“Hey Jeff,” Arnav nodded, extending his hand in greeting. “Thanks for doing this on such short notice.”
“No issues, one of my clients ended up cancelling so this worked out well,” Jeff replied, pulling out his equipment as he spoke. “I know we didn’t have much time to talk but did you have a theme in mind? And who’s the model we’ll be working with?”
“I think you’ll be familiar with her,” Arnav smirked, just as Khushi walked in, talking a mile a minute as was her habit, “Arnavji, what are we doing? Why did you want me to change here of all places? Are you finally taking me out on a date? You know, given how much I heard about your alleged dating abilities I really thought we’d….oh.”
“Khushi?” Jeff asked, surprised. He hadn’t thought she’d turn into a model, given the drama he’d been a witness to the last time she had been made to model, but maybe he had read her wrong.
She recovered from the shock of finding him there quickly enough.
“Jeff Bhaiyya!” she exclaimed, extending her hand out for a hug, and he commended himself for not flinching at that mnemonic. He had admired how smoothly she had done it even as he had been unable to hide the sting of rejection.
“Hi Khushi, how are you?” he replied, stepping back from the warm hug she had extended him. Once he had gotten over himself, he couldn’t help but be touched that she remembered him still. There were people he called friends who didn’t message him and ask after his well-being as often as she somehow managed to.
“I’m great. A bit confused,” at this she redirected her questioning eyes at ASR, “but good.”
“I thought the calendar shoot wasn’t for another month,” Jeff asked, equally as confused.
Arnav smirked, which put Jeff on edge instantly. He had been unnaturally cruel the night of the photoshoot. For all the hype about ASR’s cutthroatedness, Jeff had considered him to be a firm but fair person, and his insistence that Khushi model in Lisa’s place, to the point of driving the woman to tears had surprised and discomfited him. But given how familiar Khushi had sounded a minute ago, he hoped he didn’t have to step in and diffuse the situation again.
The fact that Arnav walked over and held Khushi’s hands in the next moment gave him some answers but only managed to raise many more questions.
“Figured we could finally have our wedding photoshoot, Mrs. Raizada,” he said, in a tone so sweet Jeff had the insane urge to clear his ears lest he heard him incorrectly.
His whispered “What?” was overshadowed by the gasp Khushi let out at this revelation.
“Arnavji, I…you…what?” she continued, much more quietly, and the look in both their eyes made Jeff avert his own gaze. There was something so tender, something so unfiltered about how they were looking at each other that Jeff, despite how bewildered he felt at the moment, was left wishing he could capture that moment, freeze it in time.
“I’m going to go setup,” he said, and it could have been announced to an empty room for all the attention the two were paying to anyone that wasn’t the other person.
Looks like he had missed one hell of a development during his Europe trip.
—–
“Arnavji! We received something from Jeff Bhaiyya!” Khushi exclaimed, walking into the room as she waved an envelope in her hand.
“Jeff?” Arnav asked, half closing his laptop to focus on his wife. “I thought he said it’d take him a while yet to get the pictures back from the photoshoot,” something about editing and correcting as if Khushi didn’t look fucking amazing just as she was.
Maybe it’s you, a tiny voice in his mind piped up, which he ignored swiftly.
He had wanted to give the album to her as an anniversary present, but Jeff had ruined those plans spectacularly.
“It must be a return gift,” Khushi said, pulling him out of his thoughts, and he waited for her to expand on her vague statement. With anyone else, he might have needed to ask a follow up question but he knew she would tell him the whole story without any prompting. “It was his birthday last week, na. So I sent him a card and Lucknowi camera strap. He must have sent me a letter back.”
“You know his birthday?” Arnav asked, confused. “Wait, you have his address?”
“Haan, he gave me his number right after the photoshoot,” Khushi said, and cringed and covered her ears lest her eardrums burst, when he screamed “WHAT!”
“What what?” she asked, once he stopped muttering about killing and taking out a hit and never letting him into AR again, “I have everyone’s number. Manju Ji, Aman ji, Shukla ji, Chaman Lal ji, Kishori Lal ji. I also had Simji and Pamji’s number but…” well, her husband had unceremoniously fired them the first time he had heard them call her Chamkili when she visited the office after their wedding.
“I should have fired them a long time ago, given how unproductive and nosy they were,” Arnav said, nipping her oncoming rant in the bud. He did not want to hear about how he shouldn’t make business decisions based on who had and hadn’t treated her right (which he didn’t…not really…okay maybe he did but she was his wife so sue him).
“Yatha raja tatha prajha,” she mumbled.
“What?” he asked, not having heard her clearly.
“Nothing, let’s open this, I am so excited to see what he sent,” Khushi replied, directing his attention to the package in her hand. She tore into the wrapping paper with the gusto of a ten year old, which made him smile.
Her soft gasp shifted his attention away from her face to the object she was holding in her hands.
“Arnavji…” she called, “…this…you…”
His eyes shifted to the post-it attached to the image.
Thought you’d like to have a reminder of your first photoshoot. Happy Anniversary you two. You’re dream subjects to shoot and I’d be happy to do it anytime.
Jeff had sent them a framed image from the calendar shoot, probably a test shot that had captured them gazing at each other, and Arnav could see that he had been taken, completely and, as he later realized, irrevocably. This was the moment that had ignited a fire he couldn’t extinguish despite his best efforts, and now Khushi could see what he had tried to hide and failed.
“Oh, this is so beautiful,” she said, tears springing to her eyes.
“Khushi,” he sighed, pulling the photo out of her hands and settling it gently on the bed. “Har baat pe rona zaroori hai kya?”
She sniffed, hiding her face in his arms, even as he felt the wetness of her tears seep through his shirt.
“I am crying because I’m happy,” she explained. “Who would have thought that we would be here given how we started.”
He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her in closer. He wondered if he’d ever feel like she was quite close enough. No matter how many times he hugged her, it felt like a wonder, this feeling of home.
“I don’t think I ever stood a chance,” he confessed, his eyes flitting over to the picture sitting on the bed. He had been in too deep before he had even realized he’d fallen.
“Stop saying sweet things,” Khushi grumbled, squeezing him back equally as tightly. “Or I won’t stop crying and you’ll be left saying what the, what the…”
He chuckled and placed a kiss onto her hair, letting himself live in the moment, experiencing the enchantment of being in love with the woman in his arms, one he never wanted to recover from.
“Khushi?” he whispered after what felt like a minute or an eon, he couldn’t quite tell the passage of time when he was around her, and received a hum in reply, at once an acknowledgement that she was listening and an indication that she wasn’t in the mood to talk. “Why did you have Jeff’s address in the first place?”
“Because I needed to include him in my yearly shipments of rakhis, Arnavji,” Khushi replied in a tone that implied the duh.
Arnav tried to control his snickers, he really did, but the image that popped up in his head when he imagined Jeff’s expression the first time he received a rakhi made him double over in laughter until he was gasping for air.
Pulling her back into a hug, he kissed her on the side of her head, silencing her questions with a whispered, “Oh, I do love you Khushi Kumari Gupta Singh Raizada.”
AN: Bingala and I had a mini writing session and I ended up revisiting one of my favorite moments. Just a little random something, hope it made you feel…well, something. I hope everyone’s keeping safe and staying sane. Work and podcasting have been keeping me busy, but I have missed writing so hopefully, you’ll see a bit more of me soon enough.
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