Chapter 17

Manik's voice was still low but steady. "I don't want to know the sexed version, the..." he glanced down at the bedspread as he grasped for words. "...editorialized version." His eyes pulled her in with a question, trapped her with something else. Something that burned darker.

"You want me to tell you how to be awesome at sex?" Nandani found her voice but the words came out slowly as if she was talking to a five-year-old.

He nodded, eyes locked on her. They seemed to hold a question and a challenge.

"What makes it good? What do girls want?" Manik continued, his engineer's brain trying to analyze, while her brain was fast-tracking toward a darker place.

Nandani shrugged but he refused to let her off the hook.

"What would you want?" he asked her.

Nandani swallowed. She could not match Manik's supreme casualness, she feared he would think that she was hung up on him somehow?

"Can't you just watch porn or something?" she asked him.

"No. It will not be the same." His answer was immediate and dismissive.

She glanced down, willing herself to respond. When she looked back up, his eyes were running over her face like he was looking for something.

Just then, the fight in her started to give up. "Manik I cannot talk to you about this." She got off the bed to stand up.

"Why? Because it is hard to describe?" His mouth turned up at the corner in something not quite a smile. "You could just show me. I am more of an experimental learner anyway."

Then the image of some girl and Manik was gone and was replaced by herself and Manik. The images flashed across her brain with breathtaking intensity.

This was more than she could take. She had skipped out on her preplanned study session to respond to a supposed emergency as per Ryan and had now landed in this situation. She was feeling foolish all over again, though she had convinced herself she had everything under control.

The color of his eyes deepened. She could not tell if it was self-mocking or something else.

"What? Come on Nandani, you said it yourself. We are friends. Nothing here." Manik mimicked her gesture from that night, when she was given her surprise birthday party, by her friends.

His eyes were blank for a very long time. Then as if he had changed his mind about something, he shrugged and collapsed back on the bed, folding his hand behind his head. He took an inspection of the ceiling, brows furrowed as if he was trying to figure out what to do next. For a long time, it was that way, as if Nandani didn't exist.

She needed that moment. This guy was scrambling her brain. This was what she had decided to avoid this year. Well, she would end it now.

"I am sorry you are having girl problems. But you will work them out. I need to be somewhere else right now," she said to Manik.

He opened his mouth to say something, stopped when she held up a hand. As she walked down the stairs and out to her car without a backward glance, she knew that whatever the hell had just happened, she needed less Manik Malhotra in her head.

**********************

Her midterms were coming up in a couple of weeks, which meant she was pretty much on lockdown. She also had an excuse not to talk to Manik for days together.

Not that she was avoiding him exactly. She just was not sure what to do about him. They had just become friends. And he would not stay in the damn place, which was more of Nandani's fault than his. Also, he could not be anything else, because of the pact between Mukti and herself to not get involved in boys, and well he was her brother, and she would lose it if she even thought about going that far.

Still, their unusual encounter the other night kept replaying in her mind. She managed to avoid Manik. But when he stopped by on Friday morning to give Mukti a ride to school. She had no desire to ride with them, so she feigned a need to give extra study hours at the library starting at seven most mornings and caught the first bus instead. In between, he had texted her a few times though.

We missed you today. I know you are lazy to walk to school.

Then again on Thursday...

Something wrong?

Nandani wanted to tell him that she was fine. She only had three dreams in the last week where the guy had dark hair and muscular arms like him.

But she finally responded.

Everything is good...just been studying. Catch up after midterms.

It was at least partly true. Avoiding Manik had resulted in her getting in some serious time at the library. She and Alya spent half a day just quizzing each other on finance. Also, she had three other tests in the coming week, and she needed to do well because she was counting on focusing more on her business plan in November and would not be able to manage the failing grades.

So, most nights she went directly from class to the library to study alone or with some classmates. Mukti had two papers due though Nandani had yet to see her read her book, and she started complaining that Nandani never came home anymore. Nandani stood firm despite Mukti's insistence that they did not have any girl time in weeks.

Realizing that she would not be able to bust Nandani out, she smuggled contraband into the library study room one night.

"How can you not have midterms?" Nandani said to Mukti, while her mouth was full of the Cheese pizza that Mukti had smuggled in. "Oh my God. This is so good, Mukti. You are the best friend ever."

"I know. And to answer your question, the fashion program does not believe in the traditional form of evaluation," Mukti said airily. "I am pretty sure no great designer wasted her time on MCQs." Nandani would normally make a dig at this, but she was so relieved to see Mukti and her cheese pizza, that she let it slide.

Nandani said that they did not have any MCQs and had to write actual answers. Like grown-ups. She then asked Mukti, "Don't you'll get evaluated on anything?'

"Of course. Not that it matters what our grades are. It is all about what people outside the school think about your clothes. This year by invitation, ten students have been asked to put three outfits each into the fall fashion show in November," Mukti shared.

The fall show was co-sponsored by the college but headlined by actual, working designers. They were going to present the designs in front of the San Francisco crowd which could give them great feedback and profile.

Mukti looked suspiciously like she was trying to keep something to herself, but she could not do that for long.

"...and? You are killing me here, with your suspense," Nandani said.

Mukti wiggled her perfectly plucked eyebrows, her eyes dancing with excitement. "And...we are in! Can you believe it?"