Zaid's roommates were a familiar sight.
An eerie silence had greeted them when they'd first unlocked the door to his apartment after a day of roaming the streets of Boston. As he'd gone to unload some of his belongings in his bedroom, Talia pondered what it would be like to be truly alone inside with him for the first time in several days. The stretch of time they'd lived without power had cemented the spell of genuine feelings building between them, ones so intoxicating, she wanted them to consume her.
"Oh my god, an American. It's been so long."
Paul threw his arms around her and squeezed her into a firm hug for a solid five seconds, before her lack of response had him awkwardly backing away. The humor registered when she turned her head to the right and found both Zaid and Fahed staring blankly ahead.
"What the hell did you hug her for?" Fahed growled, speaking on behalf of his unsettled friend. "I'm sure you wouldn't appreciate someone touching your precious little Jessica."
Paul released a sardonic chuckle, throwing his head back. "Oh, dear God, someone please take her. You're describing the best thing that could ever happen to me, man. At this point, my parents have been dating her for the past three years, not me."
"And I am dating no one yet, so the hug was acceptable," Talia cut in, sensing a rebuttal from either of the two men next to him. Maybe she just wanted to start a little drama. "A little awkward, yeah, but we can move on."
Fahed's deep brown eyes flickered to his friend at her remarks, but Zaid pushed past him to the fridge and grumbled something about his roommates' uselessness as he found it mostly empty. The only drinks perched on the top shelf were two bottles of iced tea, one of which he handed to Talia.
"What are your plans for the day?" Zaid asked, leaning over the other side of the countertop.
"Isn't it your birthday, man?" Fahed arched a thick brow and slid onto the barstool one seat away from Talia. "Figured you'd be giving us some damn plans."
Paul wedged himself between the two of them and planted his hands on the countertop. "Well, if neither of you know what you want to do today, I have some plans. A bunch of students at the international house are throwing a party this afternoon, and there are way too many hot French girls over there for me to miss it."
"Is one of those girls named Jessica?" Talia asked, guilting him.
"If I ask around enough." He turned back to Zaid. "Are you in, dude? I'm not sure how else you think twenty-first birthdays go around here, but usually you're not supposed to be so"—he waved a hand in front of his dour stare—"aware."
Fahed snorted into his fist. "Zaid reads for fun, Paul. How did you think he planned on spending his twenty-first? Because I, for one, know it'll look a lot more like a glass of aged wine and a Victorian novel than body shots and a DUI."
"I don't like English literature," Zaid said.
"See," he finished, rolling his eyes and turning back to Paul. "Go cheat on your girlfriend yourself, man."
"Kol khara," Paul spat, telling him to eat shit. Facing her, he added, "Talia, you're welcome to join me at the FOB party."
Holding back an unattractive snort, Talia opened her mouth to politely decline, but Zaid spoke over her.
"I didn't say she could."
Paul stilled, a few speculative fingers meeting his chin. "You didn't? Didn't Talia just claim she's single? Or wait..." Blue-green eyes darting between her pursed lips and Zaid's tightening grip on his drink, he finished, "Did you two come here so you could—you know—have a little alone time? Because if so, I'll get the fuck out of here, man."
Fahed's palm slammed against the marble countertop. "Wallahi, you talk more than my three younger sisters combined. Just leave the girl alone, will you? She's clearly not interested."
"Fair enough," he said, shrugging. Walking backwards to the door, he called out, "Enjoy the rest of your day, birthday boy!"
Fahed heaved out an irate breath the moment the door banged shut. "Do we really need a fucking roommate, Zaid? He's not even worth the fifteen-hundred he pays per month."
"That's not true," Zaid said. The rest of the statement almost made Talia spit out her drink. "I'd lower the cut-off to about five-hundred."
After a bout of laughter, Talia finally cut in. "Okay, wait. Can I ask a question?"
They responded in unison, "What?"
"How did you two meet?" She alternated her gaze between both their tan, angular faces, hating that she found each of them attractive in their own way—Fahed's gruffness a stark contrast to Zaid's class. Absolutely the fuck not, Talia. "I need some context for this friendship."
"Oh, it's simple, actually," Fahed said, folding his arms over his black sweater, flashy watch on display. "We bonded over our mutual hatred of a Lebanese classmate our first year of high school, and it's been smooth sailing since."
She blinked, finding that sentiment not that hard to believe at the core, but Zaid cut in before she could question the validity of the story.
"He's just being an ass. We didn't hate anyone in high school."
"Speak for yourself," Fahed grumbled. His hard features softened after a few moments, noticing her patient expression. "Alright, Talia, the true story is I moved back to Jordan at fourteen after spending most of my childhood in the Gulf, and Zaid was the first one not to treat me like an alien at our stuffy private school. Truth be told...he soon became the brother I never had."
"Same here," Zaid mumbled, although he actually had one. After guzzling the last of his drink, he brushed the imaginary dust off his hands and walked to the other side of the counter. His gaze stopped on her legs, making her own follow its path, until she noticed how high her skirt had ridden up, the darker black mesh of her tights peeking out of the hemline. He turned to his friend and gave him a firm pat on the back. "Do you mind handing the apartment over to us for the rest of the afternoon? I'm sure Paul is getting a little lonely out there."
When three became two, two breaths became one. Zaid buried his fingers into her hair and tipped her head back, releasing a bout of pent-up fervor on her lips. When his face disconnected, his hand stayed where it was, sinful gaze seeming to undress her from head to toe.
Talia fought a self-satisfied smirk and uncrossed her legs slowly, right then left. "Would you have let me go to that party if I'd wanted to?"
A small vein ticked in his forehead. "What does it matter, Talia?"
"Because I don't like people controlling me," she whispered, mouth at his ear, "unless...it's in bed."
A moment later, her backside met a place a little harder than a bed, hitting the surface of the countertop behind her. Zaid planted his palms on her thighs, fingertips just slipping under the hemline of her skirt, and rested his forehead on hers. She slid her icy hand up the back of his sweater, nails just gliding over his skin.
"Don't tempt me," he grumbled, squeezing her flesh.
"Or what?" She buried the fingers of her other hand into the ends of his hair and pulled his head back up. "I'll get this side of you? Not a terrible deal, if you ask me."
His hand dropped to the countertop space between her open legs. "I promised I wouldn't," he rasped, "because as much as your confidence deceives me"—he replaced his own with two fingers at the apex of her thighs under her skirt, deterred only by a thin piece of fabric—"I would be your first, wouldn't I?"
"I thought—" She gasped when he pressed down and began to rub, lighting a novel spark that traveled all the way up her spine. "I thought my sex life was none of your business."
"You're forgetting the dependent clause, Talia." She drowned out his words, having no time for grammar and semantics when his lips met that spot on her neck just below her jawline. When his teeth nipped the surface, she let out a shuddering breath and locked his wrist in a white-knuckled grip. "Do you remember it?"
"Does it finally apply?" she choked out, not giving him the satisfaction of repeating it.
"Not yet..." With a fiery path down the rest of her thigh, he pulled his hand away and whispered, "But one day."
***
In a cruel twist of irony, they spent the rest of the afternoon in his bed.
The king-size mattress made it easy to do so in the most platonic sense. Talia stretched herself across one half of the black sheets, arms wrapped around one of the many pillows littering the space behind her head. Every now and then, she'd glance out the floor-length window on the other side of the room, as if she'd be graced with a novel sight. The view was less impressive than the one in the living room, just the brown side of the adjacent building and the endless white-gray winter sky.
"Do you have any photos of you from high school?" she asked, sitting up on her elbows. "That story earlier got me curious."
He chuckled, dropping his head back onto the pillow. "I deleted my Instagram last year; otherwise, you could have stalked me all the way back to age fourteen. Was quite the stud in those gray uniform slacks, for the record."
She made a face, unable to find dress pants, starched shirts, or acrylic sweaters attractive after all those years of Catholic school. "You have nothing else on your phone?"
"Oh, I do," he said, skimming his hand down her back. "But my phone's in the kitchen. And I'm not hauling my ass over there."
She cut her next snappy remark short at the dip in the mattress, finding him propped up on his elbow, reaching over her head for the side table to her right. A green-and-white album emerged from the drawer, worn corners making her think of the three or four shoved into some cabinet in her kitchen, full of summer memories devoid of nostalgia.
"I stole this from my brother's apartment back home," he said, letting it fall open to a random page. "Not sure why he took some of our best memories when he never cares to revisit them."
"Maybe you shouldn't be so hard on your brother, Zaid." Her heart beat faster as she wondered if she'd crossed a line, but he said nothing, grip loosening on the cover. "Everyone expresses their grief differently. Some are much quieter...but it doesn't mean the pain isn't there, begging to be acknowledged."
"Maybe you're right," he breathed, looking away. "How about I show you a few things?"
Talia curled up into his side as he flipped through the earliest days of his childhood, mostly half-asleep photos from infancy, chubby cheeks on full display. Deciding there were too many, he skimmed the memories from his toddler years with disinterest, but one photo had her eyes turning to saucers.
"Oh my god, is that Teta Salma?" She took the album from his hands and beamed at the photo of her grandmother holding Zaid on her hip, nearly two decades of age stripped from her face. The beach in the background seemed much more reminiscent of the gray-sand ones of New England than any idyllic vacation spot in the Mediterranean. "This must be around here, right?"
"Cape Cod, actually. These were rare trips my family used to make back to Massachusetts after my grandmother passed."
She glanced at the next photo. A boy of about six or seven had wedged himself between her grandparents, his innocent smile mirroring Fouad's. Her heart swelled in her chest. "Do you think your brother remembers?"
"I've never asked," he said. Fingers hovering over the edge of the page, he froze on a photo of Saif hugging him in front of a toppled sandcastle. The look of mischief on Zaid's face identified the clear culprit. "Saif never used to get angry when I'd ruin his things. One time, when he was in fourth grade, I stepped all over his poster for a project right as the glue was drying. Tore up every image he'd spent hours drawing... My mother stormed into the room right then, shoe in hand, but he begged her not to scold me and spent the rest of the night redoing his work."
"I imagine that wasn't the same day he shoved you into a doorknob."
"I deserved that," he mumbled and turned to the next page.
An array of photos of his parents at some upscale restaurant followed. His mother appeared to be in her late twenties, rendering the twelve-year age gap somewhat noticeable as she posed next to her husband, whose sideburns were graying and whose eyes appeared as kind and as wise as Zaid's. She was breathtakingly elegant: silky black hair, an angular face, and the figure and poise of an old-school model.
"We can skip past these," she murmured, tearing her gaze away.
With a few more quick glances, a turn of the page launched them several years into the future. A six-year-old Zaid held his little sister, arms tightly locked around her chest, as her eldest brother enveloped them in two protective arms. Wherever they lived had an incredible view of the stony architecture dotting the hills of Amman, in some odd way reminding her of Northern California.
"You know, I almost dropped her so many times," Zaid chuckled, "but eventually, I got the hang of it."
The next few photos seemed to be taken in a new place each time, some of ancient ruins, others of azure coastline, a few others displaying the distinct rose-red sandstone of Petra. He named off the city in each picture and how old he was in each one, voice weighed down by some emotion.
"My family used to vacation all over the Middle East when I was a child," he said through a sigh. "Now which country isn't war-torn, flooded with refugees, or fighting for freedom it will never find?"
"Some of these tragedies began far before our lifetime," she murmured, referring to his last point, before avoiding the heavy topic. "Do you have any more photos of your sister?"
"The rest of this album is a shrine to her, Talia."
He confirmed his statement with pages and pages of her childhood photos. She was an interesting blend of her two brothers, hair not as curly and brown as Saif's, cat-like eyes much greener than Zaid's hazel ones.
"Did she get along with you guys as kids?" she asked as he hit the last page.
He set the album back on the surface of the side table. "Nadine worships Saif. I guess she developed more of a fondness for me when she realized I can never resist any of her demands." He sighed and folded his arms behind his head, looking her face up and down. "I have grown to develop an impeccable tolerance for makeup and shoe shopping, for what it's worth."
"Let me test your knowledge, then," she said. "What's the difference between tinted moisturizer and BB cream?"
"I said I can stand being around girly shit, not that I understand any of it." He put away the album and rolled over on top of her. A couple fingers tucked a stray lock of curly hair behind her ear, then dragged down her contoured cheek. "For the record, whatever you wear does it for me."
"Tinted moisturizer, waterproof mascara, kohl eyeliner—"
He shut her up with a kiss and dropped back down next to her, sticking to his desire to stay in bed. Realizing it was still only three in the afternoon, Talia stretched herself across his sheets, using his shoulder as her pillow and the heat of his body as her blanket.
She looked up at him from underneath her eyelashes. "Can I ask you something?"
"Anything," he murmured.
"Are you okay?"
Zaid blinked, halting the movements of his hand down her back. "Yeah, I'm alright. What do you mean?"
"I mean," she stressed, "are you okay? I keep thinking about what you told me last night."
"Forget what I said. I wasn't thinking."
"But I am," Talia said, sitting up. "I don't know how to say this, Zaid, but I... I care about you."
The correct expression she was looking for was stronger than the word "care" but perhaps less profound than its highest form, love, though neither the English nor Arabic language seemed to supply her with the term she needed.
So she settled.
"You don't have to say it," he said, shaking his head. "The question you asked already did."