Bliss! That is what I was feel­ing after last night. I was on cloud nine. Also being a Sun­day I was all lazy and did not want to move out of Bed until, Rohit came over to my place at Noon. He pulled me out of Bed and forced me to go to Nisha’s place. Once at Nisha’s place we noted how won­der­fully they had dec­o­rated the house. We sat in the liv­ing room wait­ing for Nisha to come out. Finally Nisha’s mom came out we got up to greet her.

“You have taken good care of my daugh­ter. She is really enjoy­ing her college.”

“Thank you Aunty. We love to make friends, besides she has also been friendly well with us.” Rohit said.

“Hi guys” Nisha said as she came out of her room all dressed up and look­ing hot.

Ting tong!!

The door­bell rang. Nisha opened the door. We heard a girl’s voice. My heart started to beat I could guess the voice; It was Diya.

I had a com­plete view of her through the par­ti­tion in the hall but I guess she did not see us. Aunty excused her­self and moved to the Kitchen.

“Diya close your eyes I have a sur­prise for you.” We heard Nisha say­ing to Diya.

Nisha came into the room along with Diya cov­er­ing her eyes so that she could not see.

“Open your eyes” Nisha said.

“Oh! My God. Oh! My God.” Diya was in a state of shock.” You didn’t tell me any­thing about this. How mean of you.” She just hid her face.

“Let’s move to my room. Mom we are going inside.” Nisha screamed as she led us to her room.

“Okay” a voice came from the kitchen.

We fol­lowed Nisha to her room. She had posters all over her room and lot of stuff writ­ten on the walls.

“Nice room” Rohit said.

“Thanks. So, what are you two doing this evening” Nisha looked in my direction.

“Noth­ing” said Diya.

“What? Come on Raj you should take her out some­where.” Rohit said.

“Why? What? Where? When?”

“That is up to you two.” Nisha said.

I looked at Diya who was blush­ing, I could make out as her milky white cheeks turned red. Though I was also feel­ing it, I am not sure how I was look­ing. Diya and I kept star­ing at each other while Nisha was show­ing her music col­lec­tion to Rohit.

I finally made a move and spoke in a soft voice to Diya.

“Diya, to tell you the truth I was attracted to you when I first saw you, thou it was like one would be when see­ing a girl as beau­ti­ful as you are. But when Nisha told that you liked me, and I was in a state of shock, I was think­ing like how come girls like you fall for a guy like me. It all sounded like a dream, but when I thought over it, I thought, I liked you. But when I came to pick you up and saw you open the door, I asked myself ‘why does my hart skip a beat as I think of you’ there is some­thing about you that makes me feel out of this world. Then when you were about to leave I felt……..as if some­thing close is slip­ping out of my hand and at that point I decided this is it, now or never. So I did.”

I held her hand in mine.

“I like you Raj.” Diya said.

We both sat there hold­ing hands, look­ing into each other’s eye/

“I hope it does.” We both were cross­ing our fingers.

“Diya, my mom wants to meet you.”

“Your mom? Why?” Diya was taken aback by surprise.

“I don’t know, she just wanted to meet you.”

“Did you tell her about me?”

“No noth­ing in par­tic­u­lar I just men­tioned you yesterday.”

“Hey love­birds’ lunch is ready” said Nisha. We didn’t realise that she had being stand­ing and star­ing at us all this while.

“If the king and the queen will allow shall we have lunch” Rohit in a teas­ing tone.

“Let us go my lady.” I said look­ing at Diya. Then towards Rohit “lead the way, fool.” try­ing to add fun. We all burst into laughter.

We had our lunch. Aunty had cooked lovely food. I just could not stop. The desert was so nice I gave myself a sec­ond helping.

Then after some­time I asked them to move over to my place as I wanted to take Diya to meet mom. Nisha said she had to help mom. Rohit said he has to go home as dad is at home. We decided to meet on the ter­race with oth­ers. Then I took Diya to my house. Mom opened the door.

“Mom, Meet Diya she is my classmate.”

“Hi Diya!” Mom had a quick scan, look at her from top to bot­tom. “Come in Diya, Raj told a lot about you.”

“Really!” I said try­ing to stop her.

“Oh don’t worry about him. He is shy.” My Mom said as she wel­comed Diya inside.

Mom was all smiles; she winked at me as we moved inside.

“What?” I asked

“Come Diya sit with me.” Mom invited Diya to sit next to her.
Within min­utes they were talk­ing like they knew each other from a very long time.

“Diya, can I ask you some­thing?” Mom asked her.

“Sure Aunty”

“How come you like Raj?”

Diya was blushing.

“Mom enough of the embar­rass­ment.” I looked sternly at Mom.

That was it. I sim­ply moved out of the pic­ture. Mom and Diya kept talk­ing like old friends, and I sat qui­etly in a cor­ner. Now and then they would pull my leg. After some­time I intruded.

“Mom if you are fin­ished can I take Diya too the ter­race to meet my friends.” I said irritated.

“Wait, Diya come with me.” Diya and mom started going to my mom’s room. I fol­lowed. Mom stopped me. “No you wait here” I just stood with sur­prise. Then after about 15 – 20 min they came out. We walked out.

“Diya keep com­ing huh.”

“Of course aunty.”

“Remem­ber what I said.”

We moved out. Then I asked Diya “What did mom tell you?”

“Noth­ing impor­tant, Just to be care­ful of you as you are very naughty.” She said with a cocky smile.

“What is that sup­posed to mean?”

“Noth­ing it’s a secret.”

“Boy, you just met her the first time and you already have secrets”

We went to the ter­race. All the Guys in the gang were play­ing cricket and the girls were chat­ting in a cor­ner. See­ing me the girls came and took Diya with them and I joined the guys to play cricket.

“Nice catch Raj” Aakash.

“Thanks” I said with mod­esty after tak­ing a dif­fi­cult catch.

“Not the ball dum­b­ass we are talk­ing about her.” Karan said jok­ing away.

“So what’s up Raj what hap­pened?” Manav.

“Noth­ing, I just intro­duced her to mom.”

“What did mom think of her?” Aakash enquired.

“Mom was cool. She and Diya had a long pri­vate talk. God knows what they talked about.”

“Maybe aunty was warn­ing her against you.” Karan said, jok­ing as usual. Every­body started laugh­ing as I ran after him.

After some­times Diya left for home as she was get­ting late. Rest of our gang moved to the park to spend some time together.

“She is a nice girl” Khushi said.

“Yes very friendly too.” Sak­shi said.

“She is pretty.” Muskan said.

“Very sweet actu­ally” Puja said.

“Ladies come on, why are we talk­ing about her?” I asked.

They just broke into a gig­gle and the guys laughed their hearts out. I was just smil­ing like a fool.

After a few hours of loi­ter­ing we went home.