose inches away from the screen, she flashed him a bright smile when he peered at her. "Hey, Pete. I am stuck with this defect that you assigned to me this morning. Do you have some time tomorrow? I might need to discuss it with you."
Pete pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "The federal one, you mean?"
She nodded her head.
"Ah! Sure, Nan. We will talk tomorrow, and don't worry about the defect too much. You are still in the training phase, and it will take another three months to get used to the way we structure our code around here. Go home, relax, eat Chinese takeout, and we will discuss this once you are not," he pointed at her exhausted face, "so frustrated."
She chuckled, bade him good night, and made her way towards the elevator on the other side of the floor. She had been working here for only three months now, and she assumed things would be breezy, straightforward. She was, after all, living the dream. Finally. Having graduated from university with straight A's and a research paper in her kitty, she worked in Chicago for a year at a smaller firm until she earned this well-paying, highly respectable job in her favorite city in the entire world.
But then, she found the downsides of adulting within three months of being a professional software developer in San Francisco. The city saw the worst kind of traffic during rush hours. The pedestrians could pop up from anywhere, prompting her to harshly push the brakes of her car at the last moment. She had to navigate some really steep hills around the town, and the perpetual fog that hung around the city was always unsettling.
Then, of course, was the fact that it is one of the most expensive cities in the USA, and though she was earning shitloads of money, she was still finding it difficult to budget her expenses. That could be attributed to the swanky, spacious 800 square feet 1-BHK she had rented and the pricey car she bought as soon as she moved to the city. She was just too excited to live by herself, be independent, furnish her new space, and freely move around town, wearing black shades and an ostentatious leather jacket. However, stress related to professional commitments couldn't be evaded despite her vehement attempts.
