Converting the Bad Boy ✔

Chapter 53

SALAAAAAM!!! This chapter made me feel so many feels while writing it, so I hope you feel just as many feels - I'm sure you will anyway. Enjoy!

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Damian's POV

If someone came up to me at the beginning of last year and said, "You're going to convert to Islam and marry at nineteen," I would've laughed in their face and probably told them to go screw themselves. Now, my views were completely different, and marrying at nineteen wasn't something weird to me anymore. It seemed right.

Yes, I was young, in the first year of uni, still learning about the world and about myself, but I wasn't going to do it alone. And who better to help me figure it all out than Mariam?

"Here he is – the groom himself," Dad announced as I headed down the stairs. He wore a suit, his trademark look, but he seemed to be glowing, happiness radiating off his face. I didn't think I had ever seen my dad look so happy, not in a long time, anyway. "You look like a real man, now, son."

"Thanks," I said as Aunt Kate emerged from the hallway with Mum on her arm. The two of us took a moment to gaze at the most important woman in our lives, who wore a beautiful pink and white scarf decorated with flowers, and a matching long dress Aunt Kate must have bought her. When Mum saw me she smiled a genuine smile, and immediately gave me a hug.

"Alhamdulillah," she kept repeating, and I realised she was thanking Allah for granting her life until this day, and it really melted my insides.

Dad held her hand and told her she looked lovely, and they shared a whispered conversation where Dad nodded his head firmly, saying, "Yes, I'm sure."

This made Mum break into a delighted grin, and I wondered what they were talking about until Aunt Kate said, "Time for a family photo!"

Aunt Kate gathered us before the front door and got out her iPhone, using it to take a few snaps. Of course, Tracey also took lots of pics of us all, even attempting a selfie with my parents and I which failed horribly, but whatever, at least she tried.

"My little cuz is all grown up!" Tracey pretended to flick a tear from her eye before wrapping me in a hug. "I guess the next time I'll see you, you'll be a married man!"

"You betcha," I replied with a laugh.

"We'll see you at the park," Aunt Kate waggled her fingers at us as we left through the door, stepping into a partly cloudy, partly sunny day. My favourite type of weather where it was a balance of both light and dark. Only my parents and Mariam's parents were coming to the Nikkah which would take place in the mosque, and after that we would all meet up with the rest of the family at the botanical gardens to have a picnic lunch and celebrate.

We arrived at the mosque just in time, and it was pretty deserted, until a certain red car rolled up into the parking lot, and out stepped my future brother-in-law. Alone.

"Where's your sister?" I asked him.

"Oh, she's coming, don't worry," Nasr winked. "I just wanted to get here first."

As soon as he said those words, another car arrived, and sure enough, it was Mariam's blue car. I felt a hand in mine and looked to my left to see Mum beaming at me with glittering eyes.

"It's her," she whispered.

First her parents emerged from the car, and then her sister Zeinab, wearing a purple dress. Nasr's hand clamped onto my right shoulder just as Mariam herself appeared, a vision of pure white, holding onto her father's arm for support while her mother brushed down her skirt. I sucked in a breath.