Samy's POV

I tried to get to downstairs as fast as possible, couldn't run in a saree. By the time I made it, my mom was already opening the door and a couple were standing outside. I came down so fast that I didn’t breathe for few seconds and suddenly my lungs were full of air, that I felt like choking.

As my mom was welcoming them into our house, I burst in and all of them turned to look at me at the same time. My mom's eyes narrowed shooting death rays at me and my dad's jaw was so tight that I could hear his teeth grinding.

I know, I wasn't supposed to drop in like a bomb, but introduced in a very  delicate and respectful way. Since we were past that moment, my mom had no choice and introduced them to me.

"My daughter Samantha. .."

"Samantha meet Mr and Mrs Kumar"

I folded my hands and greeted them respectfully "Namasthe", my eyes still searching for my prey.

The Uber driver suddenly emerged from behind Mr Kumar and before I could make my move, the couple introduced him as Siddharth, the groom.

I couldn't believe the scene that just unfolded in front of my eyes. I glared at him so hard that my facial muscles hurt and he looked at me, straight into my face, for a few milliseconds, gave me a fake smile and then turned his face away immediately feeling the heat, from my glare.

"How dare he ? He should have some nerve to show up as a potential groom after behaving like a perv in the morning. Did he do it on purpose? Was he testing me? Do I kick his butt right here in front of the entire family or spare the family from embarrassment and do it in private?"

After introductions, we moved to the living room and sat around on the sofa, opposite to each other. Even though he sat right in front of me, his eyes were all over the place but me, avoiding me obviously. He knew I was angry and looking for an explanation.

Meanwhile his mom was talking non stop about their family history and their future plans. I wasn't interested in hearing anything about his family, I was sure this is the last time I would be seeing them. Mrs Kumar seemed to be a nice lady, was probably unaware that her son was a perv. I could sympathize with her, as usually Mom's are the last ones to know about the bad things their kids do.

I was looking for a chance to break this party. Finally his mom was done with the family history part and started talking about Sid, it was then I started paying attention. 

"You know Sid is our only son and we are very proud of his accomplishments. He is smart, funny and a very hard working guy. He has a good job and .."

"Does he also work for Uber as part time job?" I asked Mrs Kumar trying to bring her to my topic.

I could see her face turning red and for a second there was dead silence in the room. "No .. no .. he has a well paid job as software engineer. Umm .. why did you get the doubt? " She blurted out looking at Sid for confirmation.

"Oh! I could have been mistaken. I thought, I saw him today morning at the airport with a white board." I spoke slowly looking at Sid. He was watching me with an interesting look on his face.

It was then I became aware again of his beautiful eyes and felt something stir deep inside me. An unknown feeling deep inside my soul, a feeling that you want to feel again and again. I felt like he awoke a part of me, which was sleeping for all these years, creating a warm and fuzzy feeling in parts of my body, I wouldn't say loud in public.

"Oh yes! You probably saw him at the airport. He went to pick up his cousin Sameer - we call him Sam, coming from US. This was his first visit to India and Sid messed it up." She started laughing.

"What happened? " My mom asked.

"Sam called me from the airport and I told him Sid was waiting for him in the receiving lounge. He couldn't find Sid and called back. I knew Sid was there waiting for him as he called from the airport in the morning, but then Sid vanished and we were unable to reach him or his cell for the next two hours. Sam ended up searching the entire airport for him. Finally Sid caught up with him and they both have been fighting over it, since morning."

"Where did you vanish to?" I asked Sid, smiling at him, hoping to hear his answer.

But he decided to stay mum and let his mother do the answering. "Oh you know, he is so busy with his job nowadays, he got an emergency call from his office and had to take it."

"Oh! I see .." I answered, biting my lower lip to stop from bursting into laughter and raising my eyebrows at Sid, challenging him to speak the truth.

He looked really uncomfortable and was looking at his watch and door constantly, hoping for this torture to end. On the other hand I wanted to continue the session and prolong his pain.

"Sam didn't beleive his story. I told him to search the book stalls as Sid loves books and probably saw something interesting in the book stall and got sidetracked." Mrs Kumar continued with her story.

"Sid loves boobs not books and got sidetracked checking out the ladies." I screamed inside, glaring at Sid.

After another thirty minutes of family talk, there was a sudden pause in the conversation as we ran out of topics.

"Sid, if you want to discuss anything in private with Samy, you both can go ahead and use the upstairs room." My mom proposed to Sid, breaking the silence.

"Thanks Aunty, I am good." Sid refused the bait, probably knowing what was in store for him.

There was no way, I would let him go without giving him a piece of my mind, so I took the opportunity and declared, "I have a something to discuss, so if you don't mind, lets go upstairs." I got up and proceeded towards the stairs.

Sid looked at me bit surprised, but got up and followed behind me to the stairs. As I was climbing the stairs, he followed me close behind, somehow making me conscious that he was staring at my behind. I never felt that way, making him different than million others who probably climbed stairs behind me.

"Hmm .. maybe I was being too self conscious around him because he is a perv."

After we stepped into my room, I closed the door and invited him to sit on the chair by my bed. I sat on the bed partially, leaning on the headrest.

"Ok .. uhh .. cleared throat .. I am sure you have some explaining to do ... for starters .. I wasn't expecting you to be here .. did you do it on purpose?" I asked looking straight at him, but he was looking around avoiding my eyes.

"Ahh ..no ... I .. didn't know I was going to be here .. so it was a surprise for me too."

"Really!"

"Yes, my mom asked me to pick up Sam aka Sameer from airport. I only saw him in pictures, so stood there with a white board to make sure he would get to me, but you came out of nowhere and demanded to get you home. It never happened to me, so I was intrigued and went along with you. Later my parents told me about todays program and I sat in the car browsing my phone and realized it too late, only after the driver stopped in front of your home and my parents already stepped out and were in front of your door."

"So you are saying you would have cancelled this if you had known earlier that I was the bride?"

"Yes"

"Huh! ... If I am so bad looking why did you pick me up from the airport? "

"Oh no! It has nothing to do with your looks. I heard you talking on the phone in the car today morning and you already expressed your opinion about not being interested in marriage, so there is no point in going through this charade."

"It is rude to hear others conversations. You still didn't answer the real reason for picking me up at the airport? "

"I have my own reasons." He answered, then got up and moved towards the book shelf in my room.

"I want to know ..."

"Did you finish reading  this latest edition on Java programing? " He asked, cutting off my question.

"No ... not yet. I am more interested in the answer to my earlier question." I looked at him seriously.

"Uh .. I will tell you .. maybe not today ... some other time." He smiled, answering me and then went back to perusing my book shelf.

"What about the lady you were seriously watching at the airport? Would you have done the same?"

"Which lady?" He looked at me seriously.

"The one exposing her chest. You were jumping through hoops to look at her boobs."

"Really .. I am sorry, I didn't realize I was doing it. I will apologize next time I see her."

"What about me? You didn't apologize to me. You stared at me too." I demanded.

"Oh shit! I am really sorry if I did it and came across as a perv but the fact is, I didn't mean to. ."

"You know ... you have a problem and the first step is to accept the fact that you have an issue and find a good doctor ..."

"Wait a second .. I don't have a problem. .." he argued, without letting me finish.

"Excuse me! You do have a problem. You were staring at that women's breasts like a psycho. I am being nice to you and letting you know about it in private and saving you from embarrassment in front of the entire family." I argued forcefully.

"Ok, are you going to prosecute me without hearing my side of the story?"

"Oh common! What probable reason could you give to justify staring at womens mammaries?"

He paced the room back and forth with the Java book in his hands, then stopped in front of me, "Do you know about face recognition software?"

"Yes, I do."

"I worked on some security related projects for the Government, dealing with design and implementation of face recognition software. Recently a well known company in women's highscale lingerie business approached me to look into the possibility of writing similar software to measure women's breasts, so that their shop assistants can immediately help customers as soon as they step inside the shop. I .."

"I don't believe this crap."

He walked to my study table and switched on my Mac. I waked over and entered my password. He then opened the browser and searched for an article and asked me read. It was a technical white paper on face recognition and he was one of the authors.

"Ok, I can understand face recognition, but private parts is illegal and no one should do it." I argued.

"Well .. my job is to look into the technical feasibility, I will leave the legal part to the lawyers. Moreover this is just a study, there is no guarantee about the final product."

"I can't believe this .. so all women including me are just study cases for you?"

"Well, I agree, I need to control my behavior in public. I don't want to come out as rude or pervy, but that woman in airport was a very good subject. She was an easy case as most of her breasts were already exposed, we could just get away with three cameras. You on the other hand .. very complicated. I am not sure about the number of layers of clothing involved, definitely lot more cameras and algorithms would be needed to get the readings." He then went into algorithms, coding techniques and geometry to make his point.

"When are you going to write one for men parts?"

"What? Oh .. it's going to be lot more complicated." He answered seriously. Looking at his face, it was clear he didn't get the sarcasm, but his brain was thinking about more algorithms.

"Duh! A real geek." My inner voice screamed. But I was taken by his sincerity, even though the topic of discussion was his pervy behavior.

Just then I heard someone knocking the door. It was my mom.

"Samy, are you guys ok? It's been two hours and Mr and Mrs Kumar have to leave."

I couldn't believe we talked for two hours. "Ok Ma  .. give us five minutes."

Sid looked at his watch and screamed, "shoot .. I need to leave."

"Uh! We didn't discuss anything about the real reason you are here for?"

"You think I have a chance after all this?" He looked at me with puppy eyes.

"I don't know .. maybe" I don't know where the last word came from, definitely not from my brain.

"If you are cool, we can meet this Friday again .. City mall .. Starbucks? "

"Yes" I answered, before my brain could even process it.

"See you on Friday" He left, leaving a slow burning fire deep in my heart.