Incest Little sis Anjali and her friends

[prasannas2001]

 
She reached for the bowl of chopped basil at the same moment he reached for it.
 
Their hands touched.
 
Both paused.
 
It lasted a few moments.
 
Neither spoke.
 
Mamta withdrew her hand first.
 
"You take it."
 
He accepted the bowl quietly.
 
"Thank you."
 
She nodded, suddenly finding the arrangement of the herbs intensely interesting.
 
To break the silence she asked,
 
"So... how did an engineering student become interested in cooking?"
 
"My mother says cooking teaches patience."
 
"And does it?"
 
"It does."
 
"What else?"
 
He smiled.
 
"It teaches you that timing matters."
 
"That's true."
 
"And..."
 
 
 
He looked at her, his smile softer now.
 
"...the best things usually can't be rushed."
 
For a brief moment, the words seemed to hang in the warm kitchen air.
 
Mamta held his gaze.
 
She wasn't naïve.
 
She had lived long enough to recognize when a conversation was no longer just about cooking.
 
There was a quiet warmth in his eyes that told her those words carried more meaning than they appeared to. They could have been about the pasta slowly simmering on the stove...
 
...or they could have been about something else entirely.
 
For years, she had lived a disciplined life, spending months at a time away from her husband while he worked abroad, seeing him only a handful of times each year. Never once had she allowed herself to blur the boundaries of her marriage, no matter how lonely the days had sometimes felt.
 
Yet now, standing beside Rohan in her small kitchen, she found herself unexpectedly aware of the way he looked at her.
 
It wasn't bold.
 
It wasn't disrespectful.
 
It was simply... attentive.
 
And somehow, that made it harder to ignore.