Page 65 of No Boss
“You have to…” she pointed at him, the gesture vague, accusatory, and entirely ineffective, “you can’t just stand there like that. That was a private conversation.”
“I didn’t know you were here.”
“You should have said something.”
“You were talking to the sky.”
“I was talking to Kul Devi Maa.”
A silence stretched.
“Through the sky.”
She opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. Nothing came. Her brain, usually reliable and sharp, had apparently stepped out for fresh air and forgotten to return.
He was still looking at her. And then, the corner of his mouth lifted. Not the restrained almost-expression she had seen before. Not the controlled version he allowed himself in public.
This was open. Effortless.
A man amused, standing in the dark at an unreasonable hour, having just listened to a full character assessment of himself addressed to a deity.
It should have been irritating.
It was.
It was also, she realized with great outrage, devastating.
This was a problem. A serious one.
She had nothing left, no argument, no dignity, no properly structured exit line. So she chose the only option left.
She turned and walked toward the second set of stairs, each step firm, decisive, as if she had concluded that this space no longer suited her existence.
Her anklets rang in rhythm as she disappeared down the stairs.
The terrace settled again. The breeze moved through the space she had left, bringing with it her scent, floral and soft, and something deeper he could not name.
He is a good man, Maa.
He exhaled.
That… he hadn’t expected. Not from her. Not like that.
He remained there for a while, standing in a feeling he could not place. It did not unsettle him. It did not come easy either.
A quiet laugh left him. Soft. Brief. Almost disbelieving.
“To the sky,” he murmured, glancing upward. “Really.”
The stars, predictably, said nothing.
He shook his head, turned, and went inside.
That night, for the first time in longer than he could remember, sleep came without effort. Deep. Unbroken.
He did not question it. Perhaps that was the most unusual part.
Chapter 12
