“You made the truth suspicious by protecting me from suspicion.”
Kabir sat down. “You are right.”
The admission disarmed her.
He apologised without a joke. Tanya accepted because the specific matter appeared resolved. She did not ask what other truths had received protective substitutes.
When she left, the earring remained in the bowl. Kabir threw it away the next morning, then took it from the bin and placed it in a drawer because disposal felt like evidence too.
The following week, Tanya used Kabir’s spare key for the first time.
He was at an event in Gurugram and had left a folder needed by a courier. Tanya’s school was closer to his flat. The request sounded practical enough to prove trust.
“Top shelf beside the speaker,” he said. “Blue folder, not black.”
“Your organisational system is colour?”
“You organise adolescents by uniform.”
“That is the school, not me.”
The flat felt different without Kabir. Less intimate, more legible. Tanya found the blue folder and placed it near the door. On the dining table lay four café loyalty cards held by a rubber band. One bore Naina’s handwriting: Do not lose again.
Tanya recognised the neat block letters from years of birthday cards.
She held the card until the courier rang.
“Where did this come from?” she asked Kabir that evening.
There was a short pause. “What?”
“Loyalty card. Naina wrote on it.”
“We met for coffee after Goa. I asked about a banking thing.”
“Same place?”
“A few times.”
“Why did neither of you say?”
“Why would coffee require group disclosure?”
The answer reduced the clue to something Tanya could feel foolish about.
“It doesn’t,” she said.
“You sound upset.”
“I sound tired.”
“Come over after the courier leaves.”
“School tomorrow.”
Tanya locked the flat and took the spare key from her ring. She almost placed it on the table. Instead she returned it to her handbag.
At school the next day, she watched Class Twelve write an examination. Silence filled the room with scratching pens and shifting chairs. Aakash raised his hand to ask whether he could clarify the question.
“You may clarify your answer,” Tanya said. “The question remains.”
The phrase followed her into lunch.
She messaged Naina: Did you meet Kabir for banking advice?
The typing bubble appeared, vanished and returned.
Once. Long ago. Why?
Both details were false enough to matter. Tanya stared at the reply.
Saw your handwriting on café card.
Naina took six minutes.
He kept losing it. I wrote reminder. Not important.
Tanya wanted to ask how often a person had to use a loyalty card before loss became recurring. Instead she reacted with a thumbs-up. The symbol ended a conversation that language might have saved.
Naina sat at her bank desk and looked at the same screen. She nearly wrote: Are you seeing him? She deleted it because Tanya had asked only about coffee, and because the answer might turn Naina’s hope into competition.
Kabir learned about the exchange when Naina called him.
“She found the card,” Naina said.
“I explained.”
“You said one coffee?”
“I said a few.”
“I said one.”
They heard the mismatch.
“We should tell her,” Naina said.
“Tell her what? We are not exclusive. Tanya knows I see others.”
“Does she know me?”
“She knows we had coffee.”
“That is not what I asked.”
Kabir rubbed his forehead. “Let me handle it.”
“You have been handling it.”
Naina ended the call. Her anger lasted until Kabir arrived at her office with lunch and an apology. He did not pressure her to continue. He said he was afraid the women would turn a private connection into a group referendum.
That fear was plausible because the group did exactly that with most dates.
Naina agreed to one more dinner. She told herself she was choosing privately. In reality, Kabir had shaped the information available to the choice.
The overlapping calendar produced near collisions with increasing frequency.
Kabir left a bookstore with Tanya ten minutes before Meher entered for a meeting. Rhea saw his car outside Naina’s bank and accepted his explanation about a client. Meher found a red-pen mark in Kabir’s copy of a novel and believed he had annotated it himself.
He survived not through brilliant lies but through ordinary assumptions. Delhi was large. Work overlapped. Friends shared recommendations. Similar objects belonged to coincidence until someone compared ownership.
At the condolence meeting, four messages had arrived because Kabir was cancelling everyone.
His event client had added an emergency dinner. He wrote four variations, then simplified them into the same sentence: Tonight became impossible. Tomorrow?
The women hid their screens because each wanted privacy. Kabir’s system depended on that privacy appearing virtuous.
After the gathering, he met Dev at a bar.
“This ends badly,” Dev said.
“Nothing is exclusive.”
“You keep saying the contract is legal when the building is on fire.”
“I have been clear.”
“With whom?”
Kabir listed conversations. Tanya knew he saw others. Rhea knew he disliked labels. Meher knew he was casual. Naina knew nothing conventional existed.
“Do they know the others are close friends?” Dev asked.
Kabir said nothing.
“That is the disclosure.”
“It will destroy the group.”
“You mean revealing it will expose the damage already done.”
Kabir ordered another drink and did not touch it.
“I need time.”
“You have used time as a hiding place.”
Dev left. Kabir stayed until the ice melted.
The next day he drafted a group message, something impossible to tailor.
I need to tell you something about overlapping relationships.
He selected no recipients. He deleted the draft.
Instead he scheduled Tanya for Sunday, Rhea for Monday, Meher for Thursday and Naina for Saturday. One more week, he told himself. Separate conversations would be kinder.
Kabir’s scheduling looked efficient only from his calendar. Inside each woman’s life, the meetings produced anticipation, cancelled alternatives and emotional cost.
Rhea declined drinks with colleagues because Monday belonged to him, then pretended she preferred rest when he cancelled.
Meher moved a client dinner to protect Thursday and received professional irritation she never told Kabir about.
Naina rejected a family introduction scheduled for Saturday. Her mother believed the refusal meant she disliked marriage. In truth, Naina wanted one evening chosen for desire rather than evaluation.
Tanya rearranged school marking for Sunday and called the effort spontaneous.
None of the women merely occupied an empty square. Kabir’s colour-coded blocks displaced other lives.
He understood this when Meher sent a photograph from the dinner she had moved. Her team sat without her. The caption said: Hope your event deserves this.
Kabir typed an apology and deleted it because apology required explaining who received the sacrificed time.
He thought of cancelling everyone and telling the truth. Then Tanya sent: Sunday. We talk properly.
Fear made him believe one more carefully managed week would create a kinder opening.
Kabir’s final attempt at separate conversations began with Rhea on Monday.
He chose a café near her chambers because convenience looked considerate. Rhea arrived carrying files and distrust.
“Are you seeing Tanya?” she asked before sitting.