“I added only one sugar,” she says triumphantly, “because I don’t want to be blamed for ruining your bitter, brooding aesthetic.”
I raise an eyebrow. “That was thoughtful of you.”
“Don’t get used to it,” she smirks and moves to stand next to me by the glass. “Damn. Mumbai looks different from up here.”
She’s quiet for a second. I think that’s it. Just coffee. Just lights. But she breaks the silence. “Did you grow up in this city?”
I freeze for half a breath. She’s still looking out the window, but I can feel the weight of her question settle between us. “That’s personal,” I say flatly.
She shrugs. “Well, technically, I’m not an employee right now.”
I glance at her and raise an eyebrow. She taps her watch, deadpan. “It’s 10:38. Pretty sure keeping me here this late violates a few labor laws. I could sue you.”
A laugh—sharp and unexpected—escapes me. It’s small, but it’s real. She inhales deeply and stares at me for a second before her lips break into a grin. That infuriating, maddening grin.
“You’re impossible,” I mutter and shake my head.
“And you’re secretly amused,” she shoots back.
I don’t answer. Mostly because I am. And I hate that I am. Silence stretches again, but it’s not uncomfortable. It never is with her apparently.
“I did grow up here,” I say eventually, voice low. “Not the Mumbai people brag about. Not the skyline and cafes and monsoon drives. Just cement walls. Stolen food. No name to fall back on.”
She doesn’t move. Doesn’t press. Just listens. “That sounds lonely,” she says after a while.
“It was,” I admit for the first time in a long time, “then it became survival. Then it became a habit.”
She nods like she understands. Like she’s felt something similar even if her story’s different.
“You don’t talk much about your past,” I say.
“I don’t owe anyone that,” she replies simply. Not defensive. At least she's not lying. “Some things are better earned.”
I look at her then. Really look. She’s so different from what I expected when she walked in that first day, with too much energy and too little fear. I thought she was a storm. But storms don’t stop. She does. She listens. Thinks. Pushes. But she pauses too.
“Why here?” I ask. “You could be anywhere. What made you walk into Varuna?”
She sips her coffee. “Because I wanted to build something real. And this place—this chaos you’ve created—it’s real. It’s intense, exhausting, borderline masochistic… But it’s real. You don’t fake ambition here.”
There’s a beat of silence before she adds, “I respect that.”
That lands differently. And it stays with me longer than I expect.
When she finishes her coffee, she looks toward the door. “I should go. If I miss my cab, I’ll have to sell a kidney for a rickshaw.”
“I’ll drop you.”
Her head snaps toward me. “What?”
“I said I’ll drop you.”
Her eyes widen, and she feigns a laugh. “There’s no need for that. Really?”
“I wasn’t asking,” I say.
She eyes me warily, as if trying to figure out if I’m joking. I’m not. She looks like she wants to disappear suddenly; it's funny seeing her panic, and she shakes her head. “No. I like my commute alone. Gives me time to think. And I think we both know you need that time more than I do.”
I narrow my eyes, a smirk curling up my lips. “You’re stubborn.”
