Chapter 18: Arm-Wrestle Aftermath
The dim light from the single lamp carved out pockets of intimacy in Vanshika’s living room, glinting off the fine sheen of sweat on Priya’s brow. Her hand was still pinned to the coffee table, Vanshika’s fingers locked around hers in an unbreakable cage. The air crackled, thick with the shock of the sudden display.
Priya’s breath left her in a slow, controlled stream. She flexed her fingers, testing the memory of the pressure. A slow, appreciative smile spread across her face, erasing any trace of competitive frustration. “Well,” she said, her voice a low hum. “I suppose that settles the debate on who carries the heavy servers.”
Rohan let out a shaky laugh, rubbing his own forearm where Priya had so easily defeated him moments before. He looked at Vanshika with a mixture of awe and something deeper, more proprietary. “Ten-to-one odds,” he muttered, shaking his head. “You weren’t kidding.”
Vanshika released Priya’s hand, a faint, smug grin playing on her lips. “I never kid about unfair advantages.” She rolled her shoulders, the corded muscle in her bicep softening back into the deceptive smoothness of her sleeper build.
Priya stood, the movement fluid and deliberate. She picked up her blazer from the arm of the worn couch. “As thrilling as this revelation is, I have an early morning with the directors.” She slid her arms into the sleeves, the crisp fabric a sharp contrast to the casual disarray of the room. Her eyes, however, lingered on both of them, holding a silent, shared knowledge. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
The click of the apartment door behind her was definitive, leaving a silence that felt both vast and fragile.
Rohan was still seated on the floor, leaning against the couch. He looked up at Vanshika, who had moved to the small kitchen area, pulling two glasses from a cabinet. The quiet was different now, stripped of Priya’s galvanizing presence. It was just them, and the phantom sensation of their combined weight from the night before, and the new, raw memory of Vanshika’s shocking strength.
“Does it… bother you?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
Vanshika paused, a water bottle in her hand. “Does what bother me?”
“This.” He gestured vaguely around the room, encompassing the empty space where Priya had been, the rumpled rug where they had all tumbled together. “The… complication.”
She brought the glasses over, setting one down beside him before sinking onto the couch just above where he sat. She took a long drink, her expressive brown eyes studying him. “Are you bothered?”
He considered the question, his gaze dropping to his own hands. “I thought I would be. It feels like it should be a mess. But it doesn’t. It feels… surprisingly straightforward.” He finally looked up at her. “You’re straightforward.”
A softness touched her features. She reached down, her fingers brushing through his neatly styled hair, messing it up. “Good.”
He caught her hand, lacing his fingers with hers. His touch was gentle, but there was a new certainty in it. “So what happens on Monday? In the office?”
“On Monday,” Vanshika said, leaning forward, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial murmur, “I will still call you ‘sir’ in meetings, and you will still mark up my code in red. And Priya will still tell us both what to do.” She shrugged, a small, confident lift of her shoulders. “The rest of it… that stays here. In this room.”
He pulled her hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to her knuckles. The gesture was so tender it made her breath catch. “I can live with that,” he said.
But as he looked at her, his kind eyes holding hers in the dim lamplight, the unspoken question hung between them. They had defined the boundaries of their public lives. The private one, this new, sprawling territory they were mapping with every touch and glance, remained gloriously, terrifyingly undefined. And for now, that was more than enough.