It was safe to say that we got absolutely shitfaced last night.

Thankfully, we were sleeping in our respective beds and not in someone else's. That would have been awkward.

I woke up with the biggest headache of the decade. Maya was fast asleep beside me, her breathing slow and steady. Her hair was a mess and she had taken up most of the bed, sleeping in a starfish position. I made a beeline for the bathroom. I felt icky; I had fallen asleep in last night's clothes.

A

fter having showered, I walked out of the bathroom wearing fresh pyjamas and a top. I noticed a head poking into the room.

"Is everybody decent in here?" Andrew asked with a hand over his eyes. Although he was peeking through the gaps of his fingers.

"My God, Andrew, what were you thinking we were doing, sleeping naked?" I slapped Maya's back to wake her up. She stirred a little, muttered something incoherently and went right back to sleep. I pursed my lips. This one wasn't going to wake up anytime soon it seemed.

"Nobody can tell with you girls."

I turned to Andrew. "I'm hungry. Are you hungry?"

He rubbed his stomach. "Never could I be not hungry."

"Let's get coffee."

I heard movement in my mother's room and realised she was awake. Opening her door, I offered, "chai?" She gave me grateful nod.

Andrew was already making coffee when I reached the kitchen. I made a cup of tea and gave it to my mother in her room. I came downstairs to the living room and sat on the sofa. Andrew placed the cup of coffee in front of me and I sighed at the fragrance.

I noticed he wasn't sitting down. I looked up and found him pointing at the fan on the ceiling. A red boxer was hanging from the blades. I stifled a laugh.

His face looked pinched. "Is that . . . my boxer?" I couldn't control it anymore: I burst out laughing.

"I don't know, Andy," I wheezed. "You tell me, is that your boxer?"

He quickly pulled it down before any of our parents saw it. That would be hard to explain.

He plopped down beside me on the sofa. "Shit. How high were we last night?"

"High as a kite. I can't keep playing the mom of the group anymore, okay? You guys almost gave me a run for my life last night."

"All right. But how the hell did my boxer go there?"

Laughter continued to erupt out of my chest uncontrollably. "I'll leave that to your memory."

Andrew shook his head in exasperation and grabbed his mug. I turned towards him. "Last night was good, right? Everyone enjoyed themselves. Right?"

Andrew widened his eyes as I threw in a couple more questions about last night's party. "Relax, the party was great. Why are you getting all stressed about it."

"No, I was just–" I broke off and he raised an eyebrow. "This is the first time we hosted a party so . . ."

"Don't worry, everyone loved it. I loved it," he gave me an encouraging smile. I sighed with relief. But then he frowned and I sat up straight.

"Although," he mused, "I couldn't help but notice a person missing."

"Missing?" I echoed quizically.

"Yep. Your father, Koko. He wasn't in the party."

"My . . . father," I drawled, slowly, then closed my eyes and let out a breath. "Yeah, he . . . well, he didn't come."

"He's in Goa?"

"Yes." I stared hard at the carpet. I didn't want to meet his eyes. He was looking at me, and I knew he was going to ask me about my father's absence.

"Maybe . . . you should give him a call?"

"No, Andrew," I said, sternly. "If he can't accept the fact that I'm happy and successful at whatever I'm doing with my life, if he can't be happy with me, then I'm not going to call him. He should have understood a long time ago that I'm not going to blindly follow whatever he tells me to do. This is my life, I'm an adult, and I will live it as I want."

Andrew was looking at me with panicked eyes. "Okay, okay. Just—give it a thought, please. He's still your father."

I took in a few breaths to calm down and gave him a small nod. He suddenly placed his hand on my back, rubbing it. "You can tell me anything at anytime, you know that, right? We can talk whenever you want to."

I gave him a grateful smile. "Thank you."

Just then, a groaning, moaning Sid and Anton stumbled out of Andrew's room, and started asking for Advil like their life depended on it.

It probably did.

I stood up with my hands on my waist and shook my head in disappointment. "This is why, boys, you should always listen to me."

The rest of the day went by pretty normally. Andrew's phone had been very active throughout his birthday; it was going off due to the thousand fans wishing him happy birthday. He had shown me a few messages, and I had gushed about how cute they were. If only the fans knew that Andrew was actually reading their wishes. Oh man, they would lose their heads. I had laughed at the thought.

We went to the recording studio while Maya, Anton and Sid cleaned up the house. We had to start working on our new song. It was mainly being written by Andrew. He wrote almost all of our songs. He was a great songwriter. I sat with my guitar and tried to give it a tune while he wrote the rest of the song.

It was a pretty busy day at the studio, and by evening, my fingers were paining from playing from playing the guitar the entire day. We had reached a point where we could leave the song for the day, and went back home.

As Andrew drove the car back to our house, I thought to myself. Our friends and family were going to be here for an entire month. There was going to lots of outings, lots of dinner making, and lots of activity at the house.

I sighed.

What a long month it was going to be.

• • •

So. What do you guys think? How did Andrew's underwear reach the fan? Tell me your theories 😂

Translation (Hindi > English): Chai - tea.

Next chapter - next Saturday at 10pm IST.