"What are you two even doing?" Nisha asked. "Acting like a couple all the damn time? You think it's funny? You think it doesn't send out a wrong signal?"
"Wrong signal to who?"
"I don't know, ask yourself."
Shubman sat up, intrigued. "What?"
"Do you have feelings for him?"
"For who?" asked Shubman blankly.
Nisha gritted her teeth. "For Ishan, you fool."
Shubman stared at her. Then he started to laugh. He laughed so hard, he fell off the bed.
Nisha straightened her glasses and glared into her laptop screen. She had an important work from home meeting today and she probably shouldn't have come over to spend the night with her friend.
Well. They had been more than friends lately, but they were not a couple, so Nisha preferred the term friend by far.
When Shubman stopped laughing, she said darkly, "All right, you don't. But what you are doing, you are encouraging the completely wrong idea. Brains like those, and you could be a Rachel Green."
"Brains like those, and you could be Hindi serial script writer, Nish," said Shubman.
"You idiot, do you have any idea of the mess that you're gonna create if Ishan starts having feelings for you?"
"Seriously?" Shubman said in disbelief, realizing she was serious. "He's my best friend, I think I'd know if he was gay, all right?"
Nisha sighed. "Don't you realize you would be the last person he'd tell?"
"Stop," said Shubman. "I don't want to talk about nonsense like this."
"Oh yes, you won't talk about it, but you'd act up for the cameras!"
"You sound jealous," teased Shubman.
"I am not jealous, you fool. I am your best friend, I am concerned about-"
"Ishan is my best friend, not you," said Shubman instantly. "But there's one important spot vacant as far as the great Shubman Gill is concerned."
He climbed back up on the bed and caught her face. Nisha sighed deeply and pushed him away.
"I told you I have a meeting. Can you stay away for a bit?"
"I see," said Shubman, winking. "My proximity distracts the data scientist."
"Go to hell."
"I'll call my best friend, in that case," said Shubman.