Page 143 - The World's Best Boyfriend

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Ritika had dated before. Three boys to be precise, and with the last two she had

gone all the way. With the first one because he was ‘oh my god, so hot’ and with
the second because she thought she would end up with him. But she didn’t enjoy
it much and thought sex was overrated.
But she wouldn’t dare discuss her previous sex life with Dhruv, who bristled

at the mention of ex-boyfriends, forcing Ritika to modify the stories to sound
like they were innocent puppy crushes and might well have happened when she

was six and the boys were still shitting in their half-pants and picking food stuck
in their braces when they were dating. She had since then deleted, blocked,
threatened her ex-boyfriends. It was for their good.
Dhruv was different. He wasn’t kind or thoughtful or gentle or considerate, no

Sir, instead he was ruthless. She used to imagine herself in a period drama where
she’s neglected yet aggressively loved, taken for granted yet always The One,

bored but infinitely aroused and prickled, wife of a merciless dictator with the
world in his hands. Ritika used to love to revel in the fear and unabashed
domination Dhruv used to exude. No boy or man had the guts to look at her
more than the accidental eye contact. She was his girl. And no one messed with

Dhruv’s girl.
In the past few weeks, she had broken up quite a few fights Dhruv had found

himself in, always a few minutes too late though. It would start with a casual
raise of an eyebrow from Dhruv to the target, warning him, and then he would
clutch her hand tighter, look at her and tell her that he would be back, his face

would be flushed, hair standing on his arms, and he would stride and without a
second’s hesitation throw a punch right between the ears of any guy who dared
to hit on her. Ritika would stand there, shocked, but secretly admiring Dhruv’s

furious love for her, and then run to save the poor boy from Dhruv’s unrelenting
assault.
‘I love you,’ she would say.

‘I love you, too,’ Dhruv would answer back, still panting but calmed, and she
would feel like she were dating the Hulk. What more could she have asked for?
But the last two weeks had been less than ideal. Dhruv had been studying

uncharacteristically hard and often at the expense of the time they used to spend