IN LOVE WITH MY BEST FRIEND

"I bet you heard things floating around," she said out of the blue.

"Like what?" He asked after a brief pause.

"Like there's stuff going on between us?" She paused to note the look on his face, whether he had any clue about it, and if he felt awkward about it. "I want you to know that it's all rubbish. We're good friends and that's it. I never had any wrong intentions. I only chose that song because... because it's a great song, and not because I wanted to satisfy some of my wild fantasies like these people are saying. I love your voice. I mean, you've got a great voice. And as a musician, I can't let that go to waste, you know what I mean?" She said the whole thing in a breath or two.

Punit blinked.

Ankita turned pale, wondering what had got to him. "Punit?" she called softly. She felt foolish and wished that she'd first found out whether he even knew about this fiasco in the first place before blurting out like an idiot.

"Huh?" He blinked again as he struggled to gather what she really said. "Uhm, y-y-yeah..." He squeezed it out with massive effort. "I-I get it, I get what you mean," he added.

She watched him intently, her cheeks slowly turning red. "Did you know about all this, or...?"

"Yeah, I... did," he shrugged, sounding rather uncomfortable.

"And?" She probed quietly.

"And what? Like you said, tish-tosh. Rubbish. Hah!" He chuckled.

***

She's bold, daring, free-spirited, and unbreakable like a wild mare. She's popular, attractive, a guitarist and also his best friend.

Punit Soni has madly been in love with Ankita Agarwal since school days but never found the courage to profess. Whenever he finally worked it out, something or the other happened to ruin everything or to remind him that Ankita probably never felt the same. Or does she?