You are what you choose to become!

Maya was anxious to know what made Sushma compromise on her principles? Or is she thinking too much into this, without discussing it with her friend? Deeply engrossed in her inner dilemma, she didn’t realize the time, it was past midnight when she heard some hushed commotion from the Ruby’s Pub backyard.

She could see Ruby pacing back and forth holding her head and blabbering something. Calling her from Maya’s flat balcony would require her to scream, and this late in the night that would be uncivilized. Hence, she thought of going down the street to ask her friend what’s wrong.

Maya wore a nightdress jacket on top of her satin night shorts and top, stepped into her flip-flops, and started climbing down the stairs. It was almost 03:00 am in the night and the entire building was resting in shady eerie silence. Once at Ruby’s backdoor, Maya asked security to let her in. She could see Ruby is troubled for something while crossing the empty barrel junk and broken old bottles.

‘Ruby, what’s wrong why are you pacing like crazy?’

‘Oh, babe thank God you are here. I didn’t know what to do, Jatin isn’t picking his phone and he was supposed to meet the client today.’ Ruby was clearly distressed.

‘Meet clients, as in NOW?’ asked Maya.

‘Yeah, they are from Japan. We are in talks with them for two months now. And if this won’t work, you know how much trouble I would be in, babe.’

Maya pondered for a while, ‘show me the papers or have you made a presentation? I will talk to the Japanese. When is the meeting scheduled? I will just go and change.’

Ruby looked at Maya with animated eyes, ‘you can do that, I mean, of course, you can do that… but will you really do that for me?’

 ‘Don’t act crazy, show me the files now.’

Ruby took her inside to the office and handed over the files plus a drive that have all the presentations, Jatin made for the meeting.

Maya started going through each file, one by one, and scanned through the presentations. She wrote down all the key points on a paper and analyzed the keynotes once again to be doubly sure. By the time she thought it’s all set, and she could go to change, Ruby arrived in the room flashing her wristwatch.

‘What! I can’t meet with your clients in my nightdress, are you mad!’ Maya yelped looking at her friend.

‘Wait, I have something that you can put on to hide your sexiness darling,’ Ruby said while opening her office cupboard.

‘This (handing over a male’s jacket to Maya), I think this would fit you just fine. It is Jatin’s he left it here last night, he was working till morning on these files.’

Maya looked at the jacket, she knows it so well he has great taste when it comes to apparel, this semi-formal jacket is one of her favorites. Sleek brown-tan-colored office jacket that Jatin wears on his smart casuals in the office.

She reluctantly took that from Ruby’s hands, the fabric was soft and delicate, just the way his touch was that night. A whiff from the jacket reminded her of their rendezvous two months ago, the memories sent a shiver down her spine. Reminiscences of that night were still so fresh in her mind, but the post math ruined her pleasure-trail and she got back to present, in Ruby’s office preparing to meet the client over an online call.

Maya wore Jatin’s jacket that Ruby handed her, finger-combed her hair, and started the video call. Ruby was sitting beside her and visibly very nervous, Maya held her hand to assure – all is under control. The meeting lasted 45 minutes, Japs were pretty happy with what they were offered in the deal and almost okayed it to take it further.

Once logged out from the meet, Ruby hugged Maya and planted a kiss on her cheek. ‘You are my savior baby girl, you saved me today. You saved Ruby’s today. Tell me what do you want from me?’

Maya was happy seeing her friend cheering like a little kid, she removed Jatin’s jacket and handed over to Ruby, ‘for now, just take it away from me.’

‘It was looking much better on you, than me Maya’.

Jatin was standing by the office door, leaning toward the window with hand-folded by his chest. Blue office shirt with sleeves folded till elbows, front two buttons open to display his well-chiseled upper body. Sharp jaw-line with a fine stubble, eyes gawking straight at Maya. He was oozing masculinity and Maya just couldn’t take her eyes away from him.

Maya doesn’t want to go back to the same spiral, that has given her heartache and betrayal in the past. What will happen next, would she accept her feeling for Jatin. How will she explain to Sushma about the wrong choices she had made for sustaining the job. To know more, stay tuned for the next story.

To read the beginning of this short story, click here.

‘This post is a part of Blogchatter Half Marathon‘

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