“My kind of half day.”
“Is it one of those months?”
Her eyes widened. “How do you know?”
He gave her that unyielding expression.
She waved him away. “Go do your work.” Amaal walked past him and continued to cross the atrium.
“Amaal?”
She turned.
He hesitated.
Then — “If you can wait for twenty minutes, we can eat carbs outside.”
————————————————————
She didn’t know why she waited. She didn’t even know why she fell back into a comfort that had long vanished from between them. Maybe Iram’s neutral ground had done something to lift her to that place. Or maybe it was knowing everything, from his mouth, and believing that he regretted it. It did not redeem him, but at least he knew he was guilty and repented it. From a man as complex as Samar, this was the peak of redemption that she could expect at this point. That’s when Amaal realised, that where Samar was concerned, her expectations had always been low. And now they were even lower.
And to put it all together to the basest level — she was too far gone in her cramping to think much more than the next serving of carbs that he promised.
This time, it wasn’t a worn Santro. This time it was a top-of-the-line party Innova with the latest upgrades for the KDP President. He wove through traffic, and she sat silently answering emails that needed to be shut down until the next morning.
“Does half day mean work from home at the government nowadays?”
“You cracked a mini joke, should I clap for you?”
“You’ll need to take your hand off your stomach for that.”
Amaal glanced down. She was pressing on her womb to contain the intensity of the cramping while working one-handed.
“Not here…” She stopped him from parking outside the naan place. “That rajma-chawal place. We ordered last month from there but it was cold by the time it reached us. Let’s eat outside there.”
He turned the wheel and drove through the bylanes and tight shortcuts, coming to a stop at a strange curb.
“Not here, remember we went there last time…?”
“I know which one. It’s just off this turning. I can’t eat on the main road without drawing attention nowadays. He will bring whatever we want here.”
Her mouth watered. “Rajma chawal with paneer.”
“Drink?”
“Lassi, not sweet, the salty one.”
“It’s called chaas.”
“Don’t be a Jammu snob. Just order.”
His mouth curled, but he picked up his mobile and relayed their orders. In Punjabi. Amaal didn’t want to let that affect her. She didn’t want to hear that — “Asi Dogra Chowk de is passe gaaddi park kitti ae[105],” and start feeling the same bubbles popping inside her that she had felt when she had heard his first speech. But he did speak in Punjabi, he did use that casual, neutral monotone without commas and fullstops, and then, he put a hand behind her seat, swivelled his head and reversed when his car blocked the traffic.
Amaal held her breath. The column of his neck was in the field of her peripheral vision, and the veins straining there made it impossible to see anything else.
“There’s a rearview mirror too,” she blurted.
“Hmm?” He braked, eyes coming to her. So close, they were… more than intimate. Even when they said nothing.
