Page 162 - The World's Best Boyfriend

Aranya and whispered to each other.
Dhruv saw Raghuvir call for the cheque and a little later, they left the club.

‘I will be back. Take care of Ritika,’ said Dhruv and left before Sanchit could
form a coherent sentence.

Outside, he saw Raghuvir bundle Aranya into the front seat of his car, a well-
maintained Honda Prius. He wanted to slam the car’s door on Raghuvir’s hand,
drive the car away, dragging his body hanging from the door. He had heard of
Raghuvir being quite the womanizer. A man in his position always had women

fawning over him and he couldn’t be blamed if he slipped once or twice.
Moreover, no one had heard any of the women he slept with complain about

him. Most of them didn’t even admit to having had an affair with him. It was all
quite strange. Dhruv was convinced that Raghuvir was a good manipulator no
matter how many people talked about him being the nicest fucking person on
earth. He found Raghuvir’s niceness rather creepy.

He had heard stories of his torrid fling with Smriti, the PhD student (who by
the way had a boyfriend waiting for her back in her home town—Kanpur),

amongst many others. He tried not to draw parallels between the charming
principal of his school who wrecked his life and Raghuvir who had just driven
off with a drunken Aranya in his car.

He waited for them to leave, then kick-started his motorcycle and followed
them.
For a good part of the drive, Aranya had her face stuck out like a dog,

laughing and shouting and making fun of people they’d left behind. The car
missed the final turn to the college and swerved left and finally stopped in an
empty parking lot. Dhruv turned off the headlights and killed the engine.

Raghuvir helped Aranya out of the car and they sat on the bonnet. Dhruv
couldn’t quite make out what they were talking about, the sound of chirping
crickets was louder than the degenerates out in the open. Sanchit kept calling

him and he kept disconnecting the calls.
Irritated at not being able to listen to their conversation, Dhruv lobbed a stone
in their direction and it crashed against the boot of the car. They ignored it. The

next one cracked the rear windshield, making an intricate web. Raghuvir
inspected the damage, shouted ‘Kaun hai’ into the dark, his voice deeper and
angrier than Dhruv had expected, and then instructed Aranya to get into the car.

They were going back to college.