The party was in some farmhouse past Chattarpur. The address came in a WhatsApp forward at 10 PM and I trusted it purely because my friend Priya swore on her cat’s life it would be worth it. I’m Arjun by the way. 28. Copywriter. I write taglines for shampoo brands for a living, which means my inner monologue is unfortunately always a little too polished.

I’d ironed my blue linen shirt. Then stood in front of the mirror for twenty minutes convincing myself it looked effortless. It did not look effortless.

The farmhouse was actually beautiful though. Fairy lights all through the neem trees, a DJ blending Raveena Tandon into Charli XCX in a way that should not have worked but absolutely did, and easily three hundred people who all seemed to know each other. That Delhi thing where everyone is friends with everyone and you’re the only person standing alone at the bar pretending to check your phone.

I was on my second rum-Coke at a long table covered in gold sequin cloth, doing exactly that, when someone appeared next to me and said totally out of nowhere: “Do you think that DJ has ever had a bad day in his entire life?”

I looked over at the DJ. He was swaying behind his decks with this completely peaceful expression, like a man who had genuinely never received a concerning email.

“No,” I said. “I think he was born on a Sunday and has only ever listened to songs that made him feel good.”

The guy laughed. Not a polite party laugh, an actual one. I liked him immediately. His name was Kabir. Architect. Slightly taller than me, hair doing its own thing, wearing a white kurta that looked like he’d just thrown it on and somehow it was the best outfit in the room. I’m not going to say too much about his face because he has a habit of reading things online and I’ll never hear the end of it.

We talked for ages. Delhi traffic. Whether South Delhi parties hit different from Central Delhi ones (very controversial, no consensus reached). He told me about this insane client who wanted a “minimalist” bungalow with a home theatre, two pools, and a panic room. I told him about the time I spent three weeks writing a tagline for a shampoo that was eventually rejected because it “sounded too emotional for a dandruff product.” At some point Priya appeared at my shoulder, clocked Kabir in about half a second, gave me a look that said finally, and disappeared back into the crowd.

We danced. Okay, Kabir danced. I sort of moved near him in a way that was technically dancing-adjacent, and he found it so funny that he grabbed my hands and just started leading me around the floor like I was a very cooperative puppet. I had no complaints.

Around midnight he leaned in close enough that I caught his cologne, which was cedar and something citrusy and genuinely unfair, and he said quietly, “Do you want to get out of here?”

Yeah. I really did.

His apartment was in Hauz Khas. Of course it was. Third floor, building with a lift that he warned me about on the way up.

“It gets a little moody sometimes,” he said.

“Define moody.”

“You’ll see.”

We saw. The lift shuddered to a stop between floors one and two, lights going dim and orange, with this deep mechanical groan like it was personally offended by us. Kabir hit a button. Nothing. He hit it again. The lift made a sound like a disappointed relative.

We looked at each other in that orange half-light, both slightly sweaty from dancing, and just started laughing. There’s something about being stuck in a small broken box with someone you’ve wanted to kiss for the last two hours that makes everything feel a bit urgent. The conversation got quieter. The space between us did the thing where it gets smaller without either person officially deciding that. And right when he leaned in, when I leaned in, the lift jolted back to life with a very cheerful DING and the doors slid open to reveal an aunty in a nightgown holding the most judgmental-looking poodle I have ever seen in my life.

The dog stared at us.

We stared at the dog.

The aunty said, “Third floor is fine. Use the stairs next time,” pressed the ground floor button, and the doors closed.

His apartment was exactly what you’d expect from an architect who actually lives like a person and not a Pinterest board. Books everywhere in slightly dangerous stacks. A half-built scale model of something on the dining table. One of those strings of warm small lights that make a room feel like a secret. He put on some Spanish guitar from his phone, soft and unhurried, and didn’t explain what it was, and I didn’t ask.

The kissing, once it finally happened without a Pomeranian watching, was really good. The kind where you forget you’re wearing a shirt you spent twenty minutes ironing. Hands in hair, that moment where someone pulls back just slightly to look at you, that silent question and answer thing that happens without words. What came after was warm and easy and honestly a little funny in the best way, the kind of night that feels real because nothing about it was performed. I’ll leave the rest of it between us and the Spanish guitar, except to say the architectural model on the dining table survived. Barely.

I woke up at 6:14 AM to a flute.

The landlord. As promised. Playing with real feeling and absolutely zero mercy. Kabir had his face buried in the pillow. “Every single day,” he said, muffled.

“He’s actually not bad,” I said, genuinely listening.

Kabir lifted his head and gave me a look. “Do not encourage this.”

I laughed. He dropped back down. The flute kept going, finding its way up to some big hopeful note out there in the grey-blue Delhi morning, and I just lay there in his warm messy apartment feeling like I’d somehow ended up exactly where I was supposed to be, which was not at all what I’d planned when I left the house the night before.

We had chai later. He made it badly and knew it and admitted it. I drank it like it was the best thing I’d ever had. We sat on his little balcony wrapped in a blanket because November mornings are cold, watching the street wake up below. A sabziwala setting up his cart. A dog with urgent business to attend to. Two aunties doing their morning walk while gossiping at a pace that honestly shouldn’t be physically possible.

“The Pomeranian,” I said at some point.

“I know,” he said.

That was enough.

I think about that night a lot. Not because it was dramatic or life-changing in some big cinematic way. Just because it was so funny and so human. The stuck lift. The aunty. The dog. The terrible chai that tasted perfect. The way a good night can sneak up on you when you show up to a party in a badly ironed shirt with absolutely no expectations.

Kabir and I are still in each other’s lives. Make of that what you want.

Priya texted me the next morning asking how the party was.

“Good vibe,” I said.

Two seconds passed.

Then she sent a voice note. Eleven seconds of screaming. No words. Just screaming.

The cat is fine, by the way.