Naina stayed quiet through the conversation. Later, while Tanya helped wash glasses, she said, “Be careful.”
“Of Kabir?”
“Of assuming casual means nobody can be hurt.”
Tanya looked at her. “Do you know something?”
Naina dried a glass. “Only generally.”
She knew Kabir had messaged her that morning about dinner. She did not yet know enough to call it a warning.
As the remaining school holiday shortened, Tanya developed a schedule that pretended not to be one. Kabir texted after events. She replied after checking family plans. They met twice a week and never on the same fixed days.
At Lodhi Garden, they walked beneath trees while morning runners treated leisure competitively.
“What were you like at school?” Kabir asked.
“Correct.”
“That is not a personality.”
“It was mine.”
“Boyfriends?”
“One in college. Six months. He used ‘your’ for ‘you’re’ in the breakup message.”
“Cause?”
“Not officially.”
“You?”
Kabir counted on his fingers. “One serious relationship. Several unserious attempts. One woman who still owns my best jacket.”
“Why did the serious one end?”
“She wanted certainty. I kept offering sincerity.”
“What does that mean?”
“I meant everything I said when I said it. She wanted to know what I would mean later.”
Tanya stopped walking. “That is a beautifully decorated warning.”
“You asked.”
“I did.”
Kabir took her hand. “Does it change anything?”
It should have. It sounded like self-awareness without reform, confession used as advance permission.
“We are not serious,” Tanya said.
“Then no future-tense problem.”
They continued walking. Tanya told herself she had received honest terms. She did not ask whether the terms included people she knew.
Kabir’s work introduced her to a Delhi she had observed but rarely entered. Gallery openings where everyone dressed as if colour required justification. Product launches where guests photographed food before learning what product had launched. A music performance in a warehouse where Tanya stood against a wall until Kabir pulled her into the crowd.
At each event, he knew everyone lightly. Women hugged him. Men demanded favours. Clients called him indispensable and delayed payment.
“You collect people,” Tanya said after a designer greeted him for the third time that evening.
“People collect themselves. I remember names.”
“That is collecting with data.”
“Says the teacher with thirty-eight birthdays in her calendar.”
He was right. Attention was part skill, part care and part survival in both their jobs.
At a late dinner, Kabir asked whether Tanya wanted to meet Dev and Sam in Delhi.
“I already met them.”
“As Delhi versions.”
“Is everyone issued region-specific personality?”
“Sam is less tolerable with stable internet.”
Tanya declined because involving the boys’ group felt like expanding the relationship’s borders. Yet she was already allowing those borders to grow elsewhere. A toothbrush at his flat. An extra charger in her bag. A private joke she thought of during class.
The relationship was becoming regular through accumulated objects.
One afternoon, while Kabir slept after an event, Tanya read student essays at his dining table. He woke, made coffee and began working opposite her. They spent two hours in silence.
Nothing romantic happened. That made the afternoon feel dangerously significant.
“You fit here,” Kabir said without looking up.
Tanya marked a comma splice. “Your chair is uncomfortable.”
“Emotional response rejected.”
“Needs stronger evidence.”
Later, leaving, she noticed a masala-tea packet in the cupboard. Naina preferred that brand. Tanya knew because she had carried it on their university trip.
She held the packet for a second.
Then she placed it back among the four kinds of tea.
Delhi was full of masala tea.
That became evidence for nothing.
When school reopened, the relationship had to fit around a timetable designed without romance.
Tanya’s day began at six. By seven-thirty she was inside Eastbridge. Classes, assemblies and parent calls occupied her until four. Kabir often began work when she finished and ended when she needed sleep.
Their messages crossed like people in different time zones.
Tanya, 6:12 a.m.: Your comma has committed a crime.
Kabir, 11:48 a.m.: Morning to you too.
Kabir, 1:06 a.m.: Event ended. Wish you were awake.
Tanya, 6:04 a.m.: I was, briefly, because you messaged.
Weekday meetings became stolen units: forty minutes outside school, a late dinner she left before dessert, ten minutes in Kabir’s car while Sunita called twice.
One Friday, Mrs Suri cancelled a Saturday workshop. Tanya messaged Kabir before informing her family.
Free tomorrow. Entire day.
He replied: Mine.
The possessive should have annoyed her. It pleased her first.
They spent Saturday without an itinerary. Breakfast in Majnu ka Tila, a market, an afternoon film neither liked and rain beneath a shop awning. Kabir bought Tanya a second-hand poetry book. She bought him an umbrella after he admitted he had owned none for three monsoons.
“Adults own umbrellas,” she said.
“Adults check weather.”
“You organise outdoor events.”
“Clients own umbrellas.”
They reached his flat soaked. Their kissing began in the hallway and stopped when Tanya laughed at the umbrella dripping onto his shoes. What followed remained mutual and off-page, leaving only delivery noodles and conversation.
“This feels conventional,” Kabir said.
“The noodles?”
“The day.”
“Do not panic. The film was bad.”
“Protective detail.”
Tanya looked at him. “Would conventional be terrible?”
Kabir took too long. “It becomes expectations.”
“Everything creates expectations.”
“Not if people stay present.”
“That is a sentence people use when future tense exposes them.”
He kissed sauce from the corner of her mouth and made her laugh. Future tense disappeared beneath immediate warmth.
At lunch with the girls the next day, Tanya described the outing as “walking around.”
“For twelve hours?” Rhea asked.
“Delhi is large.”
“Your hair looks different,” Meher said.
“Humidity.”
Naina watched quietly. She had spent part of Saturday waiting for Kabir to answer. He told her Sunday morning an event crisis had consumed him.
“My person disappeared yesterday,” she said.
Tanya felt an unearned sense of safety. Kabir had been with her; therefore Naina’s man was someone else.
“Work?” she asked.
“Apparently.”
“Freelancers,” Rhea said.
The friendship chat developed parallel language: my person, mystery man, client situation, personal commitment. The phrases allowed discussion without identification and created space Kabir could occupy four times.
Meher proposed no names until a relationship survived six dates.
“Why?” Tanya asked.
“You conduct post-mortems before first coffee.”
“Quality assurance,” Rhea said.
The rule passed as a joke and became practice.
Privacy also protected Tanya’s work life. A parent saw her buying wine for Meher’s dinner and mentioned it during a meeting.
“Teachers also have weekends,” Tanya said.
“Of course. We were only surprised.”
The surprise followed her into the staff room.
“You purchased a legal product while adult,” Arjun said. “Scandal.”
Tanya understood why Kabir’s flat felt safe. It existed outside every audience that graded her. No students, parents or colleagues. Even friends remained outside because she kept the door closed.
Privacy became pleasure before it became cover.
One evening, Kabir handed her a spare key.
“Too conventional?” he asked.
“Too trusting.”
“You know where I hide good coffee.”
Tanya accepted but never entered without messaging. Weeks later, Meher would use another copy while Kabir travelled because he asked her to collect event samples. Tanya would not know.