‘You’re gonna help me or what’ she said pointing at the food she was working on .
Abhi shrugged and got up, anything to keep his mind to what his princess was doing in the bathroom right now .
Not that the cutting of vegetables helped, or the endless babbling of Bulbul, or the fact that the princess forgot to take clean clothes to the bathroom in her haste to take a shower, and now was crossing the room in nothing but a small with towel. Nope, that didn’t help at all .
Before Pragya had finished getting dressed Abhi heard a knocking at the door .
‘You open it ,my hands are dirty’ Bulbul said while holding her hands up covered in goo and trying to put them in his face .
‘Get those away from me!’ he warned her and almost run towards the door .
Ranveer, Raman and Robin had decided to car poll together and thus showed up all at the same time .
‘YO Abhi’ Robin said and went in for a bro hug .
‘No way in hell’ Raman said while he just ignored Abhi altogether and walked in to the room ‘you do know that you house has immediately been degraded to the second best house of our group’
Abhi just smirked at Raman and let the other two boys in to the room as well.
‘Yes, I’m sorry Abhi’ Ranveer agreed with Raman, ‘this is totally gunna be our new hang out spot.’
‘Well if Pragya agrees with it’ Bulbul giggled
‘If I agree with what?’ Pragya asked stepping out of her room, she looked freaking awesome in a small white summer dress, and a lose light grey vest over it, making it look so casual. She was the purest thing he had ever seen Abhi thought to himself.
‘O the boys like out house, because, you know, who doesn’t, and they want to make it their own hang out spot’ Bulbul answered.
‘Hah’ Pragya laughed at the boys who hadn’t uttered a single word since she had entered the room ‘sure, you know, at the moments that I want them gone I’ll just look very mean in their direction, until they get the message and leave, you know, the way I’ll be looking in Abhi’s direction all the time’
‘Hey’ Pragya went on, now looking at the boys ‘I’m Pragya. Arora’ she said.
‘Wow’ Ranveer said staring at Pragya.
‘Yes you are Hot’ Raman went on.
‘Do you want to be our roommate?’ Raman asked.
‘My god guys’ Abhi snapped annoyed ‘Pragya, these morons are, Raman, Ranveer and Robin’ he said while pointing at the boys while introduction them.
‘Hey’ Robin said indignantly ‘why am I a moron! I didn’t even say anything!’
‘You stared dude’ Abhi said while pushing Robin.
‘Idiot’ Robin laughed and hit Abhi’s arm.
‘Finally’ Pragya smiled ‘ somebody who agrees with me.
It was about an hour later before everybody had finally arrived, the living room looked suddenly small with all the people inside, Raman, Ishani, robin and Aliya, where sitting on the couch. Aliya still scared Bellamy a bit, the kickboxing champion had once challenged him for a duel. Needless to say, Abhi lost the match had walked around with a limp for days. On the floor where Rithik, Ranveer, Tanu her new boyfriend Nikil – who was a complete Idiot, but Tanu seemed to be in love, Romi and Mihika. Rinki and Mihika where both exes of Abhi, but at some point they both decided to like Bulbul actually better then him, and stopped sleeping with him to become friends with his sister, he didn’t feel insulted, not at all. And he absolutely loved that they had both joined their group. Or so he made Bulbul think.
Pragya and Bulbul had both taken their pillows to sit on them while they let Abhi play the Host. Bulbul was braiding Pragyas hair in an incredibly complicated looking patter while the group was interrogating her, and happily munching on whatever food Abhi gave to them. Pragya looked incredibly uncomfortable.
‘So you are Pragya Arora, you are 20, you are an art major, and you are originally from Chennai.’ Tanu Stated
Pragya actually looked a bit panicked when she answered ‘ yes’ obviously trying to make her voice steadier than it actually was. But the rest of the group didn’t seem to notice.
‘Have you traveled much? You look like you did’ Raman asked
Pragya just nodded no and looked to the ground.
‘Sit still’ Bulbul said, pulling at Pragya’s hair. It looked painful, but Pragya didn’t seem to mind.
‘But do you want to?’ Raman pressed on ‘you know, to get more inspiration for your art?’
‘I uuh , no, I mean I can’t’ Pragya stammered ‘I can’t fly, I can’t, I’m really claustrophobic, can’t do trains either, so you know, that keeps me from going to far.’
‘So how are you planning on seeing your parents during the holidays? I mean doesn’t it take like, days to drive from here to Chennai?’ Nikil asked
‘Yes’ Pragya said, sorrow filling her voice making a chill creep up to Abhi’s back.
‘It takes about 3 days, if you don’t drive in the night, but my parents are both dead, so you know, no reason for me to go back there.’
Nikil nodded ‘ no siblings either? He pressed on
‘No’ Pragya actually looked small under the questioning eyes of the group.
Abhi secretly really wanted to hear her story as well, but he saw that she really didn’t want to share it.
‘How about friends, if you have lived there you entire life you must have some friends you would want to keep in contact with ‘ Nikil went on.
Nikil was annoying the hell out of Abhi by setting his princess on the spotlight like this, he had lost is parents as well, and he wouldn’t want to talk about it either with a group of practically strangers. But Tanu’s lover boy didn’t seem to understand. It looked like he had about as much respect for privacy as Bulbul did. If not even less.
‘NIKIL’ he sighted out loud.
Suddenly everybody was looking at him. Shit. More importantly, he saw Pragya looking at him with so much hope for a change of subject. He needed to do something.
‘I was Bored with the interview’ Abhi said ‘Princess over here really isn’t that interesting, has somebody already decided on a movie?’
‘YES, Finally’ Rithik jumped up, ‘we are gonna watch the Lego movie, it is totally awesome’
Immediately Rinki and Mhika started humming the ‘Everything is awesome’ tune, making fun of Rithik. Laughing the entire group joined it. And it didn’t take long before Raman jumped on the couch and started serenading the song on the top of his lungs towards Bulbul.
Abhi looked at pragya, she was staring at him, and when she saw him looking she silently thanked him with her eyes, he just nodded, and walked away to grab a beer from the fridge.