My first story after a loooooooog time

"Blue Flowers!" she exclaimed as she whipped out her digital camera, "I've never seen blue flowers before."

"Oh!" he said, buying time to remember names of blue flowers, hoping to impress upon her his vast knowledge and fervently hoping that she would then pass it on to her friend. The name of a blue flower eluded him. He wished he had paid more attention when his mother would point to various flowers and say, "Oh look, I wish we could have [Flower name] in our garden. But there’s no space left in the balcony!"
He had always nodded sympathetically, lost in thought about what seemed like more important things then.

"Can you take one with me next to them?" Her voice interrupted his desperate search. He knew it was too late. He agreed enthusiastically, "Of course!"

It was a filmy pose, with her bringing the flower to her cheek. Her smile said she knew it was a cliche pose but something in her crinkled eyes said that this wasn’t a spoof photo. He took the snap, taking care to keep his hands steady. But it came slightly blurry. So he looked up from the viewfinder to tell her to pose again. When he saw that she had not stopped smiling, he wondered "Oh God! Did she expect me to screw up?" He commanded his hands to be perfectly still, carefully moving only his index finger.
Click!
She came over and they both saw the snap on the view finder. It was one of those typical snaps where you know the future husband would look at and comment "A flower with a flower."
"Maybe every girl needs one of these", he thought. Along with the little black number that he read about in the tabloids. Personally, he had never seen a girl in a little black number but then again he didn’t go out much. He was hoping to. That’s why he had started reading the dating advice in the tabloids. That’s why he acted on one of the tips and became friends with her best friend. The columnist had assured success. But doubts had begun to creep in. She had been hanging out an awful lot with Akshay. They had drifted away from the group and gone for a walk. He looked worriedly in the direction that he had last seen them.

"So you like Nina, huh?" asked Asha in a casual way.

"What? Uh..um .. no! What makes you say that?" he mumbled.

This was unchartered territory for him.
"This happens all the time" she continued with a Zen-like confidence.
"What does?" he tried to ask in a nonchalant voice as he focused intently on removing the sand lodged in the ridges of his cordrouy pants.
"This.. this pallying up to the girl's best friend which in this case turns out to be me."

He stammered out an apology and asked if it was that obvious.
"No, that's ok. I'm used to it. It’s nice in a way. I get a lot of things done for me and a lot of attention which otherwise I would not have got"
"That's rubbish" he said, quite sincerely. "I'm sure you have lots of guys"
"Not really."
The were both staring at the sea. The others thought they were admiring the sunset.

She opened her mouth to speak, hesitated and then said, "The problem is this time.. this time its slightly different. Coz I like you."
She continued quickly, "I know I should, as a good friend, tell her how wonderful you are. Smart, funny in a geeky way, kind. How nice you look when you get excited about something."

He blushed. His hopes rose again. Maybe she would or had already told Nina.

"But I wont. I guess I'm not as good a friend I thought I was. You know if this was a movie, about now is when you'd realize that after spending all this time with me, you were in love with me."

He looked down.

"But I can make out that’s not true. And I don’t want you to simply transfer your affections for her to me because of some power of suggestion or some crap. So enjoy your first crush and I know it’s your first. I'm sorry I wont be able to help you."

She got up from the sand in a cool, single maneouver without using her hands. She used her sand-free hand to shake his and then she joined the group.

He continued to sit there. Dazed with this huge, unexpected information he had gained. He imagined he saw her glance his way now and again. He wondered about chances and girls and Akshay and Nina. If he should go back to being oblivious to girls. Or if he even could. But what was that she had said? "Kind and funny in a nerdy way?" Girls liked funny guys. At least that’s what they told the tabloid survey takers. Maybe there was hope yet.

A week later he saw a mail from Asha. She had attached a snap of them at the beach. He opened it and was reminiscing about the stuff that had happened that day and since then. Ajay, his friend, dropped by and seeing the photo said, "That Asha is a good sort."

"Oh, you know each other?" he asked.

Ajay replied in a slishly sheepish tone "Well, a few months ago I was actually in love with her best friend. So to patao the best friend I started spending time with her .. standard stuff, you know.. Well it turns out, she developed feelings for me.. But she was very decent about it.. said she didn’t expect anything from me.. Well, afterwards couldn't really hang out with her.. awkward you know.. but *such* a nice girl"