Page 18 of First Comes Marriage
‘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 thebag 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 tothankher? 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?
