Page 1 of No Other Love

Prologue

The Pen

The First Day…

I never thought I’d have a crush on a guy who’s never spoken to me. Actually, I doubted he’d even raised his eyes and looked me straight in the eye. He was always head down in a textbook or studying his notes. Or checking for medical facts on his battered laptop.

He was just sodifferentfrom all the other try-hard wannabes in class.

Not because he was hot or had a cute smile (hewashot and had acutesmile that showed off even white teeth) or even because he wore simple tee shirts and jeans every day. They were neatly ironed, with no wrinkles.

It wasn’t even the thrill of wanting someone who didn’t know I existed. Because that’s how my daddy issues presented themselves, according to the Psych professor.

He was different because he was soquiet. Not just because he was shy (which I suspected he might be, given his lack of friends) but because he always gave the most thoughtful responses in class.

We only had Basics of Anatomy together and I had never seen him outside of the room, like some of my other batch mates, when we hung out after classes or during lab practice. But we were seat mates, as in we sat next to each other. And the first day of class, almost a month ago, I’d forgotten my textbook, sohe’d just silently shoved his closer to me and we’d pored over it together.

Maybe I was a masochist, I thought with wry humor. Wanting someone who never gave me the slightest attention.

But…it neverfeltlike it. Like I didn’t have his attention. For instance, just yesterday, I caught him watching me when I entered the class with Anu, my labs buddy. Anu’d made a cadaver joke, and I laughed out loud. And he was staring at me. At my lips.

He didn’t even drop his eyes shyly the second I caught his gaze. No, he slowly dipped his head down. Both of us aware of the other. It was chemistry at its finest because I felt a fluttering in my tummy like I’d never felt before. From just a single look.

Still, he never spoke a word to me.

So, I was going to conduct my own experiment today. Test out a treatment before calling a fatal diagnosis. If the guy was acutely shy, I was going to make it easy for him to talk to me.

I was going to be myself.

So, I straightened in the chair, as soon as he dropped in the seat next to me. I was ridiculously early to class; it was almost empty since the professor was always ten minutes late. I didn’t need an audience while I did my doctor’s exam.

As usual, I felt his gaze on my face and cheeks which heated up. But when I glanced at him, he was digging out his notebook.

I tapped his hand. It was on the bench.

He paused with the notebook half in and out of his backpack.

‘Hi! I forgot my pen.’ I showed him my pen-free bag (which I’d dropped without a qualm in the lost and found section). ‘Can I borrow one from you?’

‘I…don’t have an extra.’ His voice was deep, deliciously so. But not like creepy deep. My tummy fluttered at hearing it.

Disappointment coated my smile, but I shrugged. That was the end of that. ‘Damn. It’s okay. I’ll borrow from Anu when she comes in.’

‘You can share mine if you want,’ he said.

I turned around slowly. Unsure of what I’d just heard.

The boy smiled. Showing off even teeth and a stunning grin that made him lookhandsomeand not just merely cute. He had beetle-black eyes with no discernible pupil. And high cheekbones that showed off his Roman nose against a golden complexion a few shades browner than mine. The fluttering in my tummy gained speed.

‘Here.’ He extended his pen to me. A simple, ballpoint, clicky pen. ‘Take it.’

‘Tha---thanks,’ I said.

I didn’t know what else to say. He didn’t have to share his pen with me. It was a small thing, of course, but our classes were full of intensive notes, with each word the professor uttered carrying weight. Sharing a pen meant losing out on those notes. It meant trusting someone else to do the heavy lifting with you.

It was…commitment.

‘I’m Ani,’ I said breathlessly. ‘Anika Chakraborty.’ I extended my hand for the pen.