“Kirti didi waiting for you?” He hissed back to the 6 foot 3 bodyguard who acted like he owned him. Harsh’s hand raised again and Samarth scrambled up to escape it. He climbed quickly then, reaching the window in time for Ava to pounce on it.

“Fuckk…” he reeled back but she caught his T-shirt in time to keep him from falling. “You’ll kill me!”

“Not yet,” she grinned. “Hi.”

“This is not right, Ava…”

“It’s not?” She wiggled her eyebrows.

“I’ll go back now, let these people stay…”

Ava leaned in and pecked his cheek. Samarth froze.

“Bye then,” she booped his nose and Samarth, with no recollection of any thought leading him inside her dorm room, found himself swinging his leg and jumping in.

“Hey! Welcome to the party!” Kresha came spinning behind, Gopi’s arm slung around her. “Two rules — keep your voices down and eat what’s available.”

“What do you mean what’s available?” Gopi deadpanned. “Didn’t you say you are ordering pizza from the Tolstoy Cafe downtown?”

“Yeah… Kirti didi could not go.”

“Why Kirti didi…” Gopi threw his head back.

“But we made Chinese on our convection,” Ava pointed.

That’s when Samarth roved his eyes around the dorm room.

It was a neat, pretty place. Two single beds, crisp clean cream bedding and pink, orange and purple pillows.

Lots of pillows. Two study tables. And a long pantry that was now littered and cluttered with food packets and sauce bottles and vegetable peels on the platform.

“You cook?” Samarth whispered to Ava.

“Ok, Kirti didi did the chopping and mixing. We just added the sauces. But yeah, we cooked. Princesses of Gwalior can do everything.”

“We’ll see that soon,” Gopi joked and got elbowed by his girlfriend.

“Come on, it’s hot, let’s eat,” Kirti didi walked into the panty to bring the pots and was instantly followed by Harsh. The four of them noticed it all at once, shared the exact same smirk, and decided to stay out of it.

“Not on the bed, Gopi,” Kresha pulled him by the arm and nudged him on their floor. For a hoity princess, she sat down beside him cross-legged.

“You’ll push me to the floor too?” He asked Ava.

“If you don’t go on your own.”

Just for fun, he began to lower himself on the edge of her bed when she rammed into him. He laughed, stumbling and rolling halfway across the floor, tangled with her.

“Oookay,” Kirti didi warned, a pot of rice in hand. And they sat up.

Within minutes they were gathered in a round circle as if worshipping a cult.

Or enjoying a Gujarati meal the old-school way, with pots of food settled in between them and paper plates and styrofoam cups ready.

There was fried rice, a very brown-looking angry hakka noodles and a gravy that the girls called paneer-chilly but Samarth wasn’t too sure the white pieces were paneer.

There was a 2-litre bottle of Coke though.

Plates were filled, forks were passed around, and they dug in. It wasn’t the best food he had eaten, but the white pieces were indeed paneer and did taste better than the other two delicacies on the menu. Samarth did not comment, even when Gopi made jokes about the limp noodles noodling too hard.

“Do you like it?” Ava asked, biting her lip. She looked mildly nervous. “I know we said pizza but Kirti didi couldn’t leave for the market…”

“Ava,” Samarth stopped her. “It is good, very good.”

“You are lying. It’s not good, even I didn’t like it so much,” she complained, twirling her fork in the limp noodles and closing her mouth grudgingly around them.

“Is this your first time cooking?”

She nodded solemnly. “Except Maggie and cold coffee we don’t make anything here.”

Samarth smiled — “You, Kumari of Gwalior, made this food, invited us, are sitting down in this small space in your dorm room feeding us… trust me, Ava — this is better than good. You haven’t seen what other princesses do.”

Her eyes narrowed — “And you know what they do?”

“I do,” he murmured in her ear. Then pulled back, giving a dramatic pause. “And I don’t like it.”

“How many princesses have you known in your life, Samarth?” She poked.

“Met many, known only one.”

That gulp, those ruddy pimples burning redder, the tiny mouth pushing open. Samarth wanted to pump the air. The joys of finally being able to do this to her. The joys of being fed by a princess like her. The joy of sitting beside her.

“Alright, we cooked, you will clean. And then there’s a surprise,” Kresha announced.

“No, no, no.” Samarth looked at Ava. “We are leaving.”

“You can’t leave before cleaning.” Ava leaned back on the base of her bed and laid her head back. Samarth sighed, picking up her plate, piling it over his and reaching for Kirti didi’s who was next to him. She held onto it — “No, I’ll take it.”

“Leave it, Kirti didi.”

“It’s alright. You are a Rajkumar…”

“I am Samarth,” he smiled.

The room quietened. In that momentary silence, he slipped the plate out of her hand and rose to his feet.

Together, the three of them managed to throw the plates, wash the utensils and clean the platform.

When they emerged, the room’s lights were dimmed to some soft mood lighting.

It looked like a proper princess room with the night lamp on.

The girls were still on the floor, their ‘dining space’ cleaned up.

“Ok,” Ava pulled him by the hand just as the others settled around, taking pillows for support, leaning on the wall, cosying up in case of Kresha and Gopi.

Ava passed out AirPods, one for each of them.

And then she hit play on her phone. A. P.

Dhillon began to sing in Punjabi on the same usual beat.

“Change!” Gopi tapped his AirPod.

“I have the control and we are sharing playlists. This is mine. Next up is…” Ava went around. “Kirti didi!”

Samarth sat back, leaning against the base of her bed, and Ava came and burrowed beside him, their arms touching, her body moving from time to time to the beats. Then it was Kirti didi’s turn and surprise of all surprises! She selected Taylor Swift. August.

“Ready to go home now, Samarth?” Ava’s jaw nudged his bicep.

“I’m staying,” he answered.

“For the music?” She grinned.

“For the company.”

————————————————————

“Now listen to this, listen to this,” he scrolled down his phone and hit play. Ava pushed her half of the AirPod tighter inside her ear, burrowing closer to his shoulder so that he had to lower it enough for her to lay her head on.

The sun was going down behind them. The birds were flying over their heads, crossing the mild blue sky.

They sat with their backs to the fence behind the stables, having finished their respective practises.

He had gone to her cricket practise after his, waited until she was done, then brought her back here to steal a few moments before curfew time.

This had become their spot. The place where they would sometimes talk nonstop and on others stand quietly, her head on his bicep. Or, randomly, share music with one AirPod in each of their ears. Like today.

Nagar Nandji na Lal… raas ramanta maari nathani khovani… Aditya Gadhvi’s rich voice reverberated with the sweetest lost-and-found complaint he had ever heard. The words, the dialect of his North Gujarat, it made him want to stand up and sway.

“What does it mean?” Ava asked.

“It was written as a love song about Krishna by Narsee Mehta, but it’s actually calling him a thief,” Samarth smirked. “Radha is sounding the alarm that she lost her nath while dancing. She is asking him if he has found it fallen somewhere. She addresses him as Nandji’s little boy.”

Ava nuzzled his bicep — “Should I guess why you like that.”

He popped his bicep playfully. “Nothing like that.”

“If you say so. You are a Papa’s boy though, through and through.”

He tried to hide his pride in that observation. He was a Papa’s boy indeed.

Nani evi nathni ne maaye jadyache hira… Aditya Gadhvi sang.

“What is he saying now?” Ava asked.

“She is describing her nath — it is small, studded with diamonds. She is asking him to return it if he found it somewhere.”

“That’s not calling him a thief!”

“Oh wait for the climax.”

Ava’s mouth compressed, but she remained quiet, listening to the song patiently. He had come to adore this side of her, the one that turned patient at the right moment.

Vrundavan ni kunj gali maa bole jheena mor… Radhaji ni nathni no Shyamalo che chor!

Samarth chuckled.

“What?”

“The parrots and the peacocks start to sing — Krishna stole her nath.”

Ava snorted.

“Tattletales,” she mused. “But that world must be so cute. A world of friends and animals and birds and nothing but fun.”

“We are living in a world like that right now.”

She blinked. Then shrugged with her sunshine smile — “If you discount the exams and Ms. Shanaya’s rules then I could agree.”

“We still do this despite her rules, no?”

He grabbed her hand and caressed her smooth knuckles.

“I love this, Samarth,” Ava turned to him and sat up, crossing her legs. Samarth mirrored that gesture, sitting cross-legged in front of her.

“I love this too. It’s been two months and I am not boring you.”

She chuckled.

“You might sometimes…” he teased and let out a bellow when she bodily pounced on him.

He fell back on the grass, laughing, Ava’s tiny body over his.

Her face came over his, the hair escaping her ponytail falling on either side of her face.

Samarth reached out and tucked it back behind both her ears, cupping her face.

His thumbs rested on the base of her cheeks, moving back and forth, registering the feel of her skin on his thumbs.

Ava moved over him, her face closing in. Samarth’s breath caught. His mouth opened. What were they doing? Were they doing this? Or was he imagining it?

“Av…” he couldn’t even complete the two syllables of her name as her big blinking eyes, looking as clueless as he was feeling, came closer. Samarth opened his mouth again to ask her if she knew what she was doing. But she beat him to it.

“Yes?” She asked.

He stilled, awed. This girl was asking him for his consent?

“Yes,” Samarth grated, his throat dried up. He cleared his throat — “But I haven’t done this before.”

“Neither have I. I don’t know how…” she gulped, her eyes straying to his mouth.

“Let’s practise,” he managed to utter before her mouth was on his, closed tight, pushing on his lips. He kept holding onto her jaw with both his hands, caressing her, reassuring her, letting her do as she willed. But she pulled back slowly.

“What happened?”

“You are supposed to kiss me back,” Ava accused.

“I am,” he smirked.

“Not like this!” She got off him and sat up on her haunches, hands on her hips. “You are supposed to grab me or something and show me how it’s done!”

He got up on his haunches too but she was so tiny that he chose to get back on his backside and cross his legs — “But this is my first time too.”

“Uuughhh!” She slapped her hands on the grass to push herself up. “Let’s do it some other time!”

Samarth grabbed her arm, pulled her in his lap and kissed her full on the mouth.

Her lips in his. Her belly shuddered against his as he pulled her flush, cupping her face in both hands again.

Her arms came around his neck and he realised he was doing something right.

That is when Samarth threw caution to the winds and let himself loose.

He brought to practise all the he had ever seen and read and heard.

He pushed one hand into her bound ponytail and slowly let his tongue lave the edge of her lips. They tasted of mint. Peppermint. And were smooth, soft, like a juicy ice apple in the thick of summer.

“Oooh…” Ava’s breasts shuddered, pushing tighter into his chest.

“Open, Ava,” he demanded. And like he had once commanded her to use a walking stick and she had obeyed, she opened her mouth today as well and obeyed.

“Umm…” she made a strangled noise but her fingers fisted his hair as he pressed his tongue inside her mouth. He licked, slowly, and then when he knew how pleasurable it was for her, and him of course, Samarth grabbed her around the ribcage with both hands and went all in.

She responded, letting him kiss her, creating something new between them, letting her tongue meet his, then retreat.

Samarth pulled back, kissing the corner of her mouth.

He let her catch her breath, took a few of his own and went back.

Like two divers, they kept coming up for air and going back, having discovered something so pleasurable and addictive he wondered how he had lived with Ava without kissing her all these years!

“Why did I waste it…” he panted on her mouth, eyes closed.

“What?”

“The time. I could have been kissing you like this long back.”

“We were in 7th when we met first,” she chuckled, panting, her sweet breaths warm on his cheek.

“And people were getting cosy then too…” he complained. Now he knew what Advay and gang were doing in the back trenches. He didn’t want this with anybody else but if it was like this at the get-go, he didn’t want to imagine how good it would become as they grew older.

“I like this,” she asserted, pushing her face back from his. His eyes popped open. Samarth frowned.

“You just said you love this ten minutes ago.”

“I mean I like how we built up to this. You are my best friend, Samarth. You are the person I go to. For anything and everything. I don’t like showing it to you all the time but you know naa that I always want to be with you.

I missed you on all my vacations. I miss talking to you every day in class now.

I miss you in my cricket practises too…”

Samarth smoothened his hands down her ponytail and framed her delicate face in his hands — “It’s the same for me too.”

Her soft confession passed, and his naughty Ava pecked his lips, then his nose, then went ahead exploring his face with her pecks like a little bird. Samarth sat back and let her, enjoying every single moment of it.

“What do those backbenchers call this phase… bombing, right?” He asked between her kisses.

“Love bombing,” Ava clarified, busy kissing his cheek which was slowly turning darker with some hair growth. “Showering a new partner with excessive attention, gifts and time.”

Samarth pulled her head back — “ Alright , we are not new. We are only .”

“Hmm,” her mouth stretched.

“And I don’t know how to get gifts you’ll like yet but in time I will. But my time is yours. As you can see.”

“And kisses,” she demanded.

“Oh, I am a Gujarati, Ava. I’ve kept count of the number of kisses you gave me. Get ready for me to pay my debt.”

Her mouth dropped open. Before she could open her mouth, he grabbed her ponytail, got on his haunches and smacked his mouth down on hers.