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“Who are you running from?”

“Mama!” She bundled her arms around him and stuck to his side from cheek to toe like a limpet, her legs going around his waist. He cupped her head and cradled her close just as Ava came striding out of her room.

“This is not going to work every time!”

She was in her bathrobe, freshly showered and holding a hairbrush and hair ties and some girly pins.

“Come down.”

Brahmi shook her head.

“Enough, now. Come down. Samarth, set her down.”

“What’s going on?” He asked, not letting up on her.

“Nothing, it’s an everyday struggle.”

“What?”

“Tying our hair! A new hairstyle every day and every day it ends up coming off for a ponytail. Tomorrow onwards I am not doing your Diana hairstyles,” she scolded Brahmi.

Samarth glanced at his daughter. He was slowly discovering the royal moody queen inside her.

And he knew he had to side with Ava and be the righteous parent but he was new to this.

He would be cut some slack if he remained soft for a bit more, wouldn’t he?

He looked at Ava and pleaded with his eyes. She glared. He prayed with his eyes. Her brows went up in a shrug.

“A ponytail, is it?” He hitched Brahmi higher. Her face turned to him and she nodded.

“I am an expert at that.”

“How can you be an expert at a ponytail.”

“I have some experience,” he glanced at Ava. “Come here.”

He sat down on the sofa and set her in front of him. Then he took the brush from Ava’s hands, and brushed Brahmi’s hair as best as he could because he was no expert contrary to his claims. For every tug, he left a kiss and she seemed to like that.

“High ponytail!” She demanded. “High, higher.”

He obliged, holding her hair up — “Did I get it all?”

She nodded. Samarth glanced up at Ava to ask for a hair tie when he found her eyes misty.

They met his, and her mouth curled up in a smile.

Those two dimples, those two rare dimples he hadn’t had the honour of seeing for years popped at the corners of her mouth.

He reached out and pecked the only part of her that was within aiming distance — the crook of her elbow.

She snapped out of her moment and handed him a hair tie, stepping back.

Samarth tied his daughter’s hair and pushed his head around to check — “Look here?”

She did, with a big smile.

“Perfect.”

She hopped up from his lap and pointed at her mother — “Your turn! Sam is an expert!”

“I can do it on my own, thank you,” Ava began to gather her hair up but Brahmi pulled her by her bathrobe. He stapled the lapels at her waist together just as she held the neck closed while tumbling into his lap — “Brahmi!” She yelled.

“I’m an expert,” Samarth chuckled in her ear. She popped her shoulder under his chin.

“Ow!”

“He is really good, see?” Brahmi flicked her ponytail which was slightly wonky. He wasn’t about to point it out and hoped Ava didn’t either.

“Fine.”

Samarth grabbed the brush and ran it down her hair. Then reached for her temple and pressed a kiss.

“I’m not a child,” she pulled her face away. He grabbed it and pulled it back — “This is why I am the expert and you are not.”

He ran the brush through her hair and after a few tugs of resistance, her body relaxed between his legs.

He tightened them around her, only marginally, not about to spook her.

Her perfume… his perfume that she had once stolen brought memories of a whole other lifetime to the fore. He inhaled greedily.

“Leave it, she went,” Ava tried to pull away and he snapped out of his thoughts.

“You stole my perfume and never stopped using it,” he whispered to the shell of her ear. Her breath hitched, but she remained a wall. Still steadfast.

“It was a good perfume.”

“But it was mine.”

Silence.

Samarth brushed her hair away from her shoulder and rested his chin there again — “I stopped using it the day I became Rawal.”

“Why?”

“Because it smelled of you now, not me.”

“I kept using it so that she would have a part of her father, even if in his smell.”

He lay his forehead on her shoulder. “Thank you.”

“Fine, let me up now,” she began to push away again but he tightened his legs, this time trapping her.

“Samarth, she went to her room…”

“Shh.” He clawed his fingers through her hair and gathered it all up, trying his best to be neat. “Did I get it all?”

“No,” she rebelled.

“Look here,” he swivelled her face to meet his and pecked her mouth. It dropped open. “She is here!”

“You just said she went to her room.”

“Still…”

He tied her hair up and it looked a little wonky. But if he mentioned it, she would unleash another storm. So he took his time, pushing stray wisps of hair behind her ear, leaving a kiss here and a lingering peck there.

“Are you done?”

“Long back.”

“Then leave me.”

“I haven’t kept you.”

She moved her hips, and realised his legs were eased away. He had eased them away a long time ago. Ava slapped his thighs, hard, and began to get up but he bounced her back onto his lap.

“Are you not even a little impressed?”

“Rawalji still ties abysmal ponytails. What’s to be impressed?”

“Rawal’s kisses,” he opened his mouth and sucked the crook of her throat. She shuddered.

“Sama…”

“Keep it down, she will hear you.”

“Just shut up and leave me.”

“Promise to meet me alone again.”

“What?”

“Tonight, after Brahmi is asleep. I want a date.”

“A date?”

“We will have eaten dinner with her. So a dessert and wine date.”

“I am not leaving her alone at home.”

“Neither am I. It’ll be here, at home.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because I am not in the mood.”

He smirked, baring his teeth and nibbling the flesh of her jaw. “Are you sure?”

“Samarth!” She shirked him off.

“I like this.”

“What this?”

“You, making me work for it after so many years.”

“I never made you work for it,” she sat back in his lap, turning sideways, ready to fight like his old Ava. “I should so have made you work for it but you always made those puppy faces and I would think, let it go, bechara, he needs you.”

“Which, this puppy face?” He pulled his brows down and tried to replicate a look he didn’t even know he had in the first place.

“Yeah, now it’s gone,” she scorned. “Doesn’t work.”

“Does this work?” He grabbed the back of her head and pushed her down to meet his mouth. She gasped, those soft open lips his goalpost after a decade. She bit his lip and he gasped, pulling away — “Still peppermint and still a spitfire.”

“What did you call me?”

“Your debt has just been multiplied, Raje,” he ran his tongue over her bite on his lip.

“I owe you nothing.”

“I’ll bring my accounts ledger tonight, you bring yours. Let’s compare over wine.”

Her eyes fell shut in exasperation.

“My Papa says that when I was born, our Pandyaji proclaimed that my planets make me a man who never loses. Keep trying, Ava. Let me explore newer, more creative ways.”

“Ready!!!” Brahmi came running out of her room, ready in her horse-riding gear from top to toe.

“Where do you think you are going?” Her mother asked, slyly sliding down his lap and onto the sofa cushion. “You don’t have your session today.”

“I want to practice with Papa!” She swung her mallet in the air, better than she had last time. “I can tell all my friends that my Papa is a polo player! I can show them also…”

“You can, baby,” Samarth tugged her close and kissed the side of her head. “And I am going to teach you everything I know about polo. But first I need to go to my hotel.”

“You are going?” She pushed away. “When will you come back?”

“In one hour, tops. I’ll run, grab my clothes and then run back.”

“You promise?”

Samarth swallowed the bitter pill of her insecurity and circled Brahmi in one arm while his other went around Ava — “I promise. I am coming back to both my girls in one hour. And when I come back, I am not leaving again.”