Page 37 of The Love Match

Harun barks, “Can you please put on your seat belt?”

Pouting, Sammi does so, but her stream of intrusive questions doesn’t subside even when we reach our destination. I work my jaw, wondering if she’s truly related to Harun and Hanif, who are both so stoic, or a changeling left by the pari who stole the real Sharmin in her infancy. Then again, who but family are such experts in annoying the hell out of you?

Case in point: this date.

“So what do you think about our Haru-moni?” she singsongs as we veer into the parking-lot area of Willowbrook Mall, not far from the theater where we had our last date.

Are we doing dinner and a movie again?

A bit unimaginative, but we can put our plans into action anywhere.

I arch an appraising brow at my date.

“He’s passable, I guess, but I doubt I’ll be calling him ‘moni’ anytime soon.”

“Thanks for the rave review,” Harun intones dryly, duckingout of the car, a glare fixed in place as he steps perfectly into his own role.

Sammi droops at our incompatible act. “Oh…”

I bow my head to hide a victorious smirk, pleased that she’s showing her hand more than Hanif did. Maybe Harun’s parents sending her will be a blessing in disguise.

But then she snatches up Harun’s arm so we’re less than a foot apart and says, “You mustn’t let his grumpy face fool you, Zahra. Harun is a sensitive soul when you get to know him. He even wore a special cologne to impress you.” She wrinkles her nose. “A bit too much, possibly, but it’s the thought that counts. I made him change that shirt, so you’re welcome.”

I snort at said sensitive soul.Really?

His shoulders hunch as he glances away, muttering something about how it was supposed to set off Hanif’s allergy.

“He seems so much happier since you met,” Sammi barrels on without paying him any mind. “After the way he got his heart broken, I’m glad he’s—”

“Afa,” Harun snaps, agitated for real now.

She slaps a hand against her lips in a clearoopswhile I swivel my head between them.

Heart broken?Harun?I’m learning so much about him today.

Hedidhint at a girlfriend, and when I snooped on his social media profiles, although most of his stories featured Rabeardranath, his family, and some guy friends, there were afew older Instagram posts of Harun with a dazzling blond girl.

They no longer follow each other.

He refuses to look up from the pavement, his jaw set tight, but I don’t have a chance to check in because Sammi skips the last couple of paces to the setting of our date and flings an arm at it with a flourish. “Ta-da!”

It’s TGI Fridays.

“Have you been?” she asks.

I nod. Ximena invited me and Dani here when she got a summer job as a waitress at the restaurant, but although I’m not as strict about eating halal as Dalia—I just don’t order anything with pork or alcohol and say “bismillah,” hoping for the best—the prices were way too high for me to willingly return, even after her friends and family discount.

Ignorant of my penny-pinching musings, Sammi struts into the dimly lit restaurant, pointing at a sign as we enter. “Would you look at that? They’re having a karaoke night! I should come back with my darling hubby.”

She’smarried?

The last thing I hear before loud music drowns out every other noise is Harun groaning. Not ten minutes later, a waiter carrying three laminated menus directs us to our table. Harun and I sit across from each other, Sammi cozying up next to me. There’s indeed a gold band with a hunk of diamond on her ring finger.

She puckers her lips at her own reflection in her iPhone’s camera. “Why did no one tell me my hair was a mess? Excuseme while I freshen up in the bathroom, Zahra.”

I watch her sashay away, confused since I don’t spot a single strand out of place, then shift my wary eyes back to Harun, who’s carefully reading the menu in front of him. He no longer seems upset about Sammi’s slipup. Though curiosity burns inside me at what she revealed, do I really have a right to know intimate details about his life and past? Would I be willing to spill about Nayim in return?

These past few weeks, it’s almost started to feel like we could be friends… in the totally platonic, comrades-in-arms sort of way. But the fact of the matter is, we’re faking everything.

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