Misfit in Love (Saints and Misfits #2) - S. K. Ali Page 0,7
bad taste, Muhammad is seriously the best, and I can’t wait to make it forever. Insha’Allah.” Her wide grin and slightly blushed cheeks assure me of the truth of her statement as she peers at her phone and starts texting someone. “The minute we met, I knew he was the kindest person I’d ever encountered.”
Okay, that’s true. Muhammad is extra kind and caring, maybe even over-the-top caring, and he and Sarah make a good match—because they’re both extroverted do-gooders.
But the part of “making it forever” is giving me pause. Mom and Dad weren’t forever. Dad moved on to Linda, which, to be fair, seems to be headed to forever. Maybe.
Mom is still single. I don’t know what I’d do if Mom decided she was seriously into someone. This one time, a couple of years ago, I found a flyer for a Muslim singles meet-up in her dresser drawer, but nothing came out if it.
Sigh of relief.
I don’t want to be alone. And the thought about everyone pairing up around me gives me anxiety.
The thought of Nuah cures that anxiety right away too—because I know he likes me.
But then what happens next? Once I tell Nuah I’m interested in him, too? My plan only goes as far as telling him tomorrow before the henna party, before all the other guests arrive.
But I don’t think I want the next step to be to actually marry him.
More like I want us to be connected before I go to college. So that I feel—safe? I guess?
I know that in Islam, you don’t try things out with people—like there’s supposed to be no sex before marriage, so making out and things that potentially lead to sex are a no-no without a nikah—and that you’re supposed to find someone who suits your nature, has your values, and the same goals, and then, voilà, just make it work. That’s how Nuah wants things.
And I do too. I think.
So Nuah and I make sense.
I think.
Gah, things always make better sense in my head.
Muhammad and Sarah are lucky. They just happened to meet each other, fall for each other, and make sense to each other immediately. And now they’re making it real.
I look at Sarah as she continues texting with a frown again, and a sudden burst of love for her takes hold of my heart. “Okay, I’m in. I’ll help you.”
She looks up, face beaming. “Love you, girl. Welcome to Team Take Back the Wedding. We’re having a meeting in that gazebo in ten minutes, when Muhammad goes to get groceries. Me, you, and Dawud. And Haytham, of course.”
Chapter Four
For the gazebo meeting, just to prove I don’t have a thing for anyone (except Nuah, of course), I wear my ol’ raggedy black scarf, flung on my head, the ends lopsided, over an oversize but thin sweatshirt instead of the nice top I’d originally thought of wearing with my super-faded, almost-white jeans.
I brought a notebook with me for “notes.” But I snuck a copy of the latest Ms. Marvel inside.
I open the comic now to the first page as Sarah lectures to catch me up on what she, Haytham, and Dawud already discussed on their drive up.
Once in a while she paces the gazebo and then pauses to look out into the distance at Dad’s house, the huge white behemoth with columns in the front and back that everyone in our family unironically calls the White House.
I can see Sarah so well as the professor she’s studying to become.
Phrases like “color intervention at the party-rental place” and “paying off the ’Arrys” and “changing the balloon artist’s task to entertaining the children and not doing the decorating” float around me as I move my capped pen across the comic panels describing Kamala Khan’s latest escapades.
It’s a good distraction, because once in a while Haytham tries to include me in the proceedings, and I’m studiously avoiding looking at him.
Because he’s dangerous.
He came to the gazebo meeting holding Sarah’s five clipboards fanned out to serve as a tray for a plate of more cupcakes.
“Hey, Janna,” he said. “I saw that you liked the cupcake, so I brought the rest. These have messed-up icing. But now that I’ve won you over to my baking, you’ll overlook that, right?” His eyebrows had curled up almost against each other in eagerness.
I nodded, my heart sinking at his uncalled-for cuteness, and, thus compelled, I reached out for another cupcake, glad I had brought comics to read as a shield against him.