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The question took her by surprise, but judging by the determined look in his eyes, it was one he had been thinking about for a while.

She opened her mouth to answer—Yes!—but the words wouldn’t come.

After a moment, Lucky nodded, once. “You should go. Samir will be expecting that box. I already loaded it in your car.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Lucky parked behind Crescent House, then texted Aliyah that he was ten minutes away and sat staring at nothing. He was early, but he needed some time to think. Part of him wanted to cancel this date and return home, but his mother would be full of questions he couldn’t answer.

He had all but confessed his feelings to Dina, and she had . . . not answered. Worse, she had ignored him. His head was spinning. The moment the words left his mouth, he had bitterly regretted them. They had been the culmination of a variety of factors: spending all afternoon with Dina, their shared confidences, the scent of her overwhelming him in the enclosed space of the truck. All of it conspiring to drive him crazy, until finally he had blurted out that question: “I’m tired of waiting, and I’m ready to go all in. Unless you can think of a reason I should hold back?” He wanted to smack his head against the steering wheel now. What had he been thinking? She was still married to Arshad, and she still only saw him as a friend, nothing more. Yet, he wondered.

He thought over the events of the afternoon, Dina’s admission about her unhappiness, her flippant answer when he asked her why she had married Arshad, even Areej Aunty’s assessment of the situation. He had been hit on by married women before, but only the unhappy ones. They would hang out while he worked, or drop broad hints about how much time they had before their husbands would return home, or ask what else was included in his services. He never took them up on anything. He was sure the women would have been horrified to learn their overtures only made him feel sorry for them.

It was different with Dina. They had immediately returned to their usual banter, the easy conversation flowing right away, which only happened with the best of friendships. Everything was different with her.

The passenger side door opened, and Aliyah peered inside. “Why are you parked at the back of the house like you’re casing the joint?” she asked. She looked pretty in a white linen dress, her hair loose about her shoulders, subtle blush on her cheeks. She hopped inside his truck without an invitation, and Lucky forced himself to stop thinking about Dina.

“Maybe that’s been my plan all along,” he said, smiling at her.

She rolled her eyes. “You should steal Yahya Uncle’s Kamyabi painting. At least then we won’t have to stare at it and give our opinions. It just looks like a ball of yarn to me. But then, I don’t get art.”

“Maybe there’s not much to get,” Lucky said.

She laughed. “That’s exactly what I thought, but it makes him happy. Where are you taking me?”

Lucky started the car, trying not to compare Aliyah’s response to his painting with Dina’s. “There’s a little Italian place nearby,” he said. He had thought about taking her to Mazedaar Cuisine, but now that he had taken Dina there, it seemed wrong somehow. Also, Aliyah’s comments about the painting stung; he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear what she had to say about his favorite restaurant too.

On the drive, they chatted about mutual friends and connections in the city. They shared favorite spots for pizza and desserts, and tips on navigating traffic. It was a pleasant, surface-level conversation, the sort that Lucky often had on first dates. Aliyah waited until they were seated in the cozy Italian restaurant, and after they had ordered—seafood linguine for him, eggplant parmigiana for her—before she fixed him with an arch look.

“I want to ask you a question, but I’m afraid it might make things weird,” she said. He waved at her to go ahead. “Why did Dina show up fifteen minutes before you, and why did you text that you were ten minutes away and then idle at the back of the house?”

He choked on the sparkling water he was drinking. “Wh-what?” he said.

There was a mischievous gleam in her eyes, and a bit of confusion too. “Are you two having a torrid affair?”

“No!” Lucky blurted out, horrified. “Before Samir’s wedding, I hadn’t seen or talked to her in six years.”

Aliyah took a sip of her drink—she had ordered an Italian lemonade with mint. “Hmm,” she said.

“Nothing is going on with me and Dina,” he insisted, but she didn’t look convinced.

“I like you, Lucky. You’re good looking, you have a job, and Samir vouched for you. But I’m also okay with just being friends.” She motioned between the two of them. “This doesn’t have to go anywhere, okay?”

Lucky exhaled, his shoulders dropping. “Dina and I are nothing to each other now, but if I’m being honest, at some point in the past, I was interested in more.”

Aliyah leaned forward on her elbows, eyebrow raised. “Do you know if she ever felt the same?”

There was something about the way she asked the question that made his heart start to pound. “Not as far as I know.”

His date leaned back. “Here’s the deal, Lucky. I’m going to make an executive decision about our relationship right now, for both our sakes. I am officially releasing you from any romantic intentions you might have felt obliged to have toward me.”

“You . . . are?” he said, confused.

She nodded, firm. “You clearly have some Dina-shaped baggage you need to deal with before you’re ready to date anyone seriously. So, consider me a friend. And as your new friend, why don’t you start from the beginning and tell me the whole story,” she said.

He blinked at her. “Why are you doing this?”

Aliyah shrugged. “I was pretty sure something was up between you two at brunch. Let’s just say you protested too much. As for me, I just got out of a long-term relationship. I need time, but my family won’t leave me alone. Samir’s parents haven’t stopped their matchmaking attempts since I accepted their job offer. I turned down other candidates but said yes to you because . . .” She trailed off, looking at him meaningfully.