Chapter 20
Harun and I stay up plotting well into the night, switching back over from furtive whispers to texting when Nanu enters the room with leftover mishti to cheer me up.
By the time I fall asleep, phone clutched in my fingers and dried tear tracks on my cheeks, I’m less panicked, or maybe too tired to be.
Unfortunately, that only leaves me a few hours to rest before I’m woken up by Nanu for Fajr at sunrise. The familiar motions and words help clear my head. Rather than contemplate a nap, I decide to escape to work extra early when I hear Amma puttering around in the kitchen, not wanting another confrontation.
Perhaps Allah hears my prayers, because we end up closed for inventory at Chai Ho. We’ve been enlisted to cater dessert for the forthcoming Bangladeshi community picnic on Garret Mountain, known colloquially as “the hill,” and Mr. Tahir wants to make sure we have enough stock to feed everyone attending.
I like doing inventory. Mr. Tahir leaves me and the girls to it while he goes on a supply run to the giant Patel Brothers in Edison, which means we spend the day getting paid to chat. Ximena usually pops by but didn’t pick up when Dani called to invite her.
“She’s always too busy for me lately,” Dani whines, rummaging despondently through the shop’s collection of tea bags. “If it wasn’t bad enough that we’re going to colleges in different states, she’s spending all her time at the wheelhouse this summer. Do you think she’s going to dump me for some hot home-wrecker artist?”
I flick the back of her currently teal head as I walk past. “Mena would never cheat.”
“She’s probably prepping for art school,” Dalia adds, ignoring her sister’s indignant squawk. “Not everyone’s undeclared like you, Dan. She has to get a portfolio ready for her professors.”
Rubbing her wound dramatically, Dani concedes that we’re probably right, and the Ximena problem is set aside for the time being.
Nayim, however…
Nayim is here.
My gut clenches every time he smiles at me with that expectant gleam in his honey eyes. I resist his every attempt to get me alone, not yet ready to talk to him about what went down with Amma last night after he left or the plan I’ve concocted with Harun, in case he thinks it won’t work or decides I’m not worth the effort, after all.
Soon the smile melts away, and he looks hurt and confused by my chilliness. That breaks my heart too. God, what I wouldn’t give to spare him more pain.
The bells above the bolted front door jangle as someone tries the knob. Without looking away from the spices and clipboard I have spread out in front of me, I shout, “We’re closed, sorry. Come back tomorrow.”
“Uh, Zar,” Dalia says.
“What?” I ask, jotting down amounts of turmeric.
“Isn’t that—”
“—your fake boyfriend?” finishes Dani.
My head whips up so fast, I almost break my neck. Despite my hopes that the twins were pulling my leg, there Harun is, in all his curly-haired glory, lingering outside the shop with his arms crossed over a black T-shirt, a familiar surly expression on his face.
Vaulting out of my chair, I throw the door open and blurt, “It’s Thursday.”
He blinks. “I… know?”
Upon closer inspection, he’s less incensed than intrigued. He shifts from foot to foot in white joggers and black sneakers with the Nike logo across the sides as he glances past my shoulder into the shop, dark eyes unobstructed by his glasses for once. The faint notes of a Fetty Wap rap drift from his AirPods.
I poke his chest and hiss, “Don’t act like I’m the weird one here, robot boy. Our date’s not till tomorrow. They’re always on Fridays.”
“I know that,” he mutters. “It’s just, I usually grab coffee on my morning runs, and I was worried about you after yesterday, so I thought I’d check on you. Two birds, one stone.”
Some of my ire diminishes as I take in the way he shuffles his sneakers, clearly embarrassed by his own concern. Sometime during our plotting session last night, he pressed me about whether I’d be okay at work and I made an offhand comment about him trying our drinks, but I didn’t think he’d show up so soon.
Didn’t think he would be worried about me.
In spite of everything going on, I grin up at him impishly. He glowers as if he can read my mind, then adds with a smirk, “Besides, if you’re going to be breaking my heart, shouldn’t I at least get to meet the guy you’re dumping me for? Gotta make sure your Prince Charming isn’t a dragon in disguise, princess.”
It’s my turn to scowl, though I still find this protective big brother act oddly adorable. I cross my arms. “Too bad, ’cause we’re closed today. You’ll have to come back.”
“Yeah, yeah. Guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Before he can carry on with his jog, the twins dash past me and grab him by a sleeve each, declaring, “Oh, come on, Zahraaaa, we can get Pretty Boy his coffee” (Dani) and “It’s absolutely no trouble” (Dalia).
In a flash, Harun is seated on one of the barstools in front of the counter, glancing around like he has no idea how he got there. Although he’s the one who claimed to be curious about my workplace and coworkers, his shoulders have tightened up as if he’s only now grasping what he signed up for.
I can’t blame him—the twins are a force of nature. You know how a tsunami sometimes follows an earthquake? Yeah, that.
Meanwhile, I do my best not to bang my forehead against the door. When I turn around, to make matters worse, Nayim slinks out of the kitchen, arms piled with cardboard boxes of flour and sugar. He cocks his head. “Thought we weren’t taking customers.”
Dalia and Dani shoot me a look.
Catching my bottom lip between my teeth, I offer a brisk nod to assure them he already knows about my matchmaking debacle. Or… most of it, minus this latest development. The twins introduce the boys to each other, taking great care not to refer to Harun as my fake boyfriend this time, lest Nayim feel threatened.
I tense up, awaiting my boyfriend’s reaction, but he only snaps his fingers. “Oh, yeah. Zahra talks about you all the time, mate.”
Harun scowls at the hand Nayim holds out for long enough that the latter’s sunny expression clouds over, then deigns to accept it. In the frigid voice I haven’t heard since the first date at his house, he says, “She’s mentioned you, too. Once or twice.”
Ouch.
“Um, yeah,” I laugh awkwardly. “We haven’t talked much about our personal lives. The friendship thing is pretty new.”
Nayim’s cordial smile returns, but Harun barely looks up from the counter at him, fingers drumming on the marble. I stand there, unable to understand why he’s acting like such a jerk when he wanted to meet Nayim, before giving myself a mental smack.
Of course. He’s uncomfortable around new people. I know that well enough from our first couple of meetings, from what Sammi Afa revealed about his allegedly sensitive nature, and straight from the source after our impromptu performance at TGI Fridays.
It can’t help that no one else knows about the blowup with Amma except him, putting him in a tough spot. I place a hand on his shoulder, in the hopes of setting him at ease. “Even though that’s the case, you’ve been a very good friend to me, robot boy. If it weren’t for your encouragement, I don’t know that I would have taken a chance with Nayim.”
“Oh?” The boy in question’s eyebrows arch into his hairline. “Then I owe you one, mate. Zahra is the best thing that’s happened to me in a while.”
“I know,” Harun mutters, before his eyes widen a fraction, as if he hadn’t meant to speak aloud. My face reddens as his closes off, his pupils lowering to regard the countertop like imitation marble is the most fascinating thing in the world. When he continues, his voice is light. “I’m happy to help. The sooner you get serious with someone else, the sooner we can end our fake relationship and go back to our normal lives, right?”
All I can manage is a nod. I have no idea what to make of him or all this right now. Dani comes to the rescue by slinging an arm around my neck. “Come on, that’s not entirely true. Zahra called you her friend, didn’t she? That doesn’t have to change.”
Harun stiffens, while Nayim reclines against the table holding the espresso machine, both clearly interested in my answer. I nod, and Harun’s sullen expression softens into something more familiar, like it usually does when we’re alone together.
“Cool,” continues Dani. “I’ll whip us up some drinks.”
She releases me to push past Nayim to the machine, but Dalia fills the void left behind at once, giving me an encouraging smile as she steers me over to the barstool next to Harun. Wincing, I realize that I must not be hiding my trepidation very well if the twins are going out of their way to be so vigilant.
“Let me guess,” Dani tells Harun, looking between the punny menu board she came up with and his sour expression. “Coffee, black, one cube of sugar? I call that our un-espresso-ive.” His brows press together at her sixth sense, but he doesn’t deny it. Dani directs her attention to her sister next. “Iced Kashmiri chai latte with extra whipped cream, right?”
“Yes, please,” Dalia chirps.
“And for Zahra—”
“I’ll take care of Zahra,” Nayim interrupts.
Before any of us can respond, he sets out to complete the task of preparing my order, filling a kettle with Assam and Darjeeling tea leaves, milk, pinches of cardamom, cinnamon, and cloves. The mouthwatering smell saturates the entire shop in pleasant steam. When the kettle whistles, he pours the tea into a glass teacup, adds the exact amount of sugar, and decorates the mildly frothy, aromatic concoction with a single star anise.
He slides it over to me.
“Th-thanks,” I stammer, hyperaware of Harun observing the exchange.
“Tell me if you like it,” Nayim says. “I’ve been practicing.”
Although there’s a strange tension simmering in the shop outside his kettle of tea, the masala chai tastes perfect. I release a contented sigh without meaning to as I take a tiny sip.
Harun glares at the shifting black surface of his own coffee, then downs it so quickly that I flinch at the prospect of him burning himself. He slides the mug back to Dani and stands up. “I’ve gotta go. Busy.”
Nayim cocks his head and both brows, then glances over at the box of ingredients he abandoned. “I suppose I’d better sort out my errands too, before Mr. Tahir comes back and chews me out for slacking off.”
“Wouldn’t that be tragic?” comes Harun’s snarky reply.
“Are you okay?” I ask him. “You’re being moodier and more monosyllabic than usual.”
There’s no way the roof of his mouth isn’t peeling right now, but he turns to me with the subtlest approximation of a smile. “Peachy. We’re still on for Operation Zahrun tomorrow at my folks’ Eid party, right?”
Wordlessly, I nod, and his jaw tightens.
“What’s that?” Nayim peers between us.
Before I can figure out if I imagined Harun’s injured expression or decipher what it means, it’s replaced by one that veers on smug. He claps Nayim on the bicep as he heads toward the exit. “Inside joke. Don’t worry about it.”
A bewildered Nayim glances at me next, but I only shrug, not yet ready to tell him everything that happened last night because I don’t want to hurt his feelings. I know firsthand how much it stings when you’re told you’re not good enough.
“It’s not a big deal,” I say. “You should finish with the inventory.”
For a few seconds, Nayim considers me with such serious intensity that I break out into a sweat. It’s clear that even if he wasn’t suspicious about my relationship with Harun earlier, my cold shoulder and Harun’s caginess have changed that. I want to admit everything, but the explanation snags in my throat, chased by the hope that it will be easier after tomorrow.
At least, that’s what I tell myself after both boys leave me to my thoughts and I get back to work and try to figure out what the hell just happened.