Twice Upon Qadr - A Shot At Love **EDITING**

Chapter 16

But at the same time he didn’t keep secrets from his wife.

He just didn’t.

“He said no.”

Yusra’s mouth fell open, and after a moment she put a hand to her head.

“Oh no.” she said quietly, and he quickly stood so she could take his seat. “Oh Amir. What are we going to do!?”

“I am not sure. I think we just have to tell Ilham and Hisham and hope he doesn’t get too upset, and let the whole thing blow over.” He put his arms around her. “This is why we should be careful in getting involved in things like this. Sometimes we can do more harm than good.” He bent to give her a kiss, and she put a hand out to stop him, her face a mask of displeasure.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“What?”

“’Sometimes we can do more harm than good’? What are you implying Amir?” she said angrily, and he looked at her in surprise.

“Why are you upset with me?”

“What did you mean?”

“I just meant that you two should have left things alone!”

“Why?”

“Why? Well look at the situation we are in now!”

“It isn’t as bad as you are making it out to be.”

“It still wouldn’t have happened if you two hadn’t gotten involved.”

“There was no harm in getting involved! I seem to recall you had some help when you wanted to marry me!”

His mouth fell open slightly.

“Why are you picking this fight!?”

“You insulted me!”

“Yusra!” he exclaimed “I didn’t insult you! I was just stating a fact!”

As she stood up angrily from her seat and brushed past him, he caught her hand and pulled her back towards him.

“Let go of me.” She said, her voice dangerously low, and though he did slacken his hold, he stepped in front of her, blocking the doorway.

“I don’t understand why you are angry. All I said was that you shouldn’t have gotten involved. Nowhere did I insult you.”

“And I am saying there was no harm in us getting involved, and you are just overreacting!”

“I’m overreacting?! You’re getting mad about something I didn’t even say! No you shouldn’t have gotten involved, because these are real people with real feelings! What if Hana found out about your plan!? Then you would have had to tell her he didn’t want to marry her after getting her hopes up! What if Houssam had said yes and Hana wasn’t interested!? Your brother would have gotten hurt! For all you know, Hana could be in love with the guy in charge of the youth groups! You don’t know!”

“And that’s why we had you ask! So we could find out!”

Amir shook his head, before sighing.

“Love, I understand where you are coming from. I really do. But you know the personalities of both of them, Houssam would be outright and open about who he liked, and Hana would only mention something if she really thought there was a chance, and you still pressed things because you and Ilham wanted to play matchmakers.”

She crossed her arms and glared at him.

“Are you done?” she asked, her voice affronted and he sighed again.

“Don’t do this Yusra.”

“I don’t know what you mean.” She said stiffly, and as he reached out for her, she stepped away from him, her eyes flashing.

“Yusra come on. This whole thing is stupid.”

“Oh so now I am stupid!?”

“Oh my god! What is wrong with you!? Why are you intent on misunderstanding everything I say!?” he asked, and to his astonishment, her eyes began to well up with tears, and he put an arm around her.

“Get off of me.” She said with a sniffle, and before he could say anything, she had pushed his arm away, and started to leave the room.

“Where are you going?” he asked with a resigned sigh, and she halted in her tracks.

“We are having dinner at Mustafa and Sarah’s.” she said in a clipped tone before she resumed her steps.

“What happened to our rule of never leaving the other person while angry!?” he called after her, and when her response was the sound of a door slamming, he sighed and raked a hand through his hair in agitation, not even really sure what had happened.