Crazy Little Thing Called Love (Sun Tower #3)

21. Zinneerah

21

Zinneerah

R aees is leaning against the counter, phone in hand, thumbs moving over his phone keyboard.

He doesn’t notice me watching him. Or maybe he does and doesn’t care.

I press my lips together. I need assurance. I need it to not be her. That it’s someone else. Anyone else.

Tapping his arm, I sign, Dinner party for your friends?

He glances up, eyebrows knitting as he tucks his phone into his pocket. “Why?”

I set my scuffed boots by the door . Would be nice , I sign. I did not see them at the wedding.

Raees rubs his bottom lip, the kind of absentminded gesture that tells me he’s stalling. Thinking. Maybe avoiding it. “I’m not great at making friends,” he says.

Uninvited guilt bubbles up in my stomach. Why’d I assume he’d be this effortless, magnetic social butterfly? After Sahara and me, he’s probably the third most awkward human I’ve ever met.

Invite family? I sign. Your family. My family.

“A dawat?” His voice lilts upward in surprise, but there’s no judgment there.

I nod. Mama will force me to do it soon. I want to— I shrug, gesturing to the open air. Get it over with.

Raees exhales in resignation. He starts juggling his keys in one hand, the metallic clinking. “Okay,” he says, nodding. “We’ll host it early in the afternoon. That way, everyone’s out by six.”

Six o’clock. Perfect. I can survive that.

His smile brightens as he moves to lock the door behind us. He pops the trunk, and I hoist my guitar case into the back. Then, like always, he opens the passenger door for me before settling into the driver’s seat.

I sign as soon as he’s buckled in. Can I invite my friends?

“Of course,” he replies. “You don’t have to ask for my permission, Zinneerah.”

Habit. I am—

“Nope,” he cuts in before I can apologize. His lopsided grin shoots through my chest, making me clutch the belt tighter than I always do. “You know, Alina told me when her and Azeer hosted a dawat, they ordered takeout and pretended they cooked it.”

The memory makes me suppress a laugh. Of course, they did that. I don’t know whether to be horrified or impressed they got away with it.

I shake my head and quickly sign, I am surprised they are still married.

Raees throws his head back and laughs infectiously. One hand stays on the steering wheel, the other gripping the gear shift like it’s a lifeline, even though we’re in an automatic. That’s how Baba used to drive. It’s how I drive, too.

“But we’ll cook,” he says with a wink. “I’ll cook. You can bake.”

The light turns red and we coast to a stop. I can feel his attention on me now, fully. Call my brother. Ask for recipes.

Raees’ smile fades just a little.

I know the look all too well.

Shahzad is five years younger than Raees, but if I didn’t know better, I’d think the gap was a lot wider. Shahzad’s towering height, and those daunting tattoos, are enough to make even the bravest hesitate. And, well, the death stares on our wedding day didn’t exactly help.

But with Nyla there to smooth things over, I’m sure the dinner won’t end in a brawl. I’d put money on it.

“I’ll . . . see,” is all he offers before the light changes to green.

Once we park on campus, Raees and I go our separate ways.

I veer toward the winding path that leads away from the English department, my boots crunching against the familiar gravel. The music building rises ahead, a destination I’ve walked to so many times it feels like a song my body knows by heart.

“Zinnie!” Alex is outside Professor Daniels’ office, waving her arms like an inflatable tube man outside a car dealership.

I jog over, and we meet halfway in a quick hug.

“How do I look?” she asks, fanning her black jean-jacket bedazzled with pins and chains.

I gasp, widening my eyes and staring over her shoulder. “Professor.”

“ Where ?” Her head snaps around so fast it’s a wonder she doesn’t give herself whiplash. I double over, laughing so hard my ribs ache. “Not funny.”

“He’s married,” I whisper between giggles.

She snorts, fluffing her pixie cut like she’s about to walk into a runway show. “Never stopped me before.”

As a married woman myself, I choose the high road: selective deafness.

“Why don’t we hit one of the music rooms while he finishes his morning lecture?” she asks. “Get some practice in?”

I nod enthusiastically.

She skips ahead, tugging me along as she points out every chip in the wall (“That one looks like Mufasa’s profile if you squint”), the weird stain on the ceiling (“Tell me that’s not the perfect outline of a human ass?”), and her personal favorite: speculating on Professor Daniels’ cologne. “Cedarwood and George Clooney,” she states, sniffing the air like a bloodhound.

By the time we reach the music rooms, I’m exhausted from laughter. This is why I keep her around.

The music building is quiet this early in the morning, with most rooms still empty. By afternoon, though, it’ll be a completely different stage—every corner filled with students cramming for their spring-term exams.

I can still remember those days, spending hours with my guitar until my fingers felt like they were made of stone. Ophelia, ever the mom of the group, would shove my hands into bowls of ice water, and then slather them with organic coconut oil like I was some kind of indie rock star in rehab.

“Is Ophelia back yet?” I ask, pulling the zipper of my guitar bag while Alex unloads her things by the piano. She is one of those annoying prodigies who can pick up any instrument and play it like she’s been practicing her whole life.

“She lands around four.” Alex stretches her arms overhead. “We’ll wrap this up an hour early, head out, and grab Juliette a gift. Maybe even get our favorite gold-digger something, too.”

“Mean.”

“Please, she thrives on it. If I don’t call her a gold-digger at least once a week, she thinks I’m mad at her.”

I’m relieved that Alex and Ophelia stuck together, even after I pulled myself away. They could’ve let it all dissolve when I left, but they didn’t.

The three of us were always a unit, but it never felt like anyone was competing for space. Whenever we split off into duos, it didn’t spark jealousy or insecurity—it just gave us time to miss the third. And we always did. We’d spend hours talking about how much we needed her there, until one of us finally snapped and showed up at her place. Sometimes we’d drag her out of bed; sometimes we’d just climb in with her and refuse to leave. Those mornings always ended the same way—three heads pressed into the same pillow until we all fell asleep from laughter.

“It’ll be fine,” Alex says, catching whatever look is on my face. “She never blamed you. Neither did I. You’re our best friend, our sister, our soulmate. We’re in this together.” She winks at me and spins back toward the piano, her fingers immediately finding their place on the keys.

One corner of my lips twitches up. My fingers trace the smooth curve of my guitar as the familiar smell of the music room surrounds me—old wood, sheet music, and Alex’s citrus shampoo.

She starts ah-ah-ah-ing, warming up her vocals with over-the-top theatrical scales. “Ahem. Okay. Here’s the plan.” Alex whips around to face me again. “We throw a concert.”

“But the event?”

“Dude. Daniels will survive. Him and his little music minions can do their fancy orchestra thing for the event, and we’ll help, obviously. But after that? Nighttime rolls around, and boom. Small concert. Encore set. Original songs only. Hell, I’ll even bring in my girls, toss in a couple of our viral shit just to keep things spicy.”

It’s hard to argue against her overwhelming confidence.

Professor Daniels did say it is for a good cause—the money goes toward schools with underfunded arts programs, scholarships for high schoolers, and improvements to our own department.

I chew on my bottom lip. “Archives?”

Alex smirks, like she’s been waiting for me to ask. She reaches into her oversized tote bag and pulls out a stack of journals—five of them, piled haphazardly but handled with care.

My breath catches as she sets them down on the piano bench.

I recognize each one instantly. Leather-bound journals, glossy spiral notebooks, even the ridiculous furry one with a golden lock. That one held the explicit lyrics we never dared sing in front of anyone but each other.

“All this time?” I whisper as Alex drags a chair over, spins it backward, and sits on it with her arms resting on the back.

She giggles, flipping through the journals like they’re old photo albums. Doodles fill the margins. Words are scratched out, replaced, scratched out again. Metaphors that barely made sense when we wrote them. Writing so messy it might as well be a doctor’s prescription. “This is how I coped with your absence. I revisited your handwriting. Your songs. I sang them like you used to. I did it for months. Over and over and over.”

My chin quivers. “Alex.”

She reaches out and pinches my cheek. “You didn’t walk out on me. You know that, right?”

I nod my head firmly.

“You were always here,” she says, holding up the journals. “Every time I opened one of these, you were right there. I didn’t feel alone with these little shits locked in my drawer.”

That’s it.

I drop my guitar and wrap my arms around her neck, curling into her like we’re teenagers again. She lets me, her hand coming up to scratch the back of my head the way she always used to, like I’m her favorite stray cat.

We decide to sprawl out on the floor, sorting through our songs and debating which ones are concert-appropriate. Alex has opinions about everything—her opinions have opinions— but somehow, we manage to narrow it down to five. I write the setlist neatly in my notebook: three tracks from Alex’s EP and two from my stash of originals.

“Melody?” I ask, glancing up.

“We’ll make it now.” Alex bounces to the piano. I drag a chair over next to her bench, grab my guitar, and settle it on my lap. “God, I missed the sight of that.”

“Yeah?” I glance at her, half-smiling as I tune the strings.

She nods with a wistful sigh. “I really miss those days of playing in coffee shops and dive bars. Remember when your mom found out we performed at a pub during Super Bowl night?” She shivers. “Chills. Literal chills.”

I groan, the memory washing over me like a migraine. “Don’t remind me. One of the most traumatic experiences of my life.”

The gig had been worth it at the time. Packed pub, drunk Super Bowl crowd high on touchdowns and beer. It was the kind of audience that screams for an encore and throws money at the stage like you’re the second coming of Freddie Mercury. We stayed until three in the morning, playing everything from our originals to “Wonderwall”—because, apparently, no drunk white person can resist yelling along to “Wonderwall.”

But of course, Mama found out. Not because I told her, but because one of Baba’s cousins, who had no business being there, snapped pictures of me mid-performance and forwarded them straight to her.

The thing is, Mama couldn’t care less why Bilal was there—Baba’s family had long since been relegated to “irrelevant” status in her mind. But because it was me, because it gave her the perfect excuse to lose her mind, she stayed up until five in the morning waiting for me to come home. When I finally walked through the door with Alex and Ophelia, Mama went nuclear.

She beat the living shit out of me in front of my best friends. Shahzad and Baba had to pull her off before she ripped all my hair out. I ended up sleeping at Azeer’s place for a week, just to avoid dying.

“Worth it, though.” I snort, plucking a low E string.

“Oh, totally,” Alex says, her nose scrunching up in mock disgust. “Isn’t Asian parenting just chef’s kiss? So nurturing.”

I roll my eyes. “Cream of the crop.”

“Honestly, I think my mom’s entire personality would improve if she just divorced my dad.” Alex taps the C key idly. “Sloane’s always saying that being a great father doesn’t automatically make someone a great husband.”

I glance at her, curious. “How is Sloane?”

Alex frowns, her fingers gliding across the keys. “Oh, you know, living the dream. Being the younger child and therefore the family favorite, she gets all the leeway. She’s at NYU now.”

“No way.” My jaw practically hits the floor.

“Yup,” Alex says, dragging out the word and popping the ‘p’ like a piece of gum. “I was jealous at first. I mean, before my career took off, obviously. Did you know I got into Juilliard?”

“What?”

“Yeah.” She solemnly looks at the piano keys instead of me. “I could’ve been composing for a Ghibli movie by now. Or, like, having brunch with Hans Zimmer, talking about how to make violins sound even more tragic. But nope. Eldest daughter duties called. Instead of moving to New York, I stayed in Toronto to help my parents do their taxes and reset the Wi-Fi password every time they forgot it.”

I bite back a laugh. “Truly, your sacrifice deserves a monument. Or at least a plaque.”

“Right? Like, where’s my Nobel Prize for Patience and Sacrificing Dreams?” She presses a dramatic chord on the piano, letting it ring out before giving me a sidelong grin. “Don’t get me wrong, I love where I am now, but sometimes I wonder, you know?”

I just nod, strumming a few quiet chords in response.

She perks up again. “Although, silver lining: I got to meet you and Fifi. And honestly, Juilliard was probably crawling with stuck-up snobs who’d sip overpriced wine and argue about Wagner at their daddy’s opera parties. I don’t know, rich people shit.” She shrugs, completely unbothered. “I’d rather miss out on all that than miss the memories we made.”

I love you , I sign.

“Fuck, yeah. Rock and roll is where the heart is.”Alex throws up a “rock on” hand gesture, grinning like an idiot.

I laugh, shaking my head. “It doesn’t mean rock and roll.” I lift my hands and sign again, slower. “See? Pinky is ‘I,’ index and thumb make the ‘L,’ and pinky and thumb together make ‘Y.’” I repeat the motions. “I. Love. Yo—”

Before I can finish, I choke on the last word, coughing hard enough to make my eyes water.

“Jesus, Zinnie.” Alex is already grabbing my water bottle, unscrewing the cap. “Drink. And no more talking. Seriously, I’ll learn sign language. My sister’s picking it up anyway. She’s been taking notes for a friend who’s hard of hearing. Laura? Lily? Something like that. Whatever. I’ll force her to give me a crash course.”

I smile, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.

Alex rubs my back in little circles until my breathing evens out. Then, she cups my cheek with one hand, tilting my head toward her. “Are you ready to sing through your strings, Zinnie?”

I smile at her as I lift my guitar and strum a G chord.