His Favourite Book

Chapter 38 - Reading Together

[Afternoon; Abeer's home]

A two-year-old toddler was running around with her tiny steps, one at a time, as her shoes kept making their assigned squeaky sounds. Abeer jogged behind her, tip-toeing, to match the size of her steps and not catch her too soon. "Give- give that to Mama!" He gave a musical rhythm to his words to attract the toddler's attention.

(A/N: Mama = Maternal Uncle / Mother's Brother.)

After a while of running and playing around the house, he finally caught her and crashed on the sofa while grabbing her like she was the most fragile entity to ever exist. She never revolted and let herself melt into his stronger, trustworthy and dependable arms all around her minuscule body. The living room was filled with his heavy-voiced and her toddler-voiced lovesome, happiness-inducing laughs.

"Ookaayyyyy, now. Be a good girl and leave that. Give it to Mama." Abeer bent down to match the level of her face and extended his palm to take back the panda plushie she was holding- half in her teensy palms and half in her mouth. She again left a mischievous but highly contagious laugh while shaking her head in a "no" and continued to shove the plushie further into her mouth.

(A/N: Visual representation of the plushie and my real self is attached on top of the chapter. If you don't interact with the book, that is whom you're making sad 😓✋️)

"Ah- Aa Nitya, no! Don't eat that-" Abeer carefully pulled the panda plushie out of her mouth and moved her fingers to loosen her grip. "Oh my, Nitya, you silly girl..." After a lot of struggle against the invincible grip of a mere toddler, he somehow managed to take the plushie back. He was trying for the same only to have it cleaned after so many days of her playing with it.

As he bent further to keep the plushie on the far end of the table that would be out of her reach, still safely holding her close to him, she again laughed at god knows what she found so funny. "Don't think you think you can win against me!" Booping her celestial nose, he smiled with her. With the same smile, he continued, "Remember I've always won against your mother." He adjusted her upright on his lap. "You are still her daughter. No way you're winning against me!" He proudly said as he slightly pinched her potato-sized squishy cheeks.

"Win against who?" Gauri, Abeer's elder sister, unexpectedly said from behind the sofa.

Abeer turned around and showed her his tongue to tease her, "You, bleeh."

Gauri was holding a new diaper that she smacked on Abeer's head. "Oh, shut up!"

"Eeeww" Abeer sent a fake cry.

"What? It's as new as your lie!" Gauri snapped.

Abeer frowned at Gauri and turned to her daughter, Nitya, "See? These are the cards she plays when she's about to lose an argument against me. Right? Right, Nitu? Say yes!" He gently took out the fingers she was busy chewing. She looked at their faces and giggled again.

(A/N: Men will behave gentlemanly with every Woman except their sisters. Stupid dumfu- *cough* anyway back to the story)

Abeer changed Nitya's diaper and made her sleep in Gauri's room. He didn't have much work for the day so he decided to read a bit, on his building's rooftop.

- X - X - X - X - X -

Aashna returned from her University, somewhat satisfied with her decision to help Abhimanyu with his pending research. She was more pleased as she turned out to be helpful to someone. She would be helping someone with something that she had not dared to do when it was her time and when she should have. Daring. That was her idolised word. To dare to push yourself through the road to reach your dreams was all she wanted to do and promote.