Chapter 8 #2
When the three of them finally left the room and went to the living area, Reshma stopped in her tracks. Zafar was sitting there with Uncle Jawad and Shoaib.
Shoaib had his attention half on his phone and half on the TV, while Zafar was sitting opposite Uncle Jawad playing some card game. He looked up as she followed after Auntie Bilqis and Haniya and as she lowered her eyebrows in confusion, he winked at her.
Reshma’s eyes widened and she blinked them, probably looking like someone who’d just had their photograph taken with the world’s strongest flash.
Zafar grinned at her before turning his attention back to his hand while Uncle Jawad scratched his head.
‘I think I’ve got you again, son. Good thing we’re not playing for money.
Bilqis would have my hide for cleaning you out.
You’re married to our girl after all, need to think of her.
Though she’s more than capable of taking care of you.
’ His chuckle reverberated throughout the villa.
‘Ahem. I’m right here, Jawad Mir.’ Both men put their cards face down as her aunt made her presence known. ‘Hello, Zafar dear. When did you come?’
‘Not all that long ago. Hello, Niya. Reshma.’ He said it as though they hadn’t seen each other less than a couple of hours ago.
‘Long enough that he’s lost the last three hands,’ Uncle Jawad said with a great deal of delight in his voice as he gathered all the cards.
‘Oh, Bills, I forgot to mention, Imtiaz popped over and said that they want to have a small prayer gathering this evening. Start everything off with blessings for the couple and then have all the events. You’ll need to go and check on Ruqayyah.
If I know my sister, she’s probably flapping about as we speak. ’
‘Hmm. She did mention as much yesterday. That’s fine, I’ll go and see her after lunch. Reshma, Niya, I think you can both wear the suits I gave you this evening, the plainer ones of the two, they’ll work perfectly for the prayer gathering.’
Reshma took the things her aunt had given her and after bidding everyone a brief goodbye with a promise to see them all later, she left the villa. She hadn’t taken more than half a dozen steps when she felt a tug on the bag holding her new clothes and jewellery.
‘Here, let me take that for you.’ Zafar had his hand around the handle, just under hers.
Reshma gave it a gentle tug. ‘It’s fine. I can carry it myself.’ She turned to carry on walking, but the bag didn’t move. Zafar was still standing there, holding the handle, a small smile teasing the corners of his lips.
She pulled at the bag, but rather than let go, she saw his fingers tighten around the handle and the smile on his face broadened.
‘Come on, Reshma.’ He shook the bag, but Reshma tightened her hold on it.
She didn’t know what it was about the moment, but it felt like something more than just about the bag.
She shook her head and pulled the bag towards herself, though, of course, with Zafar on the other side of it, it was impossible that it would come her way.
Instead, she found herself shuffling towards him as he slowly pulled the bag closer towards himself, standing there rock solid.
‘There is no way’ – his voice was soft but deep as he said the words, enunciating each syllable as though he had all the time in the world – ‘you can take this bag off me unless I let you, and I don’t plan on doing that.’
She took another half a step towards him as he pulled it again, a playful expression on his face.
What was he doing? And how did he think she’d be up for this?
Was she supposed to forget yesterday had happened?
He certainly seemed to have, coming and playing cards with Uncle Jawad and now acting as though all was well with the world.
Well, she wasn’t going to go along with it. ‘Fine.’ She let go of the bag, turned and walked off without a single glance back in his direction.
‘Reshma? Hold on.’ Her legs weren’t as long as his, so it took him no time to catch up with her. He held the bag in one hand and, with the other, he gently cupped her elbow. Reshma looked down at where he held her and then up at him and he promptly let go of her.
‘You wanted to hold the bag and I gave it to you. So, now what?’
‘I … I wanted … I was hoping …’ He rubbed his hand across the back of his neck and Reshma suppressed her look of surprise at seeing him lost for words. Not only did he sound lost, he actually looked lost as well, but it wasn’t for her to help him.
‘Let me know when you’ve figured it out.’ With that, she tried to move past him, but he sidestepped and stopped her.
‘I wanted to thank you.’
That made her stop. He wanted to thank her? That was the last thing she’d expected him to say. ‘Thank me? For what?’
‘For keeping things between us. For not sharing what happened with Daadi or with Uncle Jawad and the rest of the family.’
‘Is that what you came to check?’ She felt disappointment war with anger within her.
She had wondered what he was doing at her uncle’s villa, but she hadn’t for a moment thought that he was coming to test the water, as it were.
To see if her uncle was ready to blow a hole in the villa’s roof because someone had upset his niece.
‘No. That’s not why I came. I came because of you.’ He rushed to answer, but she’d heard enough.
‘Leave it, Zafar. I don’t need to hear any explanation. You can go wherever you want, whenever you want and do whatever it is you want to do. I don’t want any part of it.’ She’d been there, done that, got the T-shirt and decided she didn’t want it anymore. In fact, she was ready to dump it.
She moved past him and marched towards the villa. She let herself in, not bothering to see where Zafar was. She just left the door open for him.
Daadi was sitting on the sofa, her phone held at arm’s length. ‘Here they are. Reshma, come and say hello to this troublemaker.’
Taking a deep breath to try to steady her fraught nerves, she made her way to Daadi and sat down beside her just as Zafar came through the front door and closed it behind him, his expression giving nothing of his thoughts away.
‘Reshmaaa! How’s it going?’
‘Fine, thanks. How are you?’
Harry beamed at her, ignored her question and asked her one instead. ‘Did you like Daadi and Zaf’s surprise? I saw the video. You looked too cute.’ He opened and closed his mouth, mimicking her just like Saleema had, and Reshma rolled her eyes at him.
‘Very funny. Why didn’t you come along too?
Reshma smiled at him, but before he could respond, Daadi handed her the phone. ‘Here. You talk to him while I go and get some water. Talking to him is so exhausting.’
‘She knows I can hear her, right?’ he asked Reshma, one eyebrow quirked.
‘Of course, I know that. Why do you think I said it out loud?’ Daadi scoffed.
Reshma shook her head at their banter and caught sight of Zafar as he looked her way.
He put her bag on the table and then slowly rounded it before coming and sitting next to her.
His thigh brushed against hers as he sat down and rested his arm behind her on the sofa.
He was so close, his warmth immediately surrounded her.
She faced him and realised that his face was particularly close to hers.
Close enough that as he looked her way, she saw the lighter flecks of rich honey in the dark brown of his eyes, surrounding his pupil.
The combined scent of his shower gel and aftershave went straight to her nose and reached her senses before she could move an inch and she gritted her teeth both at him and herself for reacting to his proximity.
‘Zaf! How are you?’
‘I’m all right, mate. How are things with you? Are you keeping out of mischief?’
‘It’s so boring here without you two.’
‘I heard that,’ Daadi said from across the room, where she stood as she took a sip of her drink. ‘I take it I’m not being missed then.’
Reshma tried to shift a bit to the side, but the armrest only allowed her to shift about three inches. Not enough to put a decent amount of distance between her and Zafar. ‘I’m sure you’re keeping yourself entertained at everyone else’s expense,’ Zafar said knowingly.
‘Hmm. How are you finding it, Reshma? Missing me yet?’
‘I am. There’s no one here who’s as fun as you.
Though, I have to say, it’s lovely catching up with all my relatives.
They’ve got lots of things planned in the coming days.
It’s a shame you’re missing out. Weren’t you going away somewhere with your friends though?
When is that again?’ She was finding it difficult to focus on the conversation with Harry with Zafar sitting so close to her.
Why not just wait his turn to speak to Haroon? Or, better yet, call him himself later.
‘Tonight. That’s why I thought I’d call and see how you guys are doing. I’ll be away for five days. Not sure how often I’ll be able to get in touch.’
‘OK. Well, stay safe and don’t forget to send me lots of pictures of where you are.’
‘Yeah, I will. Where’s Daadi gone? I hadn’t finished filling her in on what happened when Dad was looking for his phone after I messaged him to say he’d left it behind. It was hilarious. You guys have to hear the story.’
‘How is him forgetting his phone funny?’ Zafar asked.
Harry rolled his eyes. ‘I messaged him to say he’s forgotten his phone. On his phone, slowcoach. He came back home and started looking for it. I was taking the pi— mickey.’ He corrected himself before foul-mouthing within earshot of their grandmother.
‘Didn’t he lose his stack with you?’ Zafar asked, his voice laced with humour.
Harry looked mortally offended. ‘Of course not. I didn’t use my phone. I’m not an idiot. I used Ash’s.’ He looked supremely pleased with himself.
‘How do you know his passcode? And which other passcodes do you know?’ Zafar sounded alarmed and Reshma bit the inside of her cheek at Harry’s expression. He really was the sweetest.
‘Time to go. Love you all. Have fun. Byeee.’
Before anyone could say anything more, he ended the call.
‘Doughnut.’ Reshma heard the affection for his youngest brother in Zafar’s voice.
She locked the screen and shifted forward to try to get up, but as she did, she felt herself being pulled back. The momentum had her dropping back down and she turned to look at Zafar in annoyance, only to find him looking at her in confusion.
Mindful of Daadi being in the same room, Reshma widened her eyes at him and dipped her chin, trying to indicate the lack of sufficient distance between them. ‘I need to go.’ She said the words through gritted teeth and his eyebrows lowered even further.
Ignoring her whisper, he spoke at a normal volume, which was loud enough for Daadi to hear. ‘Yeah, sure. Go.’
Reshma surreptitiously looked towards Daadi, who was doing a terrible job of pretending to look at some brochure lying on the island, while Reshma knew her attention was on them.
Reshma tried to get up but felt pulled back again. She looked at the tiny gap between her and Zafar.
‘You’re sitting on my dress.’
He looked down to where the skirt of her dress was caught under him and then lifted his face to look at her, the frown on it slowly clearing. ‘Oh. Sorry.’
He stared at her for a moment and she stared back, waiting for him to move. He didn’t.
What on earth was he playing at?
‘Kids, I’m going to my room. Ruqayyah told me that she’s arranged for prayer recitals this evening, so we need to be ready for that.’ Daadi broke through the moment, addressing them as she left to go to her room, a sly smile on her face.
Reshma found her voice once more. ‘Can you please move?’ She ground the words out but kept her voice low.
‘Oh, yeah.’ Zafar stood up and she pulled her dress towards herself before standing up.
Too late, she realised that they were standing very close to one another. So close that if either of them moved just a few inches forward, they would touch. Zafar was looking at her closely, his face a slideshow of various expressions as he regarded her.
He wasn’t an overtly expressive man and she knew that helped him a great deal in his work negotiations. Between them, though, they’d never been in a situation where she’d had to, or felt the need to, read his expressions. One needed a certain level of communication for that, she supposed.
Reshma raised her chin and took a step back, away from him, and then, grabbing the bag with her things in it, she made her way upstairs, deciding to get a head start on getting ready for the gathering later rather than stay downstairs and flog a dead horse with Zafar.
She was feeling unsettled enough without trying to figure out what was going on with him.