Chapter dedicated to abdofRahman. If you haven't read her book In Your Love (have you been living under a rock?), please do so and thank me later!

...

Kaveh Fayyad glanced up at the modern single-storey building, illuminated by fairy lights glittering under the moon.

Bracing himself, Kaveh entered. The party itself was overly crowded. The sea of faces stared at him, all so familiar, which time and distance had now turned into strangers. Spiced aroma awoken his senses, and a warm feeling of familiarity quenched his stomach uncomfortably.

Kaveh spent more than half the evening shaking hands with his father's business associates, smiling at his clients' jokes, and watching as his father's eyes beamed with pride every time he mentioned to someone that Kaveh had finally joined the family business.

It was late when a small man with salt and pepper hair, which had visibly thinned at the crown, caught Arshad Fayyad's sight.

Salman had left Kaveh's side hours ago. The smell of food was barely lingering in the air and more people were heading towards the exit.

The man sent a tight-lipped smile their way and Kaveh's father, for the first time that evening, got up from his seat and gestured for his son to do the same.

Kaveh left his seat and followed. He noticed a younger man standing nearby, the two laughing over something the older man said. The son - at least he assumed it was the man's son due to the similarity in their facial features - loomed over everyone at the party with his incredible height.

"That's Murshid Ahmad of Ahmad Textiles." His father leaned in and spoke close to his ear. "We're trying to get chummy with him."

Kaveh nodded in response. He watched the son with scrutinising eyes, wondering who he was. He carefully dissected the face. Small eyes that shimmered with life when he laughed, the bottom half of his face covered in thick beard. He was positive he had ran his eyes over those features before.

Kaveh didn't have to wait too long to learn his identity. "That's Ibrahim Ahmad, Murshid's nephew," his father mentioned as soon as the four were within hearing range.

The two younger men shook hands, polite smiles adorning their faces.

Murshid Ahmad glanced at him, eyes inquisitive. "Is that the son you've been hiding, Arshad?" he asked playfully.

"He's been hiding from me, Ahmad Bhai." The men chuckled. "But he's here now," his father boasted. "Back to where he belongs, with an Oxford degree under his belt."

The look in Murshid's eyes turned to one of admiration after that. "It's a pleasure to meet you, young man."

"The pleasure's all mine."

The fathers got wrapped in a riveting conversation about the current weather, leaving the sons to linger by their sides.

Ibrahim glanced at him, that smile appearing on his face again. "I heard you arrived a couple days ago," he stated, attempting to start a conversation. "Are you liking your stay so far?"

"Not specially." He shoved his hand inside his pocket.

Ibrahim did a double take at his curt reply. He just raised his brows once and went back to sipping from the carbonated drink in his hand. Silence fell upon the strangers again.

Kaveh's phone lit up and he looked down to check the message. It was Salman asking him when he would be done.

He glanced at their father and the uncle, respectively, and saw that they were still engrossed in a spirited conversation - now about the current news. He then looked over his shoulder and searched for his best friend. After locating Salman slumped in a chair, mindlessly scrolling through his phone, Kaveh turned to face Ibrahim again.

His father's words - that they were trying to get in good terms with the Ahmads - played in his ears.

"Would you like to meet my friends?" he asked.

Surprise appeared on Ibrahim's face at first, which was then followed by hesitation.

"C'mon," he said, with a nod of his head. "It would be interesting if you joined us."

Kaveh led the way as he weaved through the crowd of people, and Ibrahim followed after a moment of relenting.

Salman was still on his phone by the time they reached him, and Kaveh saw a few of their old classmates now surrounding him, lazily sitting on the randomly scattered chairs.

The mood of the party had now become heavy and dull. The food had been eaten, the crowd had thinned and people were running out of topics to discuss. The rich biriyani was feeling heavier in their stomachs with each trickling minute, and the lips that were uttering exciting words were now yawning mostly.

Kaveh drew a chair from one of the dining tables nearby and offered Ibrahim to sit, then he found an empty one and sat down himself.

"Fardin, Nabil, Raad." Kaveh pointed to each of the guys with his whole hand as he said their names. "Salman."

"And this is Ibrahim Ahmad from Ahmad Textiles," Kaveh finished, earning a weirded out look from the guy.

But when Ibrahim realized Kaveh was joking, his lips broke into a smile. "Just Ibrahim will do for now," he stated.

The boredom had disappeared from Salman's face momentarily to make way for his crooked smile.

"Aye, Sasquatch," Raad called out as they saw the stranger. "Of course we know him."

The name rang a bell in Kaveh's head and Salman's years of grumbling about the Sasquatch and Malika came rushing to him.

Hearing the nickname, Ibrahim shot Salman a narrow-eyed look.

"Yeah," Ibrahim said, turning to face Kaveh again. "We know each other."

"You're still friends with Shorty, right?" Raad asked, leaning forward to place his arms over his knees. "Ran into him yesterday."

"Really?"

Raad snorted. "He is still an insolent prick, that one."

Instead of getting offended, Ibrahim let out a small laugh at the statement. "He kind of is."

Ibrahim looked at Kaveh again, and fixed his eyes on him. "Did you go to York Academy, as well?" he asked, tilting his head at Kaveh's friends to suggest they were all classmates.

"I did," Kaveh affirmed.

"So," Fardin, who had an arm lazily draped around Raad's chair, asked with a callous drawl to his voice, "the question of the hour, what brings the great Kaveh Fayyad back to our measly little city?"

Kaveh shrugged, nonchalance descending on him, erasing the earlier ease from his face. "I decided it was time to come back," he repeated what he had been saying since he returned.

"C'mon, that can't be it," Fardin said, giving him a look that implied, 'it's us, be honest.'

"It really is," he insisted. "Guess I just had enough of London."

"I call BS," Fardin scoffed. "Is it a girl?" He edge forward in his seat, his eyes narrowed. "Did you come back to get married or something?"

This time, Kaveh let out a genuine laugh. "It's only my opinion of coming back to this city that has changed, not about its girls. They still don't, and will never, do it for me."

His friends let out bellowing laughs at his words, turning several heads from neighbouring aunties.

"Can't argue with you there," Fardin remarked, a smirk still on his lips. "The grass might have gotten greener, but the cows are still the same. Why settle for a Khadija when you can have Khloe."

Ibrahim's eyes were now glued to his hands that were folded over his legs. The expression on his face had turned from courteous to distasteful real quick.

Before Kaveh could say something, a disembodied feminine voice called out, saving Ibrahim from his suffering and catching all of the men's attention. "Ibi."

The voice turned Kaveh's head to his right, a feeling of familiarity rising in his chest. And that's when he saw her, the girl from his house again.

His eyes lingered on her. Unlike the last time he had seen her, she was wearing a traditional salwar kameez. The girl turned around as soon as she caught Ibrahim's eyes, and then sauntered away from them.

Ibrahim jolted up from his seat. "Thanks for..." he stopped mid sentence, his unsure eyes roaming over the band of boys. They landed on Kaveh and he gave a polite nod of the head, and then just like that girl, Ibrahim whirled in spot and started walking away from them.

The rest of the guys resumed the conversation. But Kaveh's eyes were fixed on the girl from before, who he now assumed was Ibrahim Ahmad's sister. She had his small eyes, button nose and the same jawline.

The siblings huddled in a midpoint between them and a circle of girls he hadn't noticed before, who were sitting only a little away from them. Kaveh watched as her face transitioned from one expression to another with each word that left her brother's lips.

He didn't know her well enough to understand those looks, but he couldn't take his eyes off her animated face.

There was art in the way she spoke, the way she reacted to words.

After a few seconds of speaking, Ibrahim headed towards the door. She returned to that group of girls, which Kaveh now realized were his sister Layla and her friends.

Feeling a set of eyes burning through the back of his head, Kaveh faced his friends again. The three guys were now chatting among themselves, but Salman, who had been quiet so far, was staring at him intently.

"What?" Kaveh asked, his voice eerily steady for someone who had just gotten caught doing something he shouldn't have been.

"It can't be Layla, obviously." Salman leaned closer to him and said thoughtfully, his voice low enough to keep it between them. "It better not be Malika, and I doubt it's Farrah. So what, you're into Della?" he deduced.

"How did you even reach to that conclusion?"

Salman leaned away a little, to face Kaveh better, a mischievous smile making its way to his face. "What were you saying just a few minutes ago? Our girls don't do it for you, huh?"

"I stand by what I said."

"I know that look you have been giving her as well as the back of my hand. I have seen it on you way before you even began to believe that you were too good for the rest of us."

Kaveh chuckled. "She's not my type. But, she has a pretty smile," he agreed at last.

Salman smiled triumphantly at his confession. "I knew it. So, what are you going to do about it?

"Absolutely nothing."

"Hm, we'll see about that. Anyway, do you want to leave or stay for a bit longer?"

"I don't mind staying," he replied.

When Salman looked away, he gave her one last inconspicuous look to his right.

She was sitting with her legs crossed, one behind the other, like a proper lady. Azar was now waddling near them and the girls were having an engrossing conversation.

Feeling his eyes on her, Dahlia broke out of the chat with her friends. She whipped her head towards him, catching his eyes. They stared at each other for half a second, an expression of revulsion flashed on her face before she looked away.