By Thursday, Srushti's entire life could be summed up in four colors:
Yellow for her own classes.
Green for Abhay's PR commitments.
Blue for Zoom meetings, she mostly kept her camera off in.
And red, reserved for breakdowns - both emotional and digital.
She scrolled through the shared calendar while standing in line at the college canteen, thumb hovering, eyes flicking over every little square.
"Fri 12:00 PM - Shoot rehearsal (CricketMart)"
"Sat 9:00 AM - Physio + media briefing (Wankhede)"
"Sun - Recovery window. No meetings."
No meetings, yes. But still texts.
Her phone buzzed at 10:47 PM the night before with:
"Tomorrow ka event location confirmed? Or still pending with Ritu?" (Tomorrow's)
She was half-asleep when she read it. Eyes burning. Hair in every direction. Wearing a too-large T-shirt from some forgotten tech fest.
But her fingers moved.
Still pending. Want me to ping her again?
Nahi. I'll follow up. Tu soja. (No. You sleep)
Two seconds later:
Btw, good call on moving the sponsor deck deadline. Team was late af.
She blinked at the screen.
There was no period at the end of that sentence.
But it still felt like one.
The next morning, she was sitting in the college library - not reading, obviously - just alternating between pretending to work and pretending not to stare at her phone.
Shifa dropped into the seat across from her, took one look at her face, and said, "You're making that expression again."
"Konsa?" (What)
"The one where you're falling in love with your notification bar."
"I am not."
Shifa leaned over the table. Whispered: "Kisi cute naam se save kiya hai kya? Ya still 'Abhay Sharma - PR' like a liar?" (Have you saved it by a cute name?)
Srushti clutched her phone to her chest. "Bitch, go back to your Python project."
"I will," she said, standing up smugly. "After I remind you that you replayed his voice note three times yesterday. Teen baar, Srushti. That's not project management. That's a situation." (Three times)
Srushti's cheeks burned.
She waited until Shifa was gone before pulling out her headphones.
She didn't mean to.
But her thumb hovered over the chat.
The voice note was still there.
"Yeh solid lag raha hai. Especially the third slide. Clean. Thanks, Srushti." (This looks solid)
He'd said her name like it meant something. Like it didn't rhyme with "corporate deliverable."
And that pause before the "thanks"? That pause had no business doing what it did.
She clicked play.
Once.
Only once this time.
Progress.
Right?
Back in her PG later that evening, Ishveeri walked into the room with a wet towel on her head and said, "Tu na... tu full celebrity ban chuki hai." (You...you've become a total celebrity.)
Srushti looked up from her laptop. "Ab kya?" (What now)
"You have a playlist called 'Energy: Calm but Chaotic.' You're drinking matcha. And you literally smiled when your phone buzzed."
"I smile at everyone."
"You smiled before checking who it was."
Srushti looked down.
It was another message.
From him.
"What's the call status with BrandPulse? You said Friday but they haven't pinged me yet."
She typed back instantly.
Then paused.
Then backspaced.
Then typed again.
Pinging them now. I'll loop you in the second they respond. Don't worry, Cricketer. I'm scary when needed🔪🔪.
Three dots.
Then his reply:
You? Scary? 😂
She stared.
That was his first emoji.
She sent a sticker in retaliation. A weird, sassy cat one.
He reacted with a thumbs-up.
Her heart reacted with a thud.
And that was that.
Her new routine:
Classes. Calendars. Calls.
Crush.
Crush, she absolutely wasn't allowed to have.
And yet, here she was - knees pulled to her chest, hoodie up, phone glowing in her palm like it held something dangerous.
Like it was something dangerous.
And she'd just pressed "accept."
............................................................
He wasn't big on texting.
Too much noise, too many people trying to be funny or fake-deep. His own friends - Shubham, Ishveer - texted like they were in a constant group chat war. Brands texted like bots. And most PR people texted like they were auditioning for Shark Tank.
But Srushti?
She texted like she was already in the middle of a sentence when she opened the chat.
No extra greetings. No "hey hey!" or smiley faces.
Just:
The third slide's fixed. Removed the white space and switched the font.
Clean. Focused.
And when she wasn't focused?
Also, pls tell your media guy to stop using Comic Sans in captions before I walk into the sea.
That one had made him laugh out loud.
Actually laugh.
The kind that surprised even him.
He'd typed:
You'll find a new client before you find a sea in Mumbai clean enough to walk into.
Her reply came in two minutes flat:
Kashid. 4.5 hrs. Worth the crisis.
Kashid.
Huh.
He hadn't been in years.
Now he was picturing her there.
Wavy hair down. Bag slung on one shoulder. Sitting alone on white sand with that "don't talk to me unless it's important or about coffee" face she wore during meetings.
He blinked. Shut Instagram. Then reopened it. Searched "Kashid beach" just once, then locked his phone like it betrayed him.
Later that night, post-practice, post-gym, post-"why am I still awake," he opened WhatsApp again.
She was online.
Green dot, there and gone.
He hovered on the chat.
Didn't type.
Didn't need anything urgent.
Still tapped open their thread.
Read it from the top.
That first message. Then the one where she called him "cricketer" like it was both a challenge and a smirk. Then that cat sticker.
He smirked again, almost despite himself.
Shubham walked into the dressing room with his bat and said, "Bro, tu tere phone ko aise ghur raha hai jaise tere paise kha liye ho." ( You've been staring at your phone like it owes you money)
Abhay locked it.
"Calendar check kar raha tha," he lied. (Was checking the calendar.)
Shubham raised an eyebrow. "If you say so."
He didn't explain.
Didn't mention that sometimes - not always - he typed a reply, paused, then rewrote it before sending it.
Didn't say that sometimes she replied fast.
And sometimes? She took her sweet time.
And those were the messages he thought about the longest.
............................................................
It was always the same bench.
Middle row. Third seat from the right. Direct AC airflow. Close enough to the charging port but far enough from the professor's line of sight.
Srushti had perfected the seating chart for emotional damage control.
It was where she could reply to messages, tweak decks, scroll lightly through Instagram reels without accidentally watching one too loud, and not have anyone ask what she was smiling at.
Until today.
The lecture was dragging.
"Neural networks are fundamentally driven by two core strategies-" the prof droned on, writing on the whiteboard like he was in a race no one else signed up for.
Srushti's phone buzzed once. A soft vibration under her palm, hidden beneath the desk. She barely glanced at it.
Abhay Sharma-PR
Can we shift Sunday call to evening? Might get stuck at the nets.
She inhaled quietly, a small twitch at the corner of her mouth. Not because of what he said. It was an ordinary message.
But the way he texted - clean, direct, no punctuation where there didn't need to be any. And that casual use of "can we" like they were... collaborating. Friends.
She turned her phone screen down, just in case.
Too late.
From beside her, Vrushali leaned in just a little too far.
"Wait," she whispered sharply. "Was that... Abhay Sharma?"
Srushti didn't move.
"As in..." Vrushali's voice rose half a decibel. "Abhay SHARMA Abhay Sharma?"
The name repeated itself like it had to pass through her brain twice to be fully believed.
That's when Shambhavi, seated two rows diagonally behind, suddenly periscoped into the conversation like a panther scenting blood.
"Excuse me? What did you just say?"
Vrushali looked genuinely offended by the implications of the universe. "Her phone. Just now. That name popped up. Did you see it?"
No one had seen it.
Until now.
Shambhavi didn't wait. She lunged forward, grabbed the phone from Srushti's desk with alarming precision, and held it up like it was the Ten Commandments.
"NO," Shambhavi said, eyes wide. "NO, YOU'RE FUCKING KIDDING. Yeh real hai??" (Is this for real?)
"Give it back," Srushti whispered through her teeth, her face already heating like an overheating CPU.
"It literally says 'Abhay Sharma.' Full name. Oh my god
"Can we not announce it in Dolby Surround Sound?" Srushti hissed, trying to snatch the phone back. She just wanted to dissolve into the floor. Into the cement. Into the geological layer under the floor.
Vrushali was still stuck in disbelief. "Wait, are you like... managing him or dating him or... kya?!"
"Managing," Srushti muttered, reclaiming her phone. "Professionally. It's a job."
That's when the professor turned. "Everything okay, girls?"
Shambhavi smiled sweetly. "Yes, sir, just helping her with her...codes."
Srushti nearly died.
............................................................
Ten minutes later, they were outside on the campus steps.
Now, Ishani had her phone.
"Why is his full name saved?" she asked. "You're managing his PR, not filing an FIR."
"I didn't change it," Srushti muttered, trying to snatch it back. "It was like that when they first emailed. I never updated it."
Shifa leaned over her shoulder. "This is, respectfully, a soft launch."
"It is not-"
"He messages you after 10 PM."
"Because his schedule is insane!"
"He replies to your stickers."
"That was once!"
Ishani narrowed her eyes. "What else has he sent you?"
"Nothing flirty."
"So something personal?"
Srushti said nothing.
Her silence said too much.
Shifa gasped. "You like him."
"I don't."
"You're lying."
"I'm managing him."
"You're managing a slow-burn situation-ship with zero exit strategy."
Srushti sank lower on the steps.
She was doomed.
............................................................
That night, back in their PG, she stared at her contact list for five straight minutes.
She hovered over "Abhay Sharma - PR."
Then slowly deleted the dash. The "PR."
Just his name now.
Abhay Sharma.
Which was... worse, somehow.
"Fuck." She dropped the phone face down on her bed.
And let herself admit, for the first time, that maybe this wasn't just professional anymore.
Not technically romantic.
But something else.
Something with volume.
And she had no idea how loud it might get.
............................................................
It first time she saw him play live - in the flesh, on the field, under the full glare of stadium lights.
She was wearing a black linen shirt, tucked into jeans, a messenger bag strapped across her shoulder with a laptop inside, and nerves everywhere else.
It wasn't her first cricket match.
It was just the first one where someone on the field had her phone number.
She arrived early.
Wankhede was still filling up. Vendors yelling, camera crews rushing, security walking around with bored eyes, and metal detectors that barely beeped.
Ritika had offered her a seat in the VIP box.
Srushti had refused.
"I'll sit in the stands," she'd said. "I need to understand how people react. What the crowd's picking up. That helps with tone."
It wasn't a lie.
But it wasn't the full truth either.
She didn't want to be watched.
She wanted to watch.
By 6:40 PM, she was seated six rows up from the boundary. Not too close. Not too far. Just enough to see his full silhouette when he jogged across the grass to warm up.
There he was.
Abhay.
Blue jersey. Cap backwards. Sunglasses pushed up. Laughing with Ishveer Kumar like they were just guys. Boys at practice. Not demigods with camera lenses for halos.
The crowd screamed for him.
And he didn't even look up.
Effortlessly untouchable.
Her phone buzzed.
You reached?
Just that.
She stared at it for a moment before typing:
Stadium ke left side mein hoon. Below the digital ad screens. Working while watching. (I'm on the left side of the stadium)
He replied with a single word:
Perfect.
She didn't know if he meant her location or her multitasking.
She didn't ask.
As the innings began, she tracked his movements like she was logging data for a thesis. Where he stood, who he spoke to, when the camera cut to him, and what the audience did in response.
They loved him.
Not for something.
But because he existed.
And that was harder to manage than any scandal.
Because how do you brand effortless charm?
How do you measure magnetism?
She remembered his text from last night.
Main jab batting karne aau tab reels team ko bolna slo-mo mat daalein this time pls. Last reel looked like a shampoo ad. (Please tell the reels team to skip the slow-mo when I'm batting this time. The last one looked like a shampoo commercial.)
She had laughed out loud. Fully. Head thrown back.
Her friends had side-eyed her.
She cleared her throat, adjusted her position, and typed:
Copy that, Dove boy.
Mid-innings. Crowd chaos. Floodlights warm.
She looked down at her screen to check something.
And when she looked up-
He was standing at the crease.
Gloves on.
Bat ready.
The camera panned past the field.
But his eyes - they lifted.
For half a second.
And she wasn't sure.
Not entirely.
But it looked like he saw her.
Knew where she was.
And held her gaze.
Just for a moment.
Then the bowler started his run-up.
And the crowd drowned it all out.
............................................................
11:52 PM.
Her room was dark, lit only by the screen of your laptop and the pink glow from the fake neon sign Ishani had stuck above the window that read "Not Today, Satan."
Shifa was already asleep, mouth open, earphones in. The fan ticked rhythmically above, fighting the heat and losing.
Srushti was in her usual late-night pose - knees up, hoodie on, one leg under a blanket, and the other swinging off the bed like it couldn't decide what temperature it wanted.
The match report was almost done.
Media impact: high.
Engagement: insane.
Best-performing clip: the six in the third over.
Worst-performing: a zoom-in of his half-buttoned collar that caused a 400-comment argument about skincare routines.
She was mid-paragraph when her phone buzzed on the pillow beside her.
Voice note.
From: Abhay Sharma
Time: 11:52 PM
Duration: 00:21
You paused.
No context.
No text before or after.
Just that soft orange wave of a voice memo.
You stared at it for a solid ten seconds before you hit play.
"Uhh... just saw the draft deck you sent. Looks solid overall. Maybe edit the intro-thoda zyada formal lag raha hai. Baaki sab sahi hai. Thanks, Srushti." (It looks a bit too formal. Everything else is fine)
Your name.
Not clipped.
Not rushed.
Soft, rounded.
Like it fell out of his mouth naturally. Like he said it more than he should've in his head before hitting send.
You swallowed.
Played it again.
Not because you forgot what he said.
But because you wanted to hear how he said it.
There was something different in his voice at night. Less guarded. More air in it. More... texture.
You shouldn't have noticed that.
You definitely shouldn't have liked it.
You hit play one last time, this time with your eyes closed.
Then saved the voice note.
Not in a folder.
Just in your head.
On loop.
For no reason.
Of course.
............................................................
So guys, what do you think about it?
What's your favourite vacation - beaches 🏖️ or hill station 🚞? Mine is definitely beaches ✨🫠