"I'm thinking of increasing our ratings with Indian dishes." Mira said as she decorated the cake with icing. "Maybe with a few samosas and pakoras?"

"That's a good idea." I smiled, filling the glass cup with latte. "It would also increase our customers."

"That's a terrible idea." Monica said.

I rolled my eyes and let the two quarrel as I went to the table to serve latte. Mira had been telling about her new ideas to get her shop on top. Though Monica said that it would be a faster way for doom, Mira was still adamant.

"Here's your latte, Mr. Stuart." I smiled at the elderly person who had ordered the caffeine. "Is there anything else that I can get you?"

"Thank you, sweetheart." He smiled warmly at me. "But that'll be it. My wife is complaining that I'm getting a fat tummy since I became regular here."

I laughed at his use of words. "You should stick though." I said, leaning towards him to whisper my next secrets to him. His face grew serious wondering what I had to tell him. "Samosas and Pakoras will be soon in the menu."

"Really?" His eyes beamed with enthusiasm. "Please don't let my wife know about it. She'll probably eat me alive."

He laughed at his own jokes as I snickered.

"Why don't you get her here?" I shrugged. "Perhaps she will love it as much as you do?"

"Yeah!" He said as if he hadn't thought about it before. "It's her birthday next week. I'll get her here as a surprise. Will pakoras be there by then?"

"Hopefully." I said with a wink. "Why don't you come with her and find out?"

He laughed as I took it as my cue to leave.

"Guys, you need to take a break." I said, walking towards the oven to check if the cakes were ready to be served. "Mira's idea is going to work."

"Who said it was still running?" Monica asked. "We are raising to the peak within a short period of time! It is not exponential growth!"

"You and your statistics suck." Mira said, sticking her nose up in the air.

"40% of any business falls if that's the case!" Monica said, putting her hands up in the air. "Though I would love for it to happen, I cannot sit here and nurse your old heart."

"You are so dramatic. Monica." Mira said.

"You are giving me a headache." I said, rubbing my forehead. "I think the customers are going to love it if we start the Indian dishes. We will needing to hire new staff, but apart from that we should be fine."

"See," Mira crossed her arms and looked at Monica. "It's going to be fine. You are over thinking stuffs."

"Fine." Monica said and got herself a strong coffee, to get her nerves settled. "If things do go south, don't ever come to me, because I'm going to tell, I told you so."

I laughed and took the cakes out from the oven. "Here, have a fresh one."

Monica took it without any banter and sunk her teeth into it like a vampire on a blood hunt. I smiled at her and gave a thumbs up sign to Mira who shook her head with a big grin on her face. I took the remaining cupcakes out and cleaned the counter before I put them into the display.

"Can I get a table for two?" A familiar voice spoke, and I looked up.

"Nick?" I asked, still perplexed as to why I found him in the shop. He had never made his way here when I was working. "Sure, you can have one."

"I would like a table with a window." He said with a smirk on his face. "The person with whom I'm sharing the seat likes the view."

"Sure." I smiled nervously. "Whom are you with? A date?"

I regretted the words as soon as it was out. It had been two whole days and I still felt the pang of guilt whenever I looked at him. The plain idea of not able to help him always made me shrink every time I looked at him.

"Yes." Nick grinned. He looked so young and carefree - the way he had looked when I became friends with him. "She's talking with me right now."

I laughed at him. "You are so bad at flirting." I said. "I will not be able to sit with you though, work hours now."

He pointed towards the clock that hung on the wall. It showed that it was almost lunch time. "Well, I can always take the lunch break." I shrugged

We sat at one of the tables with a view to the outside road that was deserted. Nick ordered a chocolate cupcake and two lattes while I opened my lunch box with egg omelet inside them.

"So, what makes you here?" I asked, cutting the omelet into small pieces using a knife and a fork. "You have never been here before."

"All the more reason to come." He winked and I grinned.

Feeling foolish, I looked outside the window to see two youngsters, probably of our age fighting. Though I couldn't hear what they were talking, their expressions told that they could commit murder then and there. A little while later, the boy said something to her, and she couldn't help but smile. Soon, they walked away hand in hand.

I hung my head low. The whole scene brought back memories that I didn't want to get them to surface. Robert hadn't talked to me after that night. He hadn't even made sure if I was doing my part of the job.

Even though I would never admit it out loud, I regretted that night.

"What happened, Scar?" Nick sighed, getting my attention to him. "It is worse than the time you were ignoring me."

"When have I ever ignored you?" I asked, with a teasing smile.

"When I stole your English text and never returned it. When I messed up your hair with a blue dye. When..." He rolled his eyes.

"Okay, okay." I raised my hand to stop him. It was embarrassing already.

"Just because you smile now, doesn't mean that you have fooled me." He said.

I looked away. I didn't have anything else to add to that. I hated the fact that I was so easy to read. Everyone read me out like I was an open book in a public library.

"It's really nothing." I deadpanned. If I was not good at holding my emotions, I should at least be good at lying. "Just stressed with everything that's going on."

"I know you're talking nonsense, but being a good friend that I am, I'm still going to act like I believe you." Nick snickered and I joined him.

Laughter was one thing that I had developed to cover my other sentiments. We sat in silence, savoring the lunch that we carried, both of us drowned in our own set of thoughts.

"I don't see Robert around much these days." He said, taking my omelet. "These are good." He pointed towards his mouth which was full. "Is he into races now, instead of coaching you?"

My made-up walls to stay strong shook a little. Robert's thoughts were more than enough to put me in a sour mood. He had literally shooed me out of his life, like forever.

I thought about how easy it had been for him to completely eliminate me from his daily events while I hardly made it though a day. Dad too was concerned about me staying mute most of the times and had asked me if it was the jitters about the upcoming race. I had nodded my head, not able to give him anymore details than that.

Robert though had got into an illegal race yesterday and had not mentioned anything about it. I had felt a pang in my heart thinking about it. What if something terrible had happened to him? What if he needed an earpiece?

I had swallowed all my questions and stood numbly doing my routines, until he showed up. Though there was a glint in his eyes, he never came up to me to talk. When I went to him to give him the report of how my training was going, he only nodded his head, not sparing an eye contact.

When the third day passed by with the same treatment, I had given up. Anger was bubbling in my veins thinking about how cruel a person could be. Once my training was done, I had no more business with him - that thought alone satisfied me.

"He just has... stuffs." I answered.

Even if he did hate me, it was his choice and I should be daring enough to accept it. After all, not all could afford to like me.

"I actually met him today." Nick said, looking at me keenly. I raised my eyes and looked at him, questioningly. Why had he gone to meet him? To ask him on a date? "I wanted to meet you, so I went to the tracks."

"Oh," I said.

"Robert was there, his glorious body getting a natural tan." Nick's eyes had gone back in time to cherish what he had seen. "The sweat was trickling down his neck, into his see-though shirt and then disappeared into this vest. His eyes so dark and tempting..."

"Nick?" I asked feeling awkward with where the conversation was going.

"Sorry, sorry." Nick slicked his hair back, his cheeks tainted red. "I just got carried away."

"Fine, you went there." I said rolling my eyes. My box was empty by then, so I closed it shut and wiped my hands on the tissue, dabbing it on my lips in an attempt to get rid of the crumbs. "So?"

"I asked him if you were there." Nick said nodding his head at me. "I thought since it was a holiday, you would have been there practicing your ass off."

"Well, what can I say, I'm a very busy girl." I said, shrugging my shoulders, smiling when I was burning with questions.

Nick laughed at that. "Yes, you are. I'm hoping I won't have to take an appointment in the future." I smiled back, tucking my hair behind my ears. "Robert asked me something there."

Suddenly, my stomach knotted, and I felt like puking. I put my right leg on my left and joined my hands together from shaking. I wondered what it might be, given the fact that I had told him directly that Nicked liked him.

Was I being held on the spot and getting confronted? I looked at Nick, there was no sign of hatred in his green eyes, yet they were reading me, trying to get all the information. As I wiped my clammy palms on my brown skirt, I heard Nick clear his throat.

"You told him about me?" He asked. When I didn't answer anything back, too busy to keep my eyes away from him, he reached for my hand. "Scar, it's really fine. You don't have to look that troubled."

"I'm really sorry." I said, placing my hands on his open ones, desperately wanting his forgiveness. "He was pissing me off and we had a fight." I didn't want to go into details though. "Out of frustration, I let it slip."

"No worries." Nick smiled, much to my astonishment. "To be frank, I couldn't have told him that. So, thanks to you, he at least knows that I kind of like him even though, you know, nothing can happen."

"Okay..." I said, not knowing how to react to his honesty. It was so similar to how I loved Nick. Even though nothing could happen between us, I still liked him the way he was.

"But he seemed angry though." Nick pouted, the same one which I had once found cute. "He was like I need to man up and talk things out for myself, instead of standing behind you or something along those lines."

"He did what?" I asked, shock and anger taking my senses.

Who was Robert to ask Nick to man up to his likes and dislikes? He hardly knew the guy.

"Yeah," Nick nodded, still immersed in the story. "He told me not to be scared just because my likes differ from other guys and I should stand to what I am."

"Did he now?" I asked, crossing my hands across my chest.

Even though it was a nice thing to say to Nick, I knew the exact reasons behind it. He didn't want me safe keeping Nick and he wanted him to go through the norms of the society. I uncrossed my leg and crossed it again.

"He was so sweet, you know?" Nick asked, still taken aback by his conversation. Suddenly, I saw Nick as Lily talking about James for the first time, gushing over him like he was the Greek God who had taken some time of his busy schedule to talk to her. "He actually told me that you were avoiding him. Why are you doing that?"

"He said what?" I asked, leaning to the table, just to check if I heard him say things incorrectly. But even before Nick could correct himself, I stared at him, disbelief etched on my face. A part of me knew that Nick was just narrating what he had listened without any amplification, but it became harder for me to digest it. "I am the one avoiding him?"

"I told him that it may be because of the stress, just like you told me." Nick answered sincerely. "But he was so stubborn in his views."

That was the Robert I knew. He wouldn't budge until people came the way he was hoping they would. He put the rules and he wanted others to follow it with no questions asked.

I was sad thinking how it was so easy for him to ignore me as if my existence was all a dream for him. The gloom was transformed into shards of rage each with bright red color. He had made assumptions and had given me ultimatums to go back to normal with him. On top of that, he had gone behind my back to talk to Nick, making sure that I was the one to avoid him.

How many times hadn't I made an attempt to talk to him before and after my practice? He had just stared at his dumb phone and only nodded his head absentmindedly, dismissing me for the day.

"He seemed genuinely concerned about you." Nick continued. I looked at him in bored expression. Robert was a con artist and the concerned look could have been just another face for all I cared. "He didn't have that usual glint in his eyes and seems to have missed you."

"That he will." I said, rolling my eyes. "I'll ask him how much he missed me when I go to the tracks today."

The mere idea of me going to the tracks to meet and talk with Robert got me on my nerves. How dare he build up stories for my friends, making sure that I was the villain of them all? Perhaps it was time to showcase my newly learnt punches on Robert this time?

"I told him to go easy on you." Nick said proudly. "I mean, you are under a lot of pressure, obviously and its natural that you can waver from your usual moods."

"Thank you for understanding." I muttered, looking away.

Nick had understood me in ways I couldn't have imagined. What the hell was wrong with the over analyzing Rob-freaking-Bert?

"I'm always there for you." Nick smiled a genuine one, placing his hand on mine. "Don't let anyone kill your happiness."

"You are just letting that latte get cold, Everest." I muttered, taking my latte from his hold.

My change of subject was enough for him to understand and nod with his own smile, playing on his lips. I smiled back and I knew that Robert's message for me was clear. It was time to reply back.

"Who was that?" Mira asked, once I had cleaned the table. Nick had left early hugging me and telling me again that he was there for me. "Boyfriend?"

On hearing Mira say the things that I had always dreamed of, the usual impact the words were reduced. Though there was an acute pain at one particular corner of my heart, my face didn't fall this time.

"Best friend." I said to which Monica nodded in appreciation.

"What happened to the other guy with the hoodie?" Mira asked innocently.

"He's probably going to die tonight." I said, my eyes turning cold. "Preferably in my hands."

Monica only laughed while Mira looked at me in horror.