“What is this?” He smelled coffee.
“I made coffee for myself, you can join in.”
He glanced into the cup. Light brown toffee-coloured milky drink.
“Is this mixed with Boost or something?”
“Hmm.”
His eyes widened. Samar sniffed.
“Liar.” He looked at her as she moved around the hall and to one of the glass windows he had bolted last night.
“If you don’t like it, it’s ok. You don’t have to drink it,” she said distractedly, opening the window. Cool morning breeze blew in, bringing the smells of flowers and dewy greens. Amaal’s mouth curled, her blue eyes staring out at the garden while taking a sip of her coffee. Samar touched his mouth to the cup’s rim and drank the lukewarm thing in one go. It was sweet milk with coffee powder. He set the mug on the table in front of him, put on his specs and got to his feet.
The sight of the breeze blowing her hair made him freeze.
She was… beautiful. Sometimes he forgot she was ten years younger than him. She hadthatkind of freshness to her. At the beginning, it had made him uncomfortable. Now, he had gotten the reality check that her age did not dictate her capability to handle life. She did a better job of it than he did.
Maybe she would be able to handle him, too.
God knew he had failed at handling himself.
Samar crossed the space between them and stopped behind her, keeping a polite distance as the waft of her coffee curled to his nostrils. The breeze followed. It brought the scent of lilies and dry skin, the scent of her hair, making his body tighten.
“Did you plant all this?” He asked.
She shook her head. “I am lucky if I get time to make my own meal and feed myself. My plant babies won’t survive my schedule.” Amaal turned and leaned her shoulder on the window frame, tipping her face up to him. “My gardening days are behind me.”
“Or,” he set a palm over her head, caught in those blue eyes that were pinched smaller in the morning, “they are on a break until you resume.”
She smiled — “You never once complimented my gardening while we were living together in the outhouse.”
“We weren’t living together.” He leaned down.
Her throat worked a swallow.
“We were,” she argued for the sake of arguing, her voice going soft.
“You don’t know what living together means.”
“Don’t I?”
He held her gaze, taking the mug out of her hand. “You don’t.”
“I have been with men before.”
“But have you lived with one before?”
“Yes.”
“Have you put him to sleep?”
Her eyes widened.
He used his free hand to comb through the strands of hair stuck to her ear.
“Have you taken his specs off for him?”
