Prem
Waking up next to your beloved is the best feeling in this world. When I opened my eyes to see Preeti snuggled next to me, a smile tugged at my lips. I pulled her more into my arms, kept looking at her, sleeping peacefully. The calm on her face was the indication of peace and happiness in our lives and that is what I want and need to be happy myself.
I didn't realise how long I've been staring at her face when her eyes fluttered open and she gave a beautiful smile making my morning a lot more beautiful that it already was. Soon her smile turned shy, maybe realising our situation and remembering our night of love and intimacy. She hid her face in my chest and I held her firmly letting her know that she could trust me to guide her through this new phase in our relationship. After a few moments, I pull back to look at her face which was still covered in red hue of shyness. I hold her face in my palms and kiss her forehead.
"Let's get ready for our day, shall we?" I asked her softly not to disrupt the peace around us. She nods her head and try to move away to get down from the bed. However, she stops when she realises her lack of clothes and again hide herself in the covers. I move to put on my bottoms from last night and then move towards her. I lift her in my arms, covers and all and take her to the en suite bathroom. I help her as I should and together we get ready for our day ahead. While she goes to pray and light the lamp in our home temple to start her first day as the 'lady of the house', I clean up the room and adjust everything so the place is ready for everyone to see after we return. Soon, we are on our way to the Banquet Hall so we can all visit our ancestral temple to get blessings from God and our ancestors for a happy life ahead.
***
The temple visit was fun. After taking the blessings and doing some more rituals, we all decided to make a day of it and went to tour around the town where the temple is. It is a beautiful place filled with nature and peace. We roamed around many places that we had visited as kids; Bitto didn't remember most as she was too small and even Anand was having a gall sharing all our memories with Aman and Bitto. Afterwards, we had lunch as a picnic since we were carrying our own food that Maa and Ms. Chaudhary have prepared much to our delight. We spent the day sharing and creating many more memories, all happy and fun. Then we all returned home where my surprise was waiting for everyone. Today, I was going to have my full family at home for the first time and therefore, it was the perfect time to reveal the whole place to all.
***
We reached home and Preeti moves ahead to open the door with everyone tailing behind while Anand and I go to park the cars in the Garage. When we near the entrance, we hear Aman's excited shouts and I realise that I had forgotten to turn on the fog machines in the centre and that meant that the surprise was already out. A smile tugged at my lips while Anand looked confused as to what was happening.
We entered and as I've guessed, everyone was gathered in the lobby looking down at our room astonished. Everyone turned towards us when Anand asked aloud about what they all were doing. Aman came bouncing and pulled Anand over to the railings to look down. While everyone was busy looking down, Preeti came towards me. I held her in my arms sideways and kissed her forehead. She smiled at me and said that she will be preparing the dinner while I tour everyone around the house. I asked her whether she didn't want to know about the basement, but she said that she will either come by the time we reach downstairs or will ask me later on. Thus, she left to do her work while I moved towards everyone to start the tour of the house.
"So, liked the surprise?" I ask to get their attention.
"Bhaiya!" Kiran exclaimed before anyone else could react, "Where did that came from?" she asked pointing downstairs, making me laugh.
"What do you mean where it came from? It was always there, just hidden behind the fog so I can surprise you all with it later on." I tell her
"It's nice Jiju," Aman said.
"Yeah, but how come I didn't see it when I came before," Anand ask confused.
"I had the fog machines installed before I called you so you didn't see, that's why" I tell him and then notice the elder's confused faces, "Actually the basement was not in use till now and therefore no one knew about it" I tell them.
"Wait!" Kiran exclaimed, "So the reason you didn't allow us to prepare any of your upstairs room was because you already had a room downstairs?" Well looks like my Bitto is getting smart.
"Yes Bitto, you got that right," I tell her. "Anyways, come on everyone, I'll tour you all around the house, because I'm sure once the kids reach downstairs, they are not going to come back up easily." With this, I took everyone around the house. We started from our rooms; it was fun to see Maa-Papa's reactions when they saw Preeti's room. However, we told them we wanted her to have her personal space whenever she's over, so no unnecessary questions were raised. Then they were surprised to see Bitto's room and just like their daughter, they said that I went too overboard with the toys, but I appeased them by informing that I have a playroom downstairs where all the extra toys will go when Bitto is ready to grow up. However, Ms. Chaudhary did point out that Bitto is already grown up, but Bitto instantly denied saying she is still my baby, which she will always be. Anyways, after knowing that I had rooms for Anand and them as well, they were really happy, however, when Aman asked why I didn't have a room for him, I told him that I have one downstairs to which he got really happy. By the time we reached Kitchen, Preeti was almost done with the cooking as she kept the dinner light after the whole day of eating different food and extra snacks while touring. Therefore, we waited for her to finish while chatting away in the kitchen itself and then went downstairs.
Downstairs we had the living area as well as the bedroom in the centre hall as already apparent from above, and then we had a small kitchen to which Preeti asked whether I was trying to separate her from her kids by dividing kitchen, which was laughed at by everyone. I told her that the kitchen is just enough for her to use for storing few necessary things as it is too small for cooking with little space left after installing a small refrigerator, microwave and coffee maker. I told her that there was only an induction cooker available in case she needs to cook some instant food, as there was neither space not supplies for her to use for more cooking. The kitchen was just made with the thought that she or the kids don't need to climb up for even a glass of water. Next, were the en suite and the walk in closet cum dressing room, which the kids really liked, as they also had a column to store their excessive clothes there. Then there was the library cum study room. As I had my room upstairs almost turned into an office with all work stuff I had stored there, I thought to use that as my home office while changing the office I had made downstairs for the kids to use as a study room. Moreover, since it was big enough, I even arranged a small library into it keeping in mind Preeti and Bitto's love for books. Afterwards there were two rooms, which were empty, as I didn't have any use of them for now, then we moved towards the kids room which was actually a play room filled with toys for Aman. It was bigger than an average room so there was even a small bed added there for Aman to use, which made him happy as he said now he too had a room like Bitto, filled with toys.
After staying downstairs for some time, we moved upstairs, I turned on the glass roof and fog machines in the centre again which left the kids in awe. They asked why I added the glass roof to which I told them that I didn't want to risk any accidents with the kids so I added them. They also enabled the lights to pass through completely from the glass roof above so the purpose to have natural light in every room during the day was fulfilled since there were no windows in our room, also they were sound-proof so they helped keep the surprise intact when I had to work something down here in their presence. They can also only be operated from downstairs, which meant that kids won't get to leave them open in our absence since I was still going to keep the basement locked when neither me nor Preeti was at home to ensure their safety. No one argued as technically it was our bedroom downstairs so we had the right to privacy.
Therefore, we all moved upstairs to enjoy our dinner in the dining room with fun and talks, before retiring to our rooms. Aman came with us downstairs to sleep in his new room and Ms. Chaudhary occupied one of the guest rooms, to which I told her choose the one she liked the most as I was going to renovate it to make it her permanently as now she was also family, to which she felt really touched.
Preeti went upstairs to ensure that everyone was settled comfortably in their rooms after changing, so I also went to check on Aman to find him wide-awake and still exploring his room. I told him to sleep so that he can explore tomorrow with fresh mind, to which he listened and after staying for some time to ensure that he does sleep, I went back in time to see Preeti coming down. We both retired to bed and I explained her why I decided to expand the house in the basement. I also told her how I was thinking on adding another floor above in future and bring Maa-Papa and Aman home to stay with us, to which she said they might not like that, as this will never give them a chance to strengthen their bond with Aman, especially Maa; so I dropped the idea.
We kept talking about anything, everything until sleep took over us, and we both went to sleep peacefully in each other's embrace.
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