Shape of the Sun

Manmeet and Rajkumar

The next night.  Rajkumar's apartment, India.

"Still switched off? What nonsense is this?"

"Did you say something, Raj?"

"No, no you heard wrong." he said, slipping his phone into his pocket and pivoting his attention to Manmeet's panting figure on the stationary bike a few feet away.

"I think that is enough, Mannu."

"Raj, I can still do..."

"No, I won't listen. Dr. Sandhu said twenty minutes daily and no more. Here."

Manmeet took Rajkumar's outstretched hand. He helped her down, his other hand around her waist, careful not to agitate her or the child inside her. 

"Excellent," he said when her feet touched the linoleum flooring and when she sat on the bed. "Excellent, baby. I am so proud of you."

Rajkumar pecked her lips and then her cheeks.

Manmeet blushed and her arms found their way up where they circled his neck. Her brown eyes stared into his. He thought they were deep chocolate pools. He was drowning in them.

"I'll miss you."

"You already know why I am traveling, babe."

"I don't care." she pouted, "Stay with me."

Rajkumar laughed and dipped to rub his nose against hers before kissing her lips again and more intensely. There was a hazy look in Manmeet's eyes when they separated. He caught sight of it and gently pressed a kiss to her blue-dyed cotton-draped belly that carried his child as if that connection would suppress the heat curling in the pit of his stomach.

"I'll get some ginger tea for you." He held her gaze even as he withdrew from her embrace and stood erect.

"Okay." She was the first to look away.

Rajkumar made a U-turn and left the room. He returned in eight minutes with a plastic cup of warm ginger tea and found Manmeet fiddling with the zipper of his carry-on on the bed.

"Honey, here."

"Thank you."

She took the tea and a sip, allowing the warmth to pervade her mouth but her eyes still trailed Rajkumar as he went around the bed and picked up two shirts from the closet.

"Which one do I wear to the airport tomorrow? Black or Pink?"

Manmeet's eyes darted between both and finally came to rest on the black one.

"Wear that one. You know it gets very cold on the plane."

Rajkumar's expression turned bemused.

"What are you talking about? They are both long-sleeved."

"The darker colors trap heat remember? You are supposed to be a doctor."

"Hey, that is totally inapplicable." He dropped the black shirt on the bed and turned to place the other in the closet. Manmeet spoke as he did.

"Do you think it's possible that the hospital refuses to let you go? Technically, it's still under a year."

Rajkumar chuckled in part at her question and in part because he just realized how particular he was about clothing, eyes and hands running through shirt after shirt. His poor saving skills never felt less profound.

"Babe, do you think I should donate some of my clothes? These are just the extras I don't usually wear and it feels like a boutique in here already."

Manmeet whipped her head around in disbelief.