❝ I know. I could be happy until midnight if I wanted to. But what about after midnight? What about two AM? What about four AM? What about months and even years later?
I don't want to let him in knowing sometime in the future I'd have to let him go...
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Daneen stepped back just as Abbas walked through the doorway connecting the kitchen to the small living room.
Tabish stood up as Abbas approached him, taking the older man by surprise and pulling him into an embrace. The sight was unusual-Tabish in his neat sweater and jeans and Abbas in patched salwar kameez.
Abbas smiled at Tabish before he looked towards Daneen.
"Why haven't you seated him in the living room?"
"I did, Baba." Daneen sharply glanced at Tabish. "He just likes to be in places he shouldn't be."
Tabish grinned sheepishly. "I was bored. Accidentally fell asleep on the sofa."
Abbas looked around his own house, rubbed a hand over his nape. "It's not much, but-"
"Why is it not?" Daneen questioned rhetorically, looking up from the tea she was watching over. "This is our home. This is the place I grew up in. It doesn't matter if people don't find it enough. All that matters is that it is so for us."
Abbas could not hold back his smile at Daneen's words, and Tabish's heart warmed at her ideologies.
He watched Daneen's movements as she worked around the kitchen to assemble tea-the way she made it for 'Ammi Jaan'-and biscuits.
Tabish wanted to ask her to abandon her work and come sit because he'd dearly missed her presence. The house had been so dreary without her.
As Daneen set the tray down and made a cup for him, Tabish looked at Abbas. "I agree with Daneen. A home is a feeling, a safeplace."
He turned his gaze back to her. Tabish knew Abbas was watching him like a hawk. He knew Daneen would tell him off for it. But he didn't care and continued.
"Sometimes even a person."
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