Page 37 of A King's Oath

“The said girls invited us!”

“Still…”

“So you’ll go hungry? Because I didn’t eat dinner, expecting the girls to have ordered something fancy for us.”

Samarth scratched the back of his head. He had skipped dorm food too because Ava had invited him to this dinner — a Badri gang dinner. Only, Samarth hadn’t thought too hard about reaching the venue.

“What if somebody sees us? What if the matron comes?”

“Fuck it, go back. I am hungry.”

Gopi flipped back and kept climbing, his dark T-shirt a marked contrast as he reached the open window of the girls’ dorm room lit up in warm light. Samarth decided to climb back and leave. He took one step down and another smack to his backside.

“What?!”

Another nudge and smack. “Ehh!”

“Kirti didi waiting for you?” He hissed back to the 6 foot 3 bodyguard who acted like he owned him. Harsh’s hand raised again and Samarth scrambled up to escape it. He climbedquickly then, reaching the window in time for Ava to pounce on it.

“Fuckk…” he reeled back but she caught his T-shirt in time to keep him from falling. “You’ll kill me!”

“Not yet,” she grinned. “Hi.”

“This is not right, Ava…”

“It’s not?” She wiggled her eyebrows.

“I’ll go back now, let these people stay…”

Ava leaned in and pecked his cheek. Samarth froze.

“Bye then,” she booped his nose and Samarth, with no recollection of any thought leading him inside her dorm room, found himself swinging his leg and jumping in.

“Hey! Welcome to the party!” Kresha came spinning behind, Gopi’s arm slung around her. “Two rules — keep your voices down and eat what’s available.”

“What do you mean what’s available?” Gopi deadpanned. “Didn’t you say you are ordering pizza from the Tolstoy Cafe downtown?”

“Yeah… Kirti didi could not go.”

“Why Kirti didi…” Gopi threw his head back.

“But we made Chinese on our convection,” Ava pointed. That’s when Samarth roved his eyes around the dorm room. It was a neat, pretty place. Two single beds, crisp clean cream bedding and pink, orange and purple pillows. Lots of pillows. Two study tables. And a long pantry that was now littered and cluttered with food packets and sauce bottles and vegetable peels on the platform.

“You cook?” Samarth whispered to Ava.

“Ok, Kirti didi did the chopping and mixing. We just added the sauces. But yeah, we cooked. Princesses of Gwalior can do everything.”

“We’ll see that soon,” Gopi joked and got elbowed by his girlfriend.

“Come on, it’s hot, let’s eat,” Kirti didi walked into the panty to bring the pots and was instantly followed by Harsh. The four of them noticed it all at once, shared the exact same smirk, and decided to stay out of it.

“Not on the bed, Gopi,” Kresha pulled him by the arm and nudged him on their floor. For a hoity princess, she sat down beside him cross-legged.

“You’ll push me to the floor too?” He asked Ava.

“If you don’t go on your own.”

Just for fun, he began to lower himself on the edge of her bed when she rammed into him. He laughed, stumbling and rolling halfway across the floor, tangled with her.

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