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Before she could tense her arm again in resistance he gently took it up to Cherry and held their palms out. In a millisecond the apple slice disappeared and Cherry was happily chomping on it, moving his head from side to side.

Astonished laughter vibrated against his chest — “He didn’t bite!”

“I told you he knows you.”

Her wide eyes turned up to his and Samarth saw for the first time that they weren’t the usual black that normal human eyes were. They had a brown ring. Her eyes were brown, and looked even lighter when the sun hit them, like right now, streaming in a single beam down the crack in the roof.

“One more?” He asked.

She looked hesitant. He didn’t push. Her head turned back to Cherry, who was dancing on all four legs now, his head grooving from side to side. Ava chuckled.

“Ok, only one more,” she agreed.

Samarth did not wait. He grabbed the remaining two quarters and reached for the industrial-sized jar of peanut butter. He dipped the apple in the jar and set it on Ava’s palm.

“Peanut butter?”

“He will love you now.”

This time, he didn’t have to hold her palm. Even though she pushed her body away and winced with one eye closed, Ava bravely held up the peanut butter-coated apple slice to Cherry and he gobbled it up, the crunch a happy echo in the stables.

His feet began to trot again and Ava jumped up and down — “Ohmygod! Ohmygod! Ohmygod! Hi,” she cooed to Cherry. In response, his horse neighed.

“Hi,” her voice softened, and Samarth had to lean down to again see her expression. It was that soft one she used to look at him. And he unreasonably felt jealous of his horse.

“One more,” she demanded.

“Last one,” Samarth handed her the last quarter coated in peanut butter. “If Coach finds out I have been feeding him treats before practise then I am dead meat.”

This time Ava did not stretch away. She carefully stepped closer and held her hand up. Cherry ate it up. It was his Diwali today — a pretty girl and apples with peanut butter. He neighed, pushing his face close to her. Ava shrunk back.

“Nothing,” Samarth laughed, holding her close to his chest. “He wants you to caress him. See? Like this. Between the eyes.”

He finished a few long caresses between his eyes then scratched his jaw, patting him behind the ear in that exact tap of rhythm he liked. Cherry was a happy boy today.

“I think this is enough…” she said hesitantly.

“If you are making him a friend, make him your friend for a lifetime. Come,” Samarth held her small hand and used it to caress Cherry’s head.

“It’s so soft…” she murmured.

“It’s also fun brushing his coat until it shines.”

“Oh…kay,” she chuckled. “One step at a time.”

“Done,” Samarth declared, glancing into her eyes that turned up to stare at his. Something stopped. Maybe it was the wind. Or the sounds around him. Ava’s eyes remained unblinking, staring at him, just as his remained on hers. What was this? Why was this so… good ?

Cherry let out a piercing neigh and they startled back. The neigh was so loud that it set off the neighs of his other horses from the nearby stalls.

Samarth quickly moved away, patting away in a line.

“Here, here, I am here! Hi. Here,” he caressed the muzzle of his second horse. “Sujan, I’m going to get you your treat after practise…”

“You won’t practise with him… umm, Cherry?” Ava asked.

“I will,” he gave Sujan a pat and moved to his third horse, meeting the overeager face of his thoroughbred mare — Bella.

“But you just told your other horse you will practise with him…”

“I practise with four horses. We all do. Each one of us has four of our own horses. Mine are Cherry, Sujan, this is Bella,” he patted her neck. “And that one over there is Bodhi.”

“Why do you need four horses?”

“Polo is an exhausting game. One horse can only sustain it for 7-8 minutes at a time. We finish one chukker and switch horses…”

“Chukker?”

“Like a round. One round is called a chukker. We change horses after every round because they do the running. They need to catch their breath,” Samarth smiled up into the black eyes of his fourth and final horse, the youngest of the lot — Bodhi.

He reached out and nuzzled the side of his face, knowing he liked more physical contact.

Samarth loved the physical contact too. But not all his horses enjoyed it as much as Bodhi did.

The stables suddenly fell silent. Except for the occasional neighs and breaths of the horses, he couldn’t hear anything. Not the chatterbox voice of his bench partner… ex-bench partner.

Samarth turned, panicked she had left. But she was still there, right there, rooted to her spot, eyes on him.

Expression softened to that one. His one.

He stilled, letting Bodhi’s face go and turning completely to meet Ava’s unblinking eyes.

And again that thing happened. The wind stopped. Inside as well as outside him.

He stared unblinking at her.

Cherry let out another long whine. Samarth startled.

“He has an attention problem,” he strode down the stalls and reached out to pat him behind his ear. Three taps. “You got your treat before them all, now be quiet,” Samarth whispered in his ear. Cherry moved his head from side to side.

He stepped back to Ava — “Come.”

She gave his horses one last look, then turned along with him, walking by his side as he entered the tack room to grab his helmet. This room was darker than the rest and he had to squint to find the chair where he had left the helmet this morning. The windows were now shut.

“What are you doing?”

“My helmet is here somewhere…” he groped on all flat surfaces.

“This?” Her dark figure held it up.

“Yes!” He strode to her and she took quick steps back until they were back in the stables, under the bright shafts of light piercing through the many tiny windows and cracks of the roof.

Samarth began to reach for his helmet when she unbuckled the strap and held it up to his head.

As if on its own accord, his head ducked to let her set it.

Samarth remained bent as she pushed it snugly atop his head, then he straightened to let her clip the buckle under his chin.

“It smells here,” she wrinkled her nose. Adorably. Like some Disney princess. Samarth laughed, checking the buckle under his chin — “Horses live here, what did you expect, Ava?”

“No, it smells more now…”

Samarth eyed Bodhi’s head moving up and down, his signal for a dump. He curbed his smirk.

“What…” she sniffed again.

“Bodhi is taking a dump.”

Her face screwed — “Yuck!”

“Not done, Ava. How will you become friends with them if you don’t muck out their stalls?”

“ What out their stalls?”

“Muck out,” he pursed his lips. “Take a pitchfork, that one,” he pointed at the long instrument stowed in a corner. “Take it, get inside a stall and pitch all the bedding, hay, manure out. Air the stall for them to come back to after practise.”

“Have you ever done it?”

“Every time since I was seven.”

She leaned forward and sniffed at his neck.

“I don’t believe you. You don’t smell like this,” she accused. “You’ve never smelled like this.”

He nudged her shoulder with his. “I shower first thing after practise.”

She nudged back, hard enough to dent the spot on his sternum.

“Let’s muck out,” he teased.

She rammed harder into him, making him stray to the side.

He bounced back and rammed back into her shoulder as she began striding towards the door.

They went back and forth, pushing each other off trajectory as they stumbled out of the stables and into the brightly lit fields.

All three of his teammates were in different stages of packing up.

“What’s going on?” He hollered.

“Coach postponed practise until 4!” Kush hollered back.

Samarth let out an exhale. He was looking forward to riding Cherry all afternoon.

He could ride him even now. Being on the Saraswati Crest Polo Team gave him the privilege of taking his horse out for practise rides in the day time.

But then his eyes fell on Ava by his side.

And he wanted to do something else all afternoon.

He wouldn’t be able to convince her to ride with him, so he did the next best thing.

“Come on, let me walk you to your dorm.”

“I know the way,” she snorted, but fell in step beside him.

He smiled, reaching for the helmet buckle she had clipped and pressing it open. “So what did you do this summer? Were you in Gwalior all April and May?”

“No!” She jumped in front of him, walking backwards.

“That’s what I was telling you… I was there all April, then we went for a week to my Naniji’s house in Khargone, but Mummy wanted to extend the trip and who am I to say no to another week swinging on the hammock, watering the garden and doing nothing but eating gola for breakfast, lunch and dinner?

I shut off my iPad, left my phone and just vegged out… ”

“Why am I not surprised? You in your Naniji’s house is a different you ,” Samarth lifted his brows, pulling off his helmet and running a hand through his hair. It had gone stiff with sweat even with just a few minutes of wearing the helmet.

“I know, right?!” She grinned, those hidden dimples popping at the corners of her lips. They were so rare, only popped when she smiled a certain way.

“And, then… aaah,” she squealed as he took her arm and made her step away from an anthill. That made her turn again and walk straight beside him.

“Haan… so, and then we came back, stayed at the palace for another week, then went to Paris. Kaka Maharaj missed us kids so Mummy sent us back early and stayed longer to shop. I gave her my list. Phew. What did you do this summer?”

“Papa and I went on a trip to Croatia. But we kept it short because Dada Sarkar was alone at home. For the rest of the summer I was in Nawanagar. Restarted my sword-fighting lessons. Spent the afternoons riding horses, and evenings going to the club with Papa to watch his matches…”

“You learnt sword-fighting?”

“As a kid. Didn’t I ever tell you?”

She pouted, thinking.

“You must have missed it in between all the studies.”

She gave him those mock-cry eyes again, her way of smacking him back.

“Don’t they teach self-defence in Gwalior?”

“Vikram Dada learnt. Kresha learnt too. When it came time for me, I hid,” Ava grinned, those dimples popping again.

“Why?”

“I don’t know… violence and all… I’m too soft for that,” she cocked her head prettily to the side. “All my gundagrdi comes out only on the cricket field. There I can bash you to pulp with my bat.”

“It’s strange I have never seen you bat,” he tried to rib again. “Do they have a height limit?”

“That’s because you never came to any of my matches,” she smacked back. And it hit bullseye. He had never gone for any of her matches.

“Neither have you,” he retorted, because that was also true.

Ava huffed, turning to him with her hands on her waist and realising that they had reached the gate of the girls’ dorm.

They stopped. She looked up, as did he, and realised that this was it.

Even though their campus was smack in the middle of endless rolls of hills and relatively small in comparison to the mountains surrounding them, the girls’ and boys’ dorms were placed as far away as possible on a campus this size.

Samarth never understood why until today.

“So?” He held his helmet to the side of his waist.

“So what? Go.”

“Oh,” he popped, swallowing. “Ok. Bye.”

He turned around but her voice stopped him.

“Hey, Samarth?”

He whirled.

“So what if we can’t talk during the periods? You come to my practise.”

He grinned — “Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, right?”

“Not this Tuesday. We have a match tomorrow.”

“I know. Opening of The Year against Vedanta.”

Her mouth dropped open.

“If you know my match schedule then why don’t you make the effort to come?”

He shrugged.

“Are you coming tomorrow?”

He smiled — “Yes.”

“Cool.”

“Cool.”

“Now go.”

“Oh, yeah… cool…” he walked backwards, unable to take his eyes off her as she stood there at the gate. The sprawling community dorm with its security behind her waited for her. She still stood there.

Samarth ran into a wall of muscle behind him and heard Ava’s laugh. He turned, then sighed.

“Oh, it’s you.”

Harsh nodded, holding the pile of his school uniform that he had forgotten in the tack room.

He made his sign for ‘Where were you.’ Samarth turned to point to Ava but she was already walking away, skipping to her dorm, her skirt swinging in line with her ponytail.

Samarth couldn’t take his eyes off again.

Warm breeze swirled around him and he didn’t sniff the usual hay and dust and horse manure on himself.

He sniffed again, dipping his nose into the open collar of his T-shirt.

He smelled of apples and peanut butter.