On the way home, she asked him about his private talk with Humi but he refused to be drawn into conversation on the subject and Shehnaaz eventually gave up in frustration.
The following month sped by, SidNaaz's new arrangement worked well, their meals together were civil, even pleasant and her doctors' appointments were less of an ordeal with Sid's silent support. He kept his end of the bargain, merely observing and never interfering but just having him there made such a difference to Shehnaaz's sense of well-being.
What surprised Shehnaaz the most was how much she was enjoying the time together that he had requested.
Contrary to her expectations, he hadn't cancelled once, even coming home earlier than usual on the appointed nights. Sometimes they simply sat side by side in the den, sharing a bowl of popcorn and watching a movie, rarely saying much. Sometimes they would play Scrabble and Shehnaaz usually enjoyed those nights very much, it wasn't often she got to beat Sidharth at anything and to his profound horror he was appalling at Scrabble. Shehnaaz was delighted by the fact that she was a better player than he was.
They also had an ongoing chess rivalry and were a lot more evenly matched at that game. Shehnaaz soon realized that she was starting to look forward to those two hours and hated the fact that he was secretly creeping beneath her defenses again. Unfortunately, much like a car accident, she could see it coming but couldn't seem to find a way to prevent the inevitable disaster from occurring. Shehnaaz was always very strict about the time, trying hard to maintain some kind of control over the situation and whatever they were doing, unfinished or not, had to stop exactly two hours after it had started. They usually picked up where they had left off the next time anyway.
"No," Shehnaaz insisted adamantly one night, during one of their aggressive Scrabble games, they were sitting on the floor with the board placed on the low coffee table between them. "I totally challenge that word! Lexicon is not a word, Sidharth and you know it."
"Of course it is," he nodded blithely. "You're challenging it because you don't want me to have the bonus points and the two triple word scores!"
"Of course I don't," Shehnaaz agreed scathingly. "Two hundred and seventy-five points for a made up word? Never going to happen! I'm not running a charity here..." he grinned boyishly at that and she averted her eyes, trying very hard not to be charmed by him. Finally he grumbled good-naturedly and removed his tiles from the board.
"Maybe it's a French word," Sidharth muttered defensively and she rolled her eyes.
"Well, feel free to use it the next time you play a Frenchman!"Sidharth laughed outright at that and she caught her breath at the carefree sound. Every day he relaxed more and more around her and she often sensed that he wanted to extend their time together. Sidharth contemplated the board again, stroking his slightly stubbled jaw thoughtfully as he considered his next move.
Eventually he settled on "eel" which was so badly placed it that was worth only three points and she snorted disdainfully, while taking down his points. Shehnaaz smiled sweetly up at him, before pointing out the free "t" which he could have used for the word "exit" before gleefully using that "t" for her own word, making use of the conveniently situated triple word score in the process and amassing a handy thirty-nine points for her "smithy".
"What is this word?" He growled. "Names aren't allowed!" Shehnaaz couldn't help but giggle at his outrage before whipping out a definition of the word for him. He glared down at the dictionary before grumbling to himself and going back to studying the board. Shehnaaz smiled slightly to herself, noting the way his hair had slid forward over his forehead and just dying to brush it back, she hid her hands beneath the table and clenched her fists to quell the unreasonable impulse.
