It was a good job Roger had initiated a hug because otherwise Devi would have had to bodily throw herself at him desperately, and that would have been hard to live down as a cool teenager. Hugging back she could get away with. The crying like a little baby, probably not so much, but at least she could hide her face in his shoulder and pretend like nobody could see that part.
There was something about a hug from your father that wasn't quite like any other hug. Men felt different to women when you hugged them, and family felt different to friends. Devi had done half of her growing up in an all-female household, and all the "uncles" in the world didn't change that. To her, this wasn't just a hug of greeting, or a hug of love, it was catching up on 8 years of hugs that she had missed. There were many times in her life when she had needed to hug her dad, and each time she had made do with her mum, or a sister, or a friend, but none of them, nice as they were, were quite a substitute. She clung to him now, not wanting to let go. She was glad he had missed her, not because she wanted him to suffer, but because she needed him to. She needed all of her missing to have had a corresponding feeling in him, even if it was just a few weeks, or months, or whatever it was since he had seen her.
Devi wanted to say she wasn't hungry, that she couldn't possibly eat at a time like this, but that all seemed like way too much so she just said "'kay," muffled somewhat by her dad's jumper.