Heart's A Mess- Chapter Four

CHAPTER FOUR

Khushi read the note again and took a sip of the coffee that actually turned out to be a vanilla chai late.

Her favourite.

How did he know? Come to think of it…how did he know what desk was mine? It suddenly dawned upon Khushi that Mr. Raizada had come all the way to the hospital just to ask her for dinner. Why did he want to go out on a date with her so bad? Surely the self proclaimed business tycoon had a line of women begging to go out on a date with him. Then why her?

Arnav…so that was his name. A smile crept its way on to her face. The name suited him. Arnav Raizada.

She heard a collective sigh behind her. Khushi sat down in her favourite swivel chair and took another leisurely sip as she swung the chair around to face the offending party. Raising her eyebrows she began her interrogation…

“All right so which one of you told him that this was my desk? Damn this is really hitting the spot” she purred in appreciation of the beverage.

Jahnvi looked around guility as she raised her hand. “In my defense he was very good looking AND I didn’t say anything…I just pointed” she mumbled, her voice trailing off. The others laughed at her. “It was hard to think around him! He smiled!” she whined, stomping her foot.

Khushi shook her head grinning at her friends. “So I suppose it was Shagun who told him my drink of choice?”

Shagun who was pretending to flip through a patient file, nonchalantly shrugged her shoulders and said “A girls got to do, what a girls got to do.”

Turning to Meg...Khushi simply stared until she squirmed and blurted out the truth. “Imayhavetoldhimyouweren’toncalltonightsoyouweretotallyfreefordinner” she said in all in a mumble.

Khushi cleared her throat and waited for her to repeat herself. Meg took a step back to protect herself from Khushi’s wrath…

“I may have told him you weren’t on call tonight so you were totally free for dinner” she squeezed her eyes as a pen came flying in her direction.

“What!” Khushi groaned as her head hit the desk. Why have enemies when she had friends like these.

“Hey don’t blame Meg. You need a date woman!” Shagun put the file down and picked up her cup of coffee.

“What’s up with people calling me woman today…” Khushi grumbled irritatedly.

Shagun spat out the coffee she was drinking… “He called you woman?”

“Plus he’s REALLY hot!” Jahnvi said distractedly to herself, missing the entire exchange between the two.

Dr. Parker walked by and leaned over the counter at the nurses station… “Meg got my patient files for today?”

“All ready Matt!” she said beaming, handing him the stack of charts.

“Thanks beautiful.” He winked at her.

Khushi rolled her eyes at their lovesick behavior. Seriously one of them needed to man-up and ask the other out on a date. Meg had been in love with Matt Parker since the second she had seen him. With tight brown curls and big doe brown eyes, he didn’t have the most striking of features but he held himself with a certain bad boy confidence that women couldn’t seem to resist…except Khushi.

“Heard you have a hot date tonight Gupta.” Parker teased.

Khushi spun around wide eyed and glared at Meg. “Does the whole HOSPITAL know!” she hissed.

Meg shrugged… “You know how it is around here. You can’t just expect a handsome mysterious stranger to turn up and ask about you and there NOT to be talk.”

“Come on ladies, gossip session is over. Gupta you joining me or are you too busy mooning over lover boy to do ward rounds?” Matt gave one last nod in Meg’s direction and picked up the files.

“Shut it Matt. I’m coming.” Khushi hauled herself up from her chair and gave an icy glare to the nurses.

“Ooooh if looks could kill Jahnvi…” Shagun laughed.

Jahnvi leaned over the counter, to make her head visible to Khushi as she disappeared down the corridor.

“Just say yes!”

Khushi very politely stuck her middle finger in the air, not bothering to look back. The hyena like cackling from behind her told her that they had acknowledged her answer.

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It was 1.30 in the afternoon and Khushi sat in the corner office, with her mozzarella and pesto sandwich, hiding from the rest of the hospital; buried under a mountain of paper work that she had diligently neglected for the past week. Today had seemed like the best time to catch up with it since wherever she went people kept teasing her about her so called date. They spoke as if she had already said yes! Technically speaking it wasn’t even a date. It was dinner. He had specifically said dinner. 

There was no mention of a ‘date’.

Stretching her hands upward, she twisted her torso, trying to get rid of the tension in the small of her back. She desperately needed a holiday.

There was a knock at the door.

“Are you Dr. Gupta? I was told I could find you here.” A delivery boy enquired for her.

“Yep. That’s me.”

“I had a delivery for you. I’ve left it on your desk. Could you just sign here for me?”

Khushi took the stylus from him and scribbled something that vaguely resembled a signature onto the screen. The man tipped his hat upward… “Have a good day maam.” The gesture made her smile, she thought old school gentilities had died out a long time ago.

At her desk was a bouquet of the most beautiful pink peonies. The smile on her face, lit up the room and her eyes became misty; the tiredness of the day melting away. It had always been a dream of hers to receive flowers as a gift. There hadn’t been anyone in her life before who wanted to buy her flowers. Rushing to pick up the bouquet, she saw a note attached.

So…I haven’t heard a yes. But it’s not a no either.

Perhaps these will seal the deal?

Pick you up at eight?

Arnav

P.S With a name like Khushi you should smile more. Hope the flowers did the trick.

“Before you ask…I didn’t tell him you liked flowers. That was all him.” Jahnvi said chewing on the end of her pen and not looking at Khushi. She could see that Khushi was slowly loosing the battle in her mind. Giving up on writing patient obs, she turned to her friend.

“Khush, give the poor guy a chance. Actually forget him! Give yourself a chance…at happiness. What’s the worse that can happen…he turns out to be schmuck? Old news. Or he could be the guy you’ve been waiting for and you could get married, have lots of babies and live happily ever after.”

Khushi scoffed.

“Don’t tell me that you don’t want that. I know you do. Behind your tough exterior is a die hard romantic which is why you melted at the sight of those flowers.”

“Nurse Mehra can I have a hand in here?” an intern shouted out for help from a patient’s room.

Jahnvi grabbed Khushi’s shoulder and placed a quick kiss on her cheek. “Seriously if it gets too bad just message me an S.O.S and I’ll get you out of there. And hey, look at it this way…it’s a free dinner.” With that declaration made she went to help the struggling intern but not before running back and thrusting a paper in her hand. “Oh…I googled him.”

“You googled him?”

“We’re past judgement in our friendship remember?”

Khushi rolled her eyes and pushed her out into the corridor.

Free dinner. That did sound good. She looked down at the paper..

Arnav Singh Raizada born 22^nd August 1984, is a well known business magnate…

Arnav Singh Raizada, now there was name that carried some weight. Khushi didn’t read the rest. It was too weird. Shredding the paper she thought back to what Jahnvi had said. Screw it! She’d go to dinner…if only to thank him for the flowers and the plane ride. Seemed like a fair deal.

Oh who was she kidding!

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Arnav felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. Taking it out of his pocket he read the message from an unknown number…

8pm, outside the main entrance of the hospital.

Khushi.

He mentally high fived himself. He had a date!

Aman looked at his boss curiously. “What’s got you so happy?”

Arnav shrugged non-commitally. “I’m going to see a doctor tonight.”

Aman narrowed his eyes… “A doctor or the doctor?”

Arnav looked at him slyly and then let out a boyish grin. “God. I can’t hide anything from you!”

His right hand man grinned and slapped him on the shoulder. “Good for you! Where are you taking her?”

“Dinner and dancing.”

“Dancing? Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

Arnav pretended to look around Aman as if had lost something.

Aman rolled his eyes. “What are you looking for?” he asked annoyed by the antics.

“Oh nothing, I just swear I heard Di’s voice coming from your mouth. I was just checking if we accidentally brought her along.”

Aman smirked. “Keep my wife out of this, Sir.”

Arnav folded his hands across his chest. “Well then stop acting like her…jeejaji! Seriously stop calling me Sir...its creepy.”

“I do it because it annoys you. By the way its also creepy when you call me jeejaji. I knew you first. And I’m serious you need to be taking it easy.”

Arnav waved his concerns away. “I’m going dancing and that’s that!”

He looked out the window at the Cleveland skyline. Get ready Khushi Gupta…I’m going to sweep you off your feet!

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HAPPY NEW YEAR! That’s all for now! Thankyou’s with the next update. Let me know what you thought. Xoxoxo I love you all. Again the more comments and likes there are the more motivated I am to update!