"Manik. What are you doing here?" Today was my mehndi. Another pre-wedding ritual. A mehndi artist will apply henna on my hands.

Traditionally, mehndi was used as an indication of how happy the marriage will be. It is believed that the darker the henna is, the happier the couple will be. Whereas the designs that are used when applying henna, symbolize blessings, love, joy and luck.

Manik's name will be hidden somewhere in the patterns and he will have to find it during our first night.

"What do you mean what I'm doing here? It's your mehndi." He frowns at me as he sits down next to me.

"Exactly it's my mehndi. You are not supposed to be here." Customarily, only women attend this ceremony.

He rolls his eyes at me before turning his attention to the mehndi artist who was waiting for me to select a design that will be applied on my hands.

Manik grabs the book of the designs and starts flipping through it. His eyes concentrating on each pattern. He finally whispers something to the girl in front of us and she nods her head at him before asking for my hands. Did he just select the design?

"You're welcome. You looked very lost while going through the book."

"Thanks." I chuckle and rest my head on his shoulder. This is going to take a long time.

"Mom said that you were trying to get yourself out of the ceremony." I glance at him lifting my face a little bit from his shoulder.

"Manik it's going to take a hour or more for the henna and after that I have to wait for hours for it to dry. So yeah I was trying really hard to avoid this." They are probably going to put the band-aid kind of thing on my hands to cover the henna so that I can sleep with it on. All these struggle for that dark color.

"That sucks." He looks at me sympathetically.

"It really does." How will I eat? Or do my skincare routine? What if I have the sudden urge to poop? This whole thing is just unnecessary. Nobody really believes that the color will determine the happiness of my wedding but it will look very odd if the bride's henna is not very dark.

"Take the mehndi off after two hours." He says after thinking for a few seconds.

"Manik there is no way anybody will let me do that. Besides I don't want all the aunties to stare at me weirdly when my mehndi is not dark." I pout and rest my head on his shoulder again.

Manik exhales a deep breath which makes me look at him. He takes my face in his hands gently and makes me look in his eyes.

"Nobody is going to look at you weirdly and nobody is going to force you into doing anything that you don't want. These rituals are supposed to make you feel happy and excited not the opposite. So please remove the mehndi when you feel like you can't have it on anymore."

Before I get any chance to reply my mother along with his stand in front of us.

"The mehndi is looking good so far. You did a great job in choosing the design Nandini." His mother's gentle voice makes me smile.

"It was all your son aunty. He did all the work." I chuckle and I see her grinning at Manik.

My mom is admiring Manik. Probably thinking that she made a great decision.

"Mom I was just telling Nandini that she can remove her mehndi when she feels tired. There is no need for her to keep it on until tomorrow. The color of her mehndi doesn't matter to her or me so it shouldn't matter to anyone else either." His authoritative voice doesn't leave room for argument.

I see both the women glancing at each other before smiling at us.

"A little unusual but okay." My mother whispers.

"I'm hungry." I whine as I turn to look at Manik. Our mothers left just a few moments ago.

I glance at my hand and the henna is nowhere done yet. This is going to take longer than I thought.

"John can you get some food for Nandini please?" I hear Manik calling John for food.

"My grandparents are coming for the reception." He informs me as he puts his phone aside.

"Your mother's side?" I remember his mother mentioning that her parents will be arriving soon.

"Yes. They are super nice so you don't have to worry about anything. They'll love you. My dad's mother is a little strict but you shouldn't be concerned about her yet because she won't be able to attend the wedding. She's meditating somewhere I don't even know. It usually takes her many days before coming back and since we don't know where she is, we weren't able to inform her." He assures me while tucking away the strands of the hair that fell in front of my face.

"Okay good. I'm excited to meet your grandparents. Is there anything I should know?"

"No. Just be yourself. They'll like you a lot. Trust me, there is nothing to worry about."

I nod my head and remind myself to trust Manik and not worry much about their arrival.

"Can you believe we are getting married the day after tomorrow? Days went by quickly."

"Indeed and everything happened quite fast after our approval."

John clears his throat and makes his appearance visible.

Manik nods his head at him after taking the food from him.

"Thank you John." I smile sweetly at him. He is so nice.

He gives me his professional smile along with a nod and leaves.

I turn my attention to Manik who is holding a spoonful of fried rice with vegetables in front of me.

"Never in my life did I think I'll see Manik Malhotra feeding someone." Dhruv gasps before speaking loudly scaring us both.

"Dhruv." Manik glares at him which instantly stops his teasings.

Manik forwards another spoonful of rice and I eat quietly listening to Manik and Dhruv talking.

Manik's attention is divided between me and Dhruv. He continues to feed me as he listens to him.

He frowns as I stop him from feeding me more rice.

"I'm full." I whisper.

"No you are not." He states as he glances at the plate of rice that is half empty and the spoon full of rice is in front of my mouth again.

I sigh as I eat it. He won't stop until I finish the whole plate. John probably brought food for two because this is way too much just for one person.

"Manik I can't eat more." I put on my cute face trying to get him to stop. 

He stares at me for a few seconds before putting the plate of rice down.

"Manik she isn't a giraffe like you so she eats less." Dhruv calling him giraffe makes me laugh but I instantly sober up and stop myself as I see Manik glaring at me and Dhruv.

"Can we take a break please?" I politely ask the mehndi artist as I have the sudden urge to pee.

The artist smiles at me before nodding her head. Dhruv excuses himself as he gets a call.

"Can you please text Navya to come here? My phone is in there." I point my purse to Manik.

"Is everything okay? Do you need anything?"

"I need to pee." I whisper slowly.

Manik chuckles as he sends the text to Navya.

"Nandu that Cabir is annoying me so much." Navya says as soon as she sees me. She totally unsees Manik who is looking at her amused.

"Navya!" I gesture towards Manik with my eyes. She frowns trying to understand why I'm pointing towards my left side. Her eyes widen as she turns her head to look.

"What is he doing here? I thought he wasn't supposed to attend your mehndi."

"Well yeah but he is Manik." I shrug my shoulders.

"I'm still here and I can hear you both."

"Manik your brother is annoying me so forgive me if I end up committing his murder."

"Make sure to throw the murder weapon somewhere good."

"Did I just hear my own brother encouraging my murder?" Cabir comes out of nowhere and stands close to Navya. She makes an irritating face before she moves away not liking the closeness.

"Okay before this gets totally out of hand, Navya I need you to help me." She looks at me confused.

"Are you hungry? Aunty said you already ate though."

"I need to pee." I whisper to her and I hear Manik chuckling again.

"Oh. Okay. Come let's go." Navya grabbed me by my arm and started dragging me with her.

"What happened with Cabir?" I ask her as we are walking towards the washroom.

"He has been trying to get close to me. I don't know if he wants to have sex again or because he wants something more than that. But if he is doing all these just for sex, I'm not up for it. He's amazingly good in bed but I don't want to end up being the one that has feelings and I know I'll fall for him if he keeps getting close." She sighs as she pushes the door to open.

Cabir is exactly the type of guy Navya likes and that's the reason she couldn't get him out of her mind even after all these months.

"Navu why don't you talk to him? Maybe he wants more. If you don't talk to him then you'll never find out."

"I-I don't know. I'll think about all these after your marriage. For now my focus is on you." I sigh and I walk inside the washroom.

"Are you done?"

"Yeah. Let's go."

"Did you tell your colleagues about your wedding?"

"No. I'm planning to invite the ones I really like to the reception party."

"I can't wait to see their reaction to you marrying their favorite man that they spent hours drooling over." She laughed as she visualized their faces.

"I don't know how you can laugh about this. I'm so worried." I say as I accidentally touch a part of my hand that is covered with the mehndi. Lovely. The design is a little spoiled now.

"You are always worried for nothing Nandini. They will behave a certain way and then everything will be fine. It shouldn't matter to you that much. Besides are you going to continue to work there? Didn't you finish your internship?"

"I finished it but I don't know if I'll work there. I want to get into investing and helping businesses to grow is kind of my thing."

"You'll need money for that though." She frowns as she thinks about it more.

"I know. I have some from the businesses I invested in before. It is enough to continue the cycle."

"If you need more, you know where to find me." I smile at her and nod my head.

"Are you coming with me tomorrow?" The thought of tomorrow suddenly coming into my mind. I'll have to fit into the beauty standards and get myself waxed everywhere not that I have much hair since I got laser treatment to most of my body parts.

"I wouldn't miss it for the world! I can't wait to see you getting your down there waxed. I'm pretty sure you're going to scream like the world is ending." I roll my eyes at her but don't say anything because it's probably going to be true. I have never waxed that area before, I always shave as waxing doesn't sound very appealing to me.

"That reminds me, are you going to give your little flower to Manik on the first night?"

"I-I don't know. I mean we never really talked about it. I'm not ready but I-"

"If you're not ready then that's your answer Nandini. Just because he'll be your husband, doesn't give him the right to force you to have sex with him."

We stand a little far away from all the people that are getting their mehndi done. I see Manik talking on the phone with someone as Cabir is trying to distract him by poking his arm. I smile as I see him glaring at Cabir.

"I know and I don't think he'll force me into anything I wouldn't want to do. He isn't like that Navya."

"He doesn't seem like that but just in case. Come let's get your mehndi complete."