Chapter 13

A little while later a ball came over and bumped onto Diya's chair and she looked up from her book and saw another blond picking it up and smiling at her. He went back to her book only to look up in less than a minute and notice that Akshar was no longer playing alone. There were at least three women in their bikinis on his side and four with Alan. Now they had a net, which Diya had no clue where it came from even though it was not a real volleyball net. She could see that Akshar was very much into the game and was giving hi-fis to his teammates. Alan was there in the middle not knowing what to do but still wanted to be apart of the game. Diya starred at them for a moment and then got up and walked over towards Akshar. As soon as Alan saw her he came running towards her. She picked him up and he said, "Mom, I am really thirsty." Akshar saw Alan with Diya and smiled with an acknowledgement without taking his eyes off of the ball. Diya suggested that it was time to get cleaned up and Alan initially protested but looking at the fountain near the pool made him change his mind. By the time he was done playing and had some water to drink it was almost noon. Diya saw Gloria coming towards them with her mom. They both looked tired and hungry. Gloria said, "Aunt Diya, Do you know where Patricia is?" Before she could answer she appeared with her dad who was more than eager to leave her with her mother. He said, "I will grab my lunch a little later. Looks like something interesting is going on the beach" and walked towards the beach. Diya turned around to look at the beach and there seemed to be a bit of a crowd over where Akshar had been playing. Judging from the noise she knew that the crowd must have now been cheering for the teams. She was not very happy about the fact that Akshar was playing with pretty women surrounding him but she didn't want to interrupt the game with a crowd around.

Both the women and the kids decided to have their lunch as they knew their men will not be showing up any soon. After hearing what was going on outside, Akshar's sister said, "Oh! Akshar is very good at volleyball. He used to be his team's captain in those days. He had women cheering for him all the time." She paused for a minute, "Well things haven't changed much. Have they? He is playing his favorite sport and is still good at it, obviously. Otherwise all these women would not be there watching and playing" Diya didn't say anything. Gloria was listening to the conversation and asked, "Is uncle Akshar in trouble?" Diya replied with a smile,” I don't think so. Why would you think that?" Gloria didn't reply and choose to fill her mouth with food. For a minute Diya though of considering Gloria's question as a suggestion and then ignored it. As ice cream was always a part of the menu Alan and Patricia never forgot about it and were constantly talking about it while eating. Luckily this time Alan was hungry enough and didn't trouble Diya. All of them walked over to the section where ice cream was being served. They had three completely different flavors this time and Alan was disappointed as there was no chocolate flavor this time but Patricia had a tough time choosing which topping she wanted on her ice-cream. Diya decided to try one herself and as all the flavors were tropical she chose the double scoop of pineapple and mango and skipped the toppings. Gloria's ice cream was completely covered with gummy worms and was also having fun scaring Patricia with those who started complaining. It was almost after one in the afternoon and Patricia asked, "Where is dad and uncle Akshar?”