Dheer turned to see where Raashi was standing and seeing her shocked expression, he gave her a wink and continued, “So, alright people, let’s hear it for, Raashi! There she is.”
To her complete horror, the crowd began chanting her name. The jerk, Dheer! He was playing dirty. She hadn’t sung with them in years. How could he expect her to just pick up the guitar and start where she had left off? She was going to kill him. But as of now, he had left her with no option, unless she wanted the place to go crazy. One song, that’s it, that’s all she would give him. She wasn’t making a fool of herself, no way.
“Is my hearing alright or are they really chanting Raashi’s name?” Sameer asked Rishi, a bewildered look on his face.
“Yes. She was one of their original band members,” Rishi affirmed and then continued to chant Raashi’s name with the crowd.
Sameer’s mouth dropped open. “Raashi was once a part of this band?”
“You seriously don’t know anything about her, do you?” Rishi shook his head and continued, “That guy, Dheer, he and Raashi formed the band when they were nineteen, she played with them for two years before she had to give it up to take over T-Cafe´.”
Sameer heard the beep of a text message, once and then again. Natasha picked up her phone and smile at its screen. Seeing her engrossed, Sameer turned back to his brother.
“How is it that you know so much about her?” he asked.
“Duh! Because unlike you, I actually talked to her back then. She was my friend until you made her disappear from our lives!” Rishi accused.
Raashi reached the stage, where the bass guitarist handed her a guitar. Tentatively, she wound the strap of the guitar over her neck. She settled its familiar weight across her and took a shaky breath. The drummer started the fast paced beats for one of Rhapsody’s first songs ever and on cue Raashi strummed herfingers over the guitar. She walked towards the center of the stage, her fingers flying over the guitar. Seeing her, the crowd burst into hysterical frenzy.
“Please welcome, my dearest friend, one of our original band members and my co-song writer on the album ‘Bohemia’, Raashi Deewan,” announced Dheer.
The minute she started playing, she lost all her reserve. It was like going back in time when all she wanted to do was only play and make music.
Dheer gave her a high five.
“For the rest of the night and for the first time in six years, we are playing not as Rhapsody but as Rhapsody REUNITED,” Dheer announced, before he began playing his own guitar and started singing.
Sameer watched awestruck. He looked at Raashi, her fingers flying over the guitar, creating magical notes. The music was extremely fast paced and she was strumming along brilliantly, singing the chorus with the lead singer. He watched them play and sing together. He was struck by the amazing chemistry they shared. Wordlessly, they picked up cues from each other, came together to sing into the microphone and then parted to different ends of the stage, coming back together again to sing.
Rishi addressed him, “It’s the first time I am seeing her play like this. She’s superb.”
“That guy Dheer...and Raashi. There’s something between them, right?” Sameer was curious to understand her equation with Dheer.
Rishi frowned at him before replying. “She was dating him for the two years she was in the band.”
Sameer’s brow wrinkled.
Seeing his tense expression, Rishi sneaked a peek at Natasha before lowering his voice to say, “Actually, after the way you treated her, I can’t imagine why you’re so curious about her. But,since I can see you obviously are, look there,” Rishi pointed. “See that table, right in front of where Dheer is playing?”
“Yeah,” Sameer said, looking in the same direction.
“Can you see the lady in black and white sitting there, the one next to the guy in the baseball cap? That’s Dheer’s girlfriend. Raashi pointed her out to me earlier. And that guy in the baseball cap is his younger brother Vir Malhotra, the upcoming movie star. The boys are old friends of Raashi.”
So his guess was correct. Raashi did have a history with Dheer. Even now they looked really comfortable with each other, he thought irritably. Natasha laid her hand on his and without thinking Sameer moved his hand away.
Natasha felt her anger rise when Sameer moved his hand away from under hers. He wasn’t paying her much attention. Oh, he performed the polite necessities well enough. But he hardly ever spoke to her. In fact, she did most of the talking when they were together, just like this evening. She felt that things were not the same between them now. He was different. In the past when they were dating, his whole world had revolved around her. He would go out of his way to be with her and to make her comfortable. But this time around, he was different. It had been so long since he had met her. Even tonight he hadn’t really been that keen to meet. Only after she had forced him had he agreed to go out with her.
When her father had proposed marriage between Sameer and her as an option to solve their business problem, she had leapt at the idea. She knew Sameer had once been crazy about her, probably still was, considering that she hadn’t heard of a single steady relationship in his life after her.
When they were dating, they had been so young. He had been twenty-four and had not yet made his own mark when he had proposed to marry her. She had laughed at his proposal and they had broken up shortly thereafter. She had not been readythen to be tied down to one man. She wanted to experience life to the fullest. But now almost seven years later, Sameer Sehgal was one of the most eligible bachelors in the country, devilishly handsome, and his name itself was worth its weight in gold. He had made it in life. This time, marrying him seemed the most attractive offer she had ever received.
However, things were not going as planned. She had expected to lure him easily, as she once had, but now he was hard as ice. None of her outward charms worked on him anymore. Sameer didn’t look at her the way he had in the past – the besotted way he looked at that girl, Raashi. Ever since she had come on stage, Sameer’s attention had been fixed on her. Natasha prided herself on being extremely shrewd and reality was that her relationship with Sameer was not going anywhere. If the situation continued the way it was, she doubted that Sameer would actually be proposing to her, as she and her father expected and wished.
Annoyed, both with him and herself for being in the position she was in, she touched his arm.
“Can we leave now?” she questioned.
Sameer dragged his eyes off the stage to look at Natasha.
