Hearts In Tune (Book One Of The In love Series)

Chapter 17

Hearts In Tune 17

For my darling whatyasdoes. Happy belated birthday.

“Wake up, you too Dey sleep.” Sameerah opened her eyes to Hafsah standing over her with her hair in disarray and a wicked look on her face. She had in her hand a jug of water that Sameerah kept by her bedside, ready to pour it all over her if she didn’t get up. 

“Warn yourself this babe, make I no push you down the stairs in anger.” Sameerah replied and turned to face another direction with her pink duvet pulled over her head in annoyance. She counted to ten before Hafsah pulled it off and poured some of the chilly water on her. She only felt a few splashes before she bolted out of her bed with the duvet in hand, unlocked the balcony’s door and shut it once she was in there. 

“Come out and bathe, you need to be ready for your henna party. Time will fly by before you know it.” Sameerah hissed and lay on the floor of her balcony and in no time she was in snooze land. She woke up to the alarm she had set on her phone ringing about an hour later in the room so she unlocked the door and went in to turn it off. 

“Finally.” Hafsah said, rousing from a Power Nap herself, she rubbed her eyes and smiled at Sameerah who was standing there looking foolish, her hair and cap having a haphazard competition. “Running away won’t make the fact that t you’ll be married in less than forty eight hours less serious. It helps that you don’t hate the man, Alhamdulilah, but you need to realize that unless something drastic happens and nothing will, In Sha Allah, you’re going to be Her Excellency soon.” 

Sameerah walked to the bed, turned off the alarm and flopped on the bed beside Hafsah.

She could lie and say she was not worried about anything, but she had several worries. 

“What if Mami is right and he is hiding behind a good man persona? Ever since she said that, it’s all I’ve thought about.” Hafsah took her hand and rubbed her thumb over Sameerah’s tightly fisted knuckles in a bid to comfort her. 

“That man didn’t embarrass you for what you did to him. The way you met is the easiest way to debunk that rubbish fear and feeling. I’m not in his head, but if everything went down as you said that day, and he neither had you walked out or even shamed? Mimi, you need to give him some credit and give yourself some credit too, because something you must have done or existed as, makes that man excited to be your husband. Did you see him at the dinner with us yesterday?” 

Sameerah chuckled at the memory. Hafsah requested to meet him on a double date with her husband present and he took time off his schedule. It shocked her a little when he sent her the link to a restaurant with a covered rooftop where they could talk without getting interrupted. Hafsah had bombarded him with so many questions that her husband had to calm her at some point, but he patiently answered each question like he was at a debate. 

“I remember. I’m just, probably being a human and a woman. It’s so much happening finally and…” She stopped talking and smiled a little, it was the first time in her life that she got really close to the wedding date in this manner. Khalil had died two months before the wedding, just as their invites were sent out to inform guests. 

“What exactly are you feeling?” She heard Hafsah ask. She took a freeing breath and tuned to her friend, she thought a little before dying, “Fear, more fear and a lot more fear. Fear that something will go wrong and people will not believe he and I are married. He’s marrying me to become Governor for the second time, what if it’s not enough?” 

Hafsah nodded and patted her again, she rolled over so she was fully facing Sameerah who was now fully in her own head. “You have to set aside your own fears as a person and leave them for Allah to be your strength. You think getting married is the easy thing? It’s a trying time of your life because finally, you’re giving a bit of your autonomy as a person, human, a woman to another man. He could make or break you without even knowing. If you have peace at home, then you can go on to be anything but if you don’t, you lag behind because that is all you think about.