I take a step back from her, letting her breathe, and her floral scent envelops me. I hope I continue smelling like her for the entire day.
“For you? Yes. Always.”
She shakes her head with a smile.
“When will you go to pick up Chhavi?”
“I will come pick you up during lunch. Then we will both go together.”
“Fine,” she says, opening the door of her car and settling down inside. I lean over the hood of her car as she carefully secures her seat belt. “I will see you then.”
“Text me when you reach your office,” I say, and she stares at me, probably not expecting me to say that. “Bye. I love you, baby.”
She doesn’t say it back, and she doesn’t even need to. I can see it in her eyes. The way she looked at me before is the same way she looks at me now, and God, I am so hopeful now.
I know nothing can break us apart anymore.
I just hope I turn out to be right after the end of this month.
* * *
“Your dinner is scheduled for this Friday with Louis Maxwell,” Henry reminds me as I finalize our documents.
I roll my eyes. I can’t stand that fucker, especially after the way he kept looking at Aisha’s picture and his eagerness to meet her. I love to show off my wife, but I don’t like ugly people having their ugly gaze on her. I am fiercely protective and maybe even borderline obsessive. But she is the only one I have got. She is the only one I have.
“I want to cancel it,” I say, firm, and while I am the boss here, I do give some leverage to Henry as well.
“You can’t. It’s big money, you know it. You just have to sit there with Aisha for two hours.”
“Exactly,” I point at him. “I will have to sit in his obnoxious presence with my way-too-beautiful wife, and I don’t really like the sound of that.”
“Were you always this possessive?”
“Yes.”
“Geez, Aisha has bad taste.”
I deadpan him, and he just smiles.
“Look, like it or not, you know he is important for our company. Aisha will be fine on her own, but with you there, she will be more than fine. Take it as an outing. Ignore him if you want; just go.”
“Sure, Mom. Anything else?”
He checks the notepad he carries with him everywhere because he likes to write down little things in case his short-term memory loss kicks in.
“Not right now. I will let you know in case there’s anything else.”
“Thanks, boss,” I say, careful with the sarcasm in my voice.
He shakes his head as he makes his way out, and I take that time to check how many more hours till I get to see her.
The amount of times I miss her when I am away from her is unimaginable. I don’t have enough caliber to express my feelings for her such that they do justice, but if I had to put them together in the minimal vocabulary that I possess, I would say that she is the sun and I am the moon orbiting around her. I would say that when she goes away, I experience the same withdrawal in every fiber of my body as someone with any addiction would.
I take out my phone, something I rarely do at work because I like minimal distractions, just to stare at her pictures.
She is so beautiful to me. Her beauty is that soft kind that heals your heart with just one look, and her words are a balm for my broken soul.
Not being able to resist, I text her, not knowing what I would say besides a few words.
