four months later
Everyone decided the guys deserved a night of celebrating their efforts so far. They weren’t really finished; it was the middle of April, which meant it was time for the NBA playoffs with the NBA play-in tournament, which determines the seven and eight seeds. Then, the top eight teams from each conference compete for the NBA title.
Layla made her way into the bathroom where Jess stood. She saw him sign, “Those jeans do wonders to your ass.”
They were directed at his best friend.
“Really? I was feeling insecure about my ass today,” she heard Kione say. She had no idea how they both fit in the bathroom. It wasn’t very spacious.
“No, it looks very firm and nice,” Jess told him, unaware that she was watching them.
She cleared her throat.
“Everyone is waiting for you guys,” she told them.
“Okay habibi,” Jess signed. He was learning Arabic and had already formed an attachment to the word.
“You seem to be very interested in his ass,” she said.
“Don’t be jealous, habibi. You know, I used to think of you as my heart’s true north.”
“And now?”
“Now you’re the sultan of my heart.”
“Your Arabic is getting better, but you need to stop with the insane number of nicknames.”
“I politely decline.”
They scrambled out. It was food competition day, which meant that everyone, including them, had prepared a dish by themselves. The dishes were spread out on the table and waiting for evaluation. Whoever got the most votes won, and who made each dish was kept anonymous. They had bought matching containers to make the process easier.
Later, when they announced Layla’s food as the winner, she was in the open kitchen when MateoMateo snuck up on her.
“You cheated,” he accused.
“Who cheated on who?” Onika yelled out from her position on the couch.
“Layla cheated.”
“What?” everyone exclaimed.
“I meant for the competition! She definitely told Jess,” Mateo said.
Layla to the audience: I didn’t cheat.
“Everyone was here hours early and Jess just got here and you have my phone.”
It wasn’t strange for any of them to get there early whenever they were gathering. They had the food competition a couple of times. A few times it came down to Jess’s vote to the best dish, and he always chose Layla’s. Mateo, despite being told he’s a horrible cook, was convinced that if Jess hadn’t voted for her, he would have had a chance at winning.
She never told Jess which dish was hers, but he could always tell.
“She’s not going to leave you if you vote for another dish,” he told Jess.
“She’s my future wife. Whatever she makes is best. And she didn’t have to tell me. I always know when something is hers.”
“She’s not your wife yet,” Celia said, paused. “Right?” She narrowed her eyes.
They had a ridiculous fear that we were just going to elope without telling anyone.
“We’re not even engaged.”
“Yet,” Kione said.
“Can you come here?” Layla called out to Jess. She was having trouble reaching for the shelf near the dining table.
“Jesus, not on the dining table. What’s wrong with you?” Kione exclaimed.
“Who’s coming on the dining table?”
“Someone’s came on my dining table?” Celia asked.
“No one is coming on the dining table,” Layla told them. “We prefer the kitchen counter.”
There was a knock at the door. Kione was the one who went to open it. He had mentioned he invited someone to join them.
Layla had her back to the door. She didn’t see who walked in, but she could see Celia’s face pale in front of her. When she turned, she came face to face with Nabi.
Nabi and Kione had become close friends over the last couple of months. Layla narrowed her eyes at him while the others welcomed the newcomer.
“Do you know something I don’t?” she asked him.
“I know a lot of things,” he told her in a mock wise tone. Layla ran over to Jess to whisper in his ear.
“We’re not talking to Kione for the rest of the night,” she told him.
“Yes, ma’am.” When she moved to sit in the chair next to him, his legs hooked at the bottom of her chair to pull her closer. They were never very far away these days.
Layla and Jess had become so intertwined, you couldn’t look at Jess and not see the effect of Layla edged into everything he did and, in turn, you could never look at Layla and not see the effect Jess’s love had on her. She had smile lines now, he’d carved happy lines near her mouth. It was the greatest accomplishment he would ever achieve.
Layla looked around, there were some loose ends, some stuff that always came back to her mind, unsolved things, whatever MateoMateo was still hiding was always there, but there was also Celia, for the past couple of weeks, Celia had been sleeping in Layla’s room which she only did when she was upset about something.
She could only wait until they felt ready to share whatever burdened them.
When everyone else left, Jess stayed. He was going to sleepover, and they were going through their skincare routine. He had told her they should look for apartments together, but Layla wasn’t ready to leave Celia and their apartment yet. She loved the place so much.
⸻
Jess
“You haven’t told me you loved me today,” Jess told her when they got in bed, which was a lie. She had told him.
“I love you,” she signed. “You’re the only man I’ve ever loved.”
He asked her to repeat it. Sometimes he held her hand while she signed. He would just stare at every inch of her face in fascination, like it was his first time seeing her. He would gently hold her wrists, brushing over them, and when she finished, he’d sign ‘can you repeat that I didn’t catch it’ and he would get to look at her longer.
She was a lot happier now, about a month before she had managed to see her sister, and she was already planning the next time.
The subject of her mother was still a little sore. She had gotten a lot better mentally, but it still hurt her.
She says she made peace with it, but whenever they came across a mother with her daughter, he saw her looking at them with unbearable grief over the girl she could have been. Sometimes she goes into this faraway spot in her head where he wasn’t allowed, where he could only hold on to her from the other side, waiting for her to eventually bury her face in his chest, waiting for the gut-wrenching sound of her quiet sobs. It will always be the hardest thing he’d ever had to accept, that there are wounds inside the people we love that we can never tend to, no matter how much we want to.
Sometimes when they spent time with his mother, he would notice Layla being too careful with her words, too careful with the way she acts, too careful to be the woman he fell in love with. She made a joke once and then spent the rest of the night looking at my mom, checking to see if the way she interacted with her changed.
“What are you thinking about?” Her voice cut through his thoughts.
“You. It’s always you.” She rolled her eyes at him, but she was smiling and, like usual, it rendered him speechless.
At first he was scared she might think his love was too much for her. He was obsessed with showing her love through big and small gestures, and she always met him halfway through with her own ways like it was some sort of competition.
It was usually the smaller gestures that made her so flustered, when he leaned over to buckle her seat belt, when he zipped her jacket up and kissed her forehead, when he insisted that she holds his hand when they cross the road, when he sat down to watch her apply her makeup and get ready.
“Am I treating you right, then?”
“Yes, Ms. Reyes.”
Layla to the audience: that’s a wrap for us. I think we’ll see you guys again when it’s Celia’s turn.
“Celia? I thought it was Onika’s turn given the mess,” Jess asked her, coming up from behind her and wrapping his arms around her.
“Oh right. I guess we’ll see how it plays out.”
