KURTAS AND TALKS
ANAMIKA
Sara announces after dinner that she's sleeping with Amma Saheba tonight.
Not asks. Announces.
She plants both hands on her hips, informs us that she and her grandmother have "very important things to discuss," and marches off with all the confidence of a queen claiming territory.
Amma Saheba looks delighted. Yuvaan looks thoroughly betrayed for exactly three seconds before Sara loops her tiny hand through his mother's and disappears down the corridor without so much as a backward glance.
Neither of us manages to stop her. Not that either of us truly tries. Which is how I find myself standing alone in a bedroom that belongs to both of us for the night, staring at an empty luggage rack where my suitcase should have been.
I fold my arms across my chest and glare at it as though the bag might suddenly appear out of guilt.
It doesn't.
I sigh under my breath.
The room itself is beautiful in the effortless way old royal guest wings always are.
Beige walls softened by age, carved wooden furniture polished until it gleams, long curtains swaying gently in the breeze drifting through the balcony doors.
It's the sort of room people travel across the country to stay in.
Right now, I couldn't care less.
My suitcase is missing.
I hear Yuvaan's voice through the adjoining sitting room, calm and measured as he finishes a work call, and I continue staring at the empty rack, somehow convinced glaring hard enough might solve the problem.
It doesn't.
My irritation grows anyway. Not at Sara. She deserves evenings like this—curling up beside a grandmother who's already hopelessly in love with her, whispering five-year-old secrets long past bedtime.
No.
I'm irritated at everything else. At the fact that my overnight bag is somewhere on a different route because one of the vehicles took another road after the convoy split.
At the fact that all I've been wearing since sunrise are these travel clothes, now carrying the faint scent of dust and a day spent in the car.
And, if I'm being completely honest . . .
The missing bag isn't really the problem.
Not entirely. The real problem is standing quietly underneath it, refusing to be ignored.
For the first time since this marriage happened, Sara won't be asleep between us.
No small body sprawled diagonally across the mattress.
No sleepy interruptions. No tiny hand reaching for one of us in the middle of the night.
Just . . . Us.
Alone.
The thought sends a ridiculous flutter through my stomach. I immediately decide to pretend it doesn't exist. Yuvaan walks in a moment later, slipping his phone into his pocket, and finds me still standing exactly where he left me, arms folded, looking personally offended by a piece of furniture.
His gaze flicks once around the room before settling on me. "Your bag didn't arrive?"
I let out another sigh. "It's apparently still in the second car.
" He raises an eyebrow. "The one that took the scenic route for reasons no one seems capable of explaining.
" A corner of his mouth twitches. "I don't suppose," I continue hopefully, "this palace keeps emergency nightclothes for guests? "
Without a word, he turns and disappears into the dressing room. I blink after him. A minute later he returns holding out a neatly folded white cotton kurta. Plain. Soft. Obviously his.
"It's the best I can do," he says. I stare at it for a second before taking it from him.
"Thank you." For reasons I refuse to examine too closely, my voice comes out quieter than usual.
I escape into the bathroom before he can notice.
The moment I pull the kurta over my head, I know it's going to be a problem.
It's enormous through the sleeves. Far too long.
The shoulders slide halfway down my arms.
And yet . . . across my chest and stomach it fits much more closely than I'd like.
The soft cotton skims every curve I'd spent years pretending not to notice.
I catch my reflection in the mirror. The woman looking back at me isn't the girl who left Devgarh.
Pregnancy changed me. Motherhood changed me.
Years of survival changed me. There are softer edges now, fuller curves, a body that has carried a child and never quite returned to what it once was.
Some days I make peace with that. Some days I don't. Tonight appears to be one of the difficult days.
I tug the kurta down unnecessarily. Pull it away from myself.
Let it fall back again. It changes absolutely nothing.
For one ridiculous moment, I genuinely consider sleeping in my clothes.
The idea lasts all of five seconds before common sense reminds me I'd be miserable.
I let out a long breath. You're being silly. It's just a kurta. He's seen women before. He's certainly not going to stand there analysing every kilogram I've gained over the years.
Even if a small, cruel part of my mind insists otherwise. I square my shoulders, unlock the bathroom door and step back into the room. Yuvaan is sitting against the headboard, scrolling through something on his phone.
He looks up automatically when he hears me. Without meaning to, I brace myself. For surprise. For awkwardness. For the tiny flicker of disappointment I've become so accustomed to imagining on other people's faces that sometimes I see it even when it isn't there.
His gaze travels over me once. Slowly. Not lingering. Not avoiding. Simply . . . seeing.
Then it returns to my face. “You look beautiful.
" That's all he says. Like it’s a fact. Nothing more.
He smiles—a small, easy smile—and looks back down at whatever he was reading.
Just like that. No second glance. No awkward pause.
No indication he'd noticed anything I'd spent ten minutes criticising in the mirror.
Something inside my chest loosens so suddenly it almost hurts. I hadn't realised how tightly I'd been holding myself together until that moment. I climb carefully onto the opposite side of the bed, smoothing the hem of the oversized kurta over my knees more from habit than necessity.
The room settles into silence. The kind that comes when two people aren't quite sure how this version of their relationship is supposed to work yet.
I look around for something to say. Anything. "You used to steal my things." He looks up immediately.
"I did?"
"You absolutely did." I point accusingly at him, his audacity to pretend to not remember it. "You have no moral ground to stand on. I distinctly remember you borrowing one of my ribbons and never returning it."
His expression becomes wonderfully thoughtful. "The blue one?"
"The yellow one."
"Oh."
He nods once. "That wasn't stealing." I stare at him. "It was evidence."
I blink. "What?"
"You'd stolen an entire tray of jalebis from the kitchen."
"I was helping redistribute resources."
"You were committing theft."
"I was feeding hungry children."
"You were feeding yourself."
"I shared."
"Barely."
He's smiling now. "The ribbon was covered in sugar."
I burst out laughing. "It was not."
"It was." He sounds deeply offended that I would question his investigation. "You left ribbon fibres all over the crime scene."
"I cannot believe you investigated jalebi theft."
"I was building a case."
"For what?"
"Future blackmail."
I shake my head. "You never blackmailed me."
"I didn't need to." He shrugs. "You confessed."
"I did not."
"You lasted fifty-eight minutes."
I gape at him. "You timed me?"
"I knew exactly how guilty you were." His smile widens. "The head maid started questioning the kitchen staff and you walked straight into the dining room crying."
"I was not crying."
"You absolutely were."
"I was emotional."
"You admitted everything before anyone even accused you." Heat climbs into my cheeks despite the laughter bubbling out of me. "You always had the world's worst poker face."
"I disagree."
"I don't."
"I was an excellent liar."
"You bit the inside of your cheek." He taps the side of his own jaw. "Right here." I freeze. "And," he continues far too calmly, "your left eyebrow always lifted a little."
I blink at him. " . . . What?"
"I could tell every single time."
I stare. "You noticed my eyebrow?"
"I noticed everything." The words leave him so naturally I don't think he realises what he's admitted until a beat later. Neither of us speaks. My pulse stumbles strangely.
He clears his throat. "You were . . . predictable."
I recover first. "That's unfair."
"It was useful."
"I should've learned a completely different face."
"I would've respected the effort."
I laugh again, shaking my head. "Do you remember convincing me the old well was haunted?" I grin instantly. "Oh, God. You genuinely believed me."
"For a month."
"You were terrified."
"I was twelve."
"You were fourteen."
"I was impressionable."
"You cried."
"I most certainly did not."
"You absolutely cried."
"I object."
"You ran all the way back to the palace because you thought the royal treasurer's ghost was following you."
"I was exercising."
"Very quickly."
His laughter fills the room before mine joins it.
After that the stories come easily. One memory unlocking another.
The ribbon. The haunted well. The pigeons.
The day we got trapped in the rain because we'd insisted we could outrun the monsoon clouds.
The afternoon he climbed a mango tree purely because I'd declared he couldn't. Half the stories I'd forgotten completely until tonight.
The other half I'd remembered differently.
Somewhere between the laughter and the teasing, the awkwardness quietly slips out of the room without either of us noticing.
It feels . . . Easy. The way it always used to.
Like the last seven years briefly stopped existing.
Eventually the conversation slows on its own.
Yuvaan reaches over and switches off the overhead lights.
Only the bedside lamp remains, casting a soft amber glow across the room.
The shadows change everything. The laughter fades. Awareness takes its place.
We settle beneath the blanket, each staying carefully on our own side of the mattress. Neither of us crosses the invisible line between us. I stare up at the ceiling. The silence now feels different.
Heavier. Not uncomfortable. Just . . . Full.
I become painfully aware of everything. The quiet rhythm of his breathing. The faint scent of sandalwood from his soap. The warmth his body gives off even from several inches away. It feels impossible that someone can be this close without touching you.
"Anamika." His voice is quiet enough that I almost think I imagined it.
"Hm?" I turn my head. He's already looking at me. The lamplight softens the sharp lines of his face, leaving something thoughtful in their place. He looks like he's about to say something. Something important.
I wait. A second passes. Then another. Finally he exhales. " . . . Nothing." A tiny smile appears instead. "Goodnight, Daisy."
There's something unexpectedly tender about the way he says it. Like he's tucked an entire unfinished sentence inside those two words. I smile back before I can stop myself.
"Goodnight . . . " I hesitate just long enough to see his eyes lift again. " . . . Pretty Boy."
A soft laugh escapes him. The room falls quiet once more.
I turn back toward the ceiling, determined not to think about how close he is.
Determined not to notice the warmth lingering between us.
Determined not to imagine what would happen if either of us reached across the few careful inches separating us.
I don't move.
Neither does he.
But sleep takes much longer than usual to find me, because every time I close my eyes, all I can think about is the oversized white kurta wrapped around me . . . and the man sleeping beside me who somehow made me forget to be ashamed of myself for an entire evening.