Page 68 of The Love Match

Mrs. Tahir is on her way out the door to meet her husband after his car pulls into the driveway of their cookie-cutter house, but stops in her tracks upon noticing me and Ximena exiting with her daughters. Her round face lights up as I salaam her.

“Waalaikumsalam!” she exclaims. “Oh, I haven’t seen you in ages, Zahra jaan. How have you been? Did you forget about your Hajar Auntie?”

A mix of shame and amusement prompts me to smile at her sheepishly. “No, Auntie. I’ve been busy since graduation.”

All six of us are congregating on the front porch, no doubtlooking strange to the neighbors, but the probability of being watched doesn’t stop Mrs. Tahir from extending a hand to pat my head the way she used to when I was a kid.

I’ve always liked her. The polar opposite of her stern husband, she would let her daughters, Ximena, and me do whatever we wanted during our childhood sleepovers, providing a steady supply of Pakistani snacks to fuel us. Not a regular auntie, but acoolauntie.

Her attention turns to Ximena next and she tuts, “What about you? Daniya has been moping endlessly for weeks because you bhooted her.”

“Ghosted, Ammu,” Dalia corrects, while Dani goes as red as her currently crimson-dyed hair and yelps, “Ammu! Don’t tell her that!”

“My bad, Mrs. Tahir,” Ximena replies, rubbing her neck.

Ignoring her daughter’s indignation, Mrs. Tahir muses, “Perhaps I should stay and make my famous nihari. You loved it last time you came over.”

Her husband groans. “Meri jaan, I see them every day. Too much, in fact!”

“Well, I don’t!” she retorts.

“You were the one who asked for these date nights,” he fumes. “Why don’t you come see them at the shop, where I don’t have to make a reservation?”

Before they can begin full-on arguing, I interrupt, “Thank you, Auntie, but I promise I’ll come back another night. Mena too, right?” Ximena bobs her head. “You should go.”

Mrs. Tahir frowns, but reluctantly succumbs when Dani says, “Ammu, we already ordered a bunch of pizza. The Domino’s guy will be here in like thirty minutes.”

Dalia tugs on the strap of my duffel bag. “And since Zahra and Mena are staying the night, you can make nihari for them tomorrow for breakfast.”

“Now that that’s settled, can we please leave?” Mr. Tahir asks.

“Ji, ji, calm down.” Mrs. Tahir yanks me into one last bone-crushing hug, then does the same for the rest of the girls. “Khuda hafiz! We’ll be back soon.”

Mr. Tahir mouths,Good job, but even his undying appreciation is no match for his strict brown dad schtick. Before he returns to the car with Mrs. Tahir, he tells Dalia, “Make sure there’s no funny business.” He looks directly at Dani and her girlfriend at the last two words.

A beat of silence passes, before the Tahir girls whine, “They’re so embarrassing!” while Ximena and I exchange an awkward shrug.

We pile into the house behind the twins. It’s not Emon-huge by any means, a cozy two-story that always smells of spices and herbs, currently decorated with leftover moon-and-star-shaped lights, lanterns, and glittery hanging signs that readEID MUBARAK.

The twins have their own small bedrooms upstairs, which become relatively large when you open the door connecting them, but Dalia drops my bag on the carpet in front of the TV and says, “Cool if we camp out here? There’s more space.”

“Sure.” I glance around for the closest closet, where I know their parents store extra blankets and pillows. “What can I do to help?”

She grins and pushes me onto the couch. “You can sit back, relax”—the remote magically materializes in my hand—“and enjoy five straight hours ofTo All the Boys.”

I hurry into the bathroom and change. When I return to the living room, everyone else is dressed in their pj’s too, and Dalia has her hair tumbling in loose waves down her back, sitting on the couch. Her sister and Ximena, meanwhile, are snuggled up on the love seat, whispering to each other as an atmospheric Taylor Swift song plays from Ximena’s phone.

Dalia pats her lap. “Let me braid your hair.”

It’s a demand, but such a sweetly phrased one that I can’t help plopping onto the carpet in front of her. Within the next few minutes, Lana Condor’s face fills the screen, and my copy of the book with all its dog-eared pages and Post-it notes is lying by my side.

Soon, the pizza arrives, and I’m stuffed full of food and contentment, but the more the trilogy continues, and the rifts between Lara Jean and Peter grow harder and harder to surpass, the more difficult it becomes to ignore the throb in my chest.

It’s as the series comes to an end that the first tear drops.

Despite my attempts to muffle errant sniffles into my upraised knees, eagle-eyed Dalia notices the tremor in my shoulders and says, “Zar, what’s wrong?”

That summons Ximena and Dani over to us at once, while Dalia kneels too.

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