Chapter 2: The Bathroom Interruption
The bathroom door didn't have a lock that worked. Layla discovered this the hard way, jiggling the handle three times before giving up and shouldering it open, already halfway through a sentence about how the entire house smelled like cumin and she was going to lose her mind if one more aunt asked her when she was getting married.
The sentence died somewhere between her brain and her mouth.
Omar stood in front of the sink, back to her, shirtless. His shoulders were broader than she'd imagined—not that she'd imagined, not that she'd spent any significant amount of time thinking about it—and the muscles in his back shifted as he reached down to fiddle with the faucet.
The water was running. He hadn't heard her come in.
Layla's hand froze on the door handle. Every instinct screamed at her to back out, to pretend she'd never seen this, to preserve some shred of plausible deniability. Instead, she stepped inside and closed the door behind her with a soft click.
Omar's head snapped up. Their eyes met in the fogged mirror.
For a long, terrible moment, neither of them moved.
Then Omar groaned—low and pained, like she'd just told him his car had been towed—and his hands flew to the waistband of his pants, which were, she noted with detached interest, halfway down his hips.
"Layla."
"What?"
"What do you mean, what?" He fumbled with the drawstring, yanking it tight like he was trying to strangle the fabric. "Get out."
"I need to fix my hair." She gestured vaguely at her frizzy curls, which had given up sometime around two in the afternoon and now resembled a bird's nest after a windstorm. "The other bathroom's occupied."
"So wait."
"I've been waiting for twenty minutes." She crossed her arms, leaning back against the sink with what she hoped was an appropriately bored expression. "You're not the only one with needs."
Omar stared at her. His chest was rising and falling a little too fast, and there was a flush climbing up his neck that had nothing to do with the warm bathroom.
"Layla," he said again, and this time it was almost a plea.
"What?"
"Can you—" He gestured at her, then at the door, then at his own half-naked body like he couldn't quite find the words. "I'm trying to change."
"I noticed."
"Then go."
"I'm not leaving." She tilted her head, examining him with exaggerated interest. "What's the problem? It's nothing I haven't seen before."
The words hung in the air like a challenge. Omar's jaw worked soundlessly.
"Nothing you haven't—you haven't seen anything."
"Oh, please." She waved a hand. "I've seen it all before. You think you're special?"
Omar's expression shifted. The embarrassed flush was still there, but underneath it, something else flickered. Something that looked a lot like wounded pride.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing." She shrugged, examining her nails. "Just that you're not the first shirtless guy I've walked in on. My cousin's friend at a wedding last summer? Way more stacked. He was getting changed in the coatroom and I walked right in. Didn't even blink."
Omar's eyes narrowed. "You're lying."
"I'm not."
"You are." He took a step toward her, forgetting for a moment that his pants were still dangerously low. "You're trying to get under my skin."
"Is it working?"
He stopped. They were close now, close enough that she could see the droplets of water clinging to his collarbone, the faint shadow of stubble along his jaw. The bathroom felt smaller than it had a moment ago, the air thick and warm.
"You're impossible," he said.
"I know."
"You're standing in my bathroom, watching me undress, and you're—" He broke off, running a hand through his hair. "You're doing this on purpose."
"Doing what?"
"Being—" He gestured at her, at himself, at the general chaos of the moment. "This. You're standing there looking at me like I'm a piece of meat, and I'm supposed to just—"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa." Layla held up her hands, wounded pride flashing across her face. "I'm not looking at you like—"
"You are." He pointed at her, vindicated. "You have that look. The one you had at the party. The one that says you know something I don't."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"The parking lot." His voice dropped. "You know what happened in the parking lot."
Layla's cheeks went hot. She wasn't blushing—she refused to call it blushing—but there was definitely some kind of temperature regulation issue happening in her face.
"That was weeks ago."
"Yeah. And you've been acting weird ever since."
"Weird?" She bristled. "I have not been acting weird."
"You've been texting me at weird hours. Sending me things." He took another step closer, crowding her against the sink. "You sent me a video of a cat at three in the morning. What was that about?"
"The cat was funny."
"The cat had nothing to do with anything."
"Maybe I just like cats."
"You're allergic to cats."
Layla opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
"Okay, fine," she said, throwing her hands up. "Maybe I've been acting a little weird. Maybe I've been... thinking about things."
"Things?"
"Don't make me say it."
Omar's expression softened. He reached out, his hand hovering near her hip, not quite touching. "The parking lot was weeks ago," he said quietly. "We said we were going to talk. We haven't talked."
"We've talked."
"Not about that."
She looked at him—really looked at him—and for a moment, the teasing dropped away. Underneath it was something fragile, something she'd been trying to hide for weeks.
"I don't know how to do this," she said. "I'm not good at... this part."
"What part?"
"The part where I say what I want."
Omar's hand found her hip, finally, his fingers warm through the fabric of her jeans. "You seemed pretty good at it in the parking lot."
"That was different."
"How?"
"Because I was mad." She made a face. "Or maybe not mad. Frustrated. You were being all stoic and mysterious, and I just—" She gestured vaguely. "I wanted to shake you."
"You did shake me."
"I know." A grin tugged at the corner of her mouth. "I shook you so hard I found out you have feelings."
Omar laughed—a real laugh, surprised and warm—and it broke something between them. The tension eased. The air got a little easier to breathe.
"You're ridiculous," he said.
"I know."
"You're standing in my bathroom, making up stories about my cousin's friend—"
"—your extremely stacked cousin's friend—"
"—so I have to prove something to you—"
"Are you going to prove something?"
He looked at her. She looked at him.
"I don't know," he said slowly. "Am I?"
The door handle rattled.
"Omar?" A voice from outside—female, older, distinctly unimpressed. "Omar, habibi, are you in there? Your mother wants you to help with the table."
Omar's face went pale.
Layla covered her mouth with her hand, eyes wide with barely suppressed laughter.
"Just a minute, Auntie," he called, voice strained. "I'm—I'm changing."
"Changing? In the bathroom? Why not in your room?"
"Because—" He glanced at Layla, desperate. "Because—"
"The mirror!" Layla whispered. "You wanted to check your hair!"
"Because I needed to check the mirror!" he repeated, a little too loudly. "For—for my hair."
A pause.
"Your hair?" Auntie's voice dripped with skepticism. "You have the same haircut for ten years. What's there to check?"
"I'm going through a phase," Omar said.
Another pause. Layla bit her lip hard enough to hurt.
"Fine," Auntie said. "But hurry up. Everyone's waiting."
Her footsteps faded down the hall. Omar slumped against the counter, exhaling like he'd just defused a bomb.
"That was close," he muttered.
"That was amazing."
He shot her a look. "You're enjoying this."
"I'm having the time of my life." She pushed off from the sink, moving to the mirror to examine her hair. "Now, if you don't mind, I really do need to fix this. My mother's already made three comments about me looking like a 'wild woman.'"
She busied herself with her curls, tucking and pinning and doing absolutely nothing to conceal the fact that she was still very much aware of him—his bare chest, his low-slung pants, the way he was just standing there watching her like he couldn't quite decide what to do next.
"You're still here," she said, when the silence stretched on too long.
"You're still here."
"I was here first."
"Technically, I was here first."
She turned, eyebrows raised. "Are you arguing about bathroom rights right now?"
He grinned. It was a good grin—easy and crooked and way too charming for someone who was currently half-dressed in his aunt's bathroom. "Maybe."
"Put on a shirt, Omar."
"Says the girl who won't leave."
"Says the girl who's trying to fix her hair so her mother stops calling her a wild woman."
He reached for the clean shirt on the counter, pulling it over his head in one smooth motion. "There. Happy?"
"Ecstatic."
But she was smiling when she said it. And he was smiling back. And there was something happening here, something that had been building since the parking lot and had only gotten stronger in the weeks since—a truth they'd been dancing around with texts and memes and voice notes at two in the morning.
"So," Omar said, leaning against the doorframe. "The parking lot."
"What about it?"
"We said we'd talk."
"We also said we'd try."
"I remember." He crossed his arms, but the gesture was relaxed now, almost lazy. "I remember everything about that night."
Layla's hands stilled in her hair. "Yeah?"
"Yeah."
She turned to face him fully. The bathroom was small, but the distance between them felt even smaller. "I don't know what to say," she admitted. "I thought—I thought when I saw you again, it would be easier. But then you were shirtless and I panicked and now I'm making jokes about your cousin's friend—"
"You made up the cousin's friend."
"I absolutely did not."
"You absolutely did."
"Okay," she said, laughing despite herself. "Maybe I made up the cousin's friend. But the point stands."
"What point?"
"That I'm bad at this." She gestured at the space between them. "The vulnerable stuff. The feelings stuff. The—" She pulled a face. "The part where I have to actually say what I want instead of just hinting at it and hoping the other person figures it out."
Omar walked toward her. Slowly. Deliberately. He stopped just short of touching, close enough that she could feel the warmth radiating off his skin.
"Tell me what you want," he said.
"I don't—"
"Tell me."
She looked up at him. The bathroom light was behind him, casting his face in shadow, but she could see the intensity in his eyes. The patience. The way he was waiting—really waiting—for her to be honest.
"I want this," she said. "I want you. I want to figure out whatever this is, and I want to do it without being scared, and I want—" She huffed in frustration. "I want to stop pretending I'm not terrified of screwing this up."
"You think I'm not terrified?"
She blinked. "You seem so calm."
"I'm a good actor." He reached up, tucking a stray curl behind her ear. "I'm scared of everything. That I'll say the wrong thing. That I'll push too hard. That I won't push hard enough and you'll lose interest—"
"You're insane."
"I've been told."
"I'm not going to lose interest." She caught his hand before he could pull away, holding it against her cheek. "I've been interested for weeks. I've been interested since the first time you texted me back with a full sentence instead of a boring 'lol.'"
"That's a low bar."
"It's your bar."
Omar laughed. Soft and quiet. He leaned down, pressing his forehead to hers, and she closed her eyes.
"So what now?" she whispered.
"We go downstairs." His breath was warm against her lips. "We sit through dinner. We pretend like nothing's happening."
"And then?"
"And then we sit through breakfast tomorrow. And lunch. And the rest of the weekend."
"That sounds terrible."
"It does." His hand tightened on hers. "But it's only two days. We can survive two days."
"And after?"
"After, we figure out the rest." He pulled back, meeting her eyes. "Together."
Layla held his gaze. The word sat between them—together—heavy with promise and possibility.
"Okay," she said.
"Okay?"
"Okay." She smiled, small and real. "But if my aunt asks me one more time when I'm getting married, I'm blaming you."
"Fair."
"And if your mother makes any comments about 'nice girls,' I'm—"
"She won't."
"She definitely will."
He grimaced. "Yeah. She definitely will."
Layla laughed, bright and sudden, and the sound filled the small bathroom like sunlight. She stepped back, turning to the mirror one last time, checking her hair.
"Done," she announced.
"Good." Omar opened the door, peering out into the hallway. "Coast is clear."
"See you downstairs?"
He hesitated. "Yeah."
"Don't take too long."
"I won't."
She slipped past him, her shoulder brushing his chest, and paused at the top of the stairs. "Hey, Omar?"
"Yeah?"
"You know this isn't just a party thing, right?" She echoed his words from the parking lot, grinning. "This isn't just a weekend thing."
His smile was warm, genuine, and entirely for her. "I know."
"Good."
She descended the stairs, leaving him standing in the hallway with a stupid expression on his face. Behind her, the bathroom door clicked shut. Ahead, thesounds of family—laughter, conversation, the clatter of dishes—rose up like a wave.
She was in so much trouble.
And she didn't care.s
The hallway was still empty when she reached the bottom of the stairs, thank God, and she could hear the chaos of the dining room before she saw it—the clatter of plates, overlapping conversations in Arabic and English, the unmistakable sound of her Uncle Samir arguing about politics with someone who probably didn't want to hear it.
That weekend was going to be a marathon, not a sprint.
Layla slid into her seat beside her sister, who looked up briefly from her phone and then back down. No interrogation. Small mercies.
The table was covered in food—fetched and arranged like a battlefield—and everyone was already passing dishes around, loading their plates with rice and chicken and slow-cooked lamb that made the whole house smell like home. Her mother caught her eye from across the table and raised an eyebrow, the universal signal for where were you?
Bathroom, Layla mouthed back.
Her mother nodded, satisfied, and returned to her conversation with Omar's aunt.
Omar appeared a few minutes later, sliding into a seat at the far end of the table near his older brother. He didn't look at her. She tried not to look at him. It didn't work particularly well, but she was careful to keep her expression neutral as she scooped rice onto her plate.
"How are your classes?" Omar's mother asked, from her spot at the head of the table. She was a kind-faced woman with graying hair and sharp eyes that missed nothing. "Are you still thinking about law?"
"She's not going to law school," Layla's mother interjected, before Layla could answer. "She's going to marry rich and travel the world. That's what I raised her for."
The table laughed. Layla wanted to sink through the floor.
"You're joking," Omar's mother said, though her eyes were still sharp. "You have such a bright daughter. Don't waste her potential."
"Mm," Layla's mother said, which was her way of saying I heard you but I'll do what I want.
Layla shoved rice in her mouth to avoid crying or screaming or both.
The rest of the meal passed in a blur. She answered questions about school and work and her future and why she wasn't married yet. She smiled until her face hurt. She helped clear the table and washed dishes and avoided eye contact with Omar across the kitchen, where he was helping his brother carry in more water.
She didn't think about the bathroom. She didn't think about the low rasp in his voice when he'd said tell me what you want. She absolutely didn't think about the way he'd looked at her in the mirror, like she was the only thing in the world worth seeing.
Layla went to bed early. She didn't sleep well.
---
The smell of eggs and bread and cardamom tea dragged her out of bed at seven the next morning, too exhausted to do anything but stumble downstairs and eat. She sat next to her sister again and kept her head down and ate her weight in food and did not look at Omar, who was seated across the table, looking equally tired and equally determined not to look at her.
Their mothers were deep in a conversation about an upcoming wedding in the family, and Layla's sister was arguing with their cousin about some TikTok drama, and Layla was able to exist in a small bubble of silence at the end of the table, which was all she wanted.
Until breakfast was over and the dishes were cleared and she finally felt human again.
She helped clean up, and by nine the guest room was quiet, and she was alone for the first time all morning. Layla sat on the edge of the bed and scrolled through her phone and tried not to think about the fact that there was only one bathroom in this house.
Which was stupid. Of course there was only one bathroom. It was a small house. She'd known that when they'd decided to stay the entire weekend. So why, in the name of everything holy, did her body decide that this morning, of all mornings, it needed to be a bathroom emergency?
Layla's eyes went wide as she felt the urgent press in her bladder—the kind that said move now or regret it forever. She jumped up, threw her phone on the bed, and hurried into the hallway.
The bathroom door was closed. She jiggled the handle. Locked.
"Occupied," a voice called from inside. Omar's voice.
"That's fine," Layla said, through the door. "How long?"
"A while."
"What do you mean, a while?"
"I mean I'm showering. What do you think?"
She was going to die. She was going to literally die like this—standing in a hallway, doing a desperate little shuffle, her bladder screaming for mercy.
"Can you hurry?" she said.
"I can't control the shower time. It's—it's just water."
"Just water," she echoed, through the door. "That's what you're going with?"
"Do you want to come in?"
She froze. "What?"
"I'm asking if you want to come in. The curtain's closed. You won't see anything."
Her brain short-circuited for a solid five seconds. There was a logical part of her, the part that hadn't been fried by the sound of running water and the mental image of steam and those shoulders she'd seen yesterday and that low, pained groan escaping his lips when they'd been in the hallway together—that part said just wait. The other part, the part that was very much in charge, said you need to pee so bad.
"I'm coming in," she announced.
"Okay."
She heard the sound of water splashing as she turned the knob and pushed the door open. Steam billowed out into the hallway, carrying the scent of her mother's lavender soap. She stepped inside and immediately yanked the shower curtain closed all the way, making sure the edges overlapped.
"You know," Omar said, voice raised over the water, "I'm not going to look."
"I'm not worried about that."
"Then what are you doing?"
"I'm making sure it's closed."
"It's closed."
"It wasn't closed all the way."
"I'm pretty sure it was."
"It wasn't." She was frantic now, pulling the curtain fully across and checking it twice. "The gap was right there. I saw it."
Omar was laughing. She could hear it—low, warm, muffled by the water. "Layla. Just pee."
The sound of her name on his lips—the way he said it, patient and entirely too amused—made her face flush. She was standing in a bathroom with a running shower, and Omar was on the other side of the curtain, and she had to pee so bad that her thighs were pressed together.
"Don't listen," she said.
"I can't hear anything over the water."
"Turn it off."
"What?"
"Turn the water off. I can't—I can't do it if you're listening."
Another laugh, louder this time. "I'm not—it's not working like that. The water doesn't stop the sound. It's—you know what, forget it. Just pee. I'm not looking."
"That's not the point."
"Then what is the point?"
"That I'm peeing in the same bathroom as you."
"You've peed in the same bathroom as me before. At the party."
"That was different. You were outside."
"I was in the hallway."
"Outside the bathroom."
"Semantics."
She stared at the shower curtain, wishing she could see through it. Her bladder was throbbing now. If she didn't go in the next thirty seconds, she was going to have a very bad time.
"You have to promise not to look," she said.
"I promise not to look."
"Promise for real."
"I promise for real."
"And you have to talk. Stand there and talk."
"About what?"
"Anything. Just—talk."
Omar sighed. The water kept running. She heard him shift, the sound of his feet against the wet tile. "Okay. Once upon a time, there was a girl who insisted on peeing while I was in the shower. It was awkward, and she asked me to talk. So I'm talking. This is me talking. Are you happy?"
"Ecstatic," she said, and finally—finally—relaxed.
The relief was absolute. Her eyes closed, her head fell back, and for a moment there was nothing in the world except the sound of water and Omar's voice, quieter now, trailing off into silence.
"Are you okay?" he asked, after a moment.
"Yeah."
"You sound weird."
"I'm fine."
"The water's starting to get cold. I'm going to turn it off."
"Wait—"
The water stopped. The bathroom went quiet. There was no more steam, no more splashing, no more talking. And she was still a foot away from the toilet, still not done, still standing there with her pants halfway down.
"Omar."
"Yeah?"
"Talk."
"I'm not talking. You said you were fine."
"I changed my mind."
The sound of him laughing again—she could picture it, his head tilted back, his shoulders shaking. "Okay. So there was this one time, at a wedding, my aunt caught me hiding behind the coat rack because I didn't want to dance with one of my cousins—"
He kept talking. He talked through the sound of her finishing, through the toilet flushing, through the rush of the sink faucet washing her hands. His voice was steady and warm and absurd, and by the time she was done and had cracked the door open, she was laughing too.
"You're the worst," she said.
"You're the one who came in here."
"You could have said no."
"Why would I say no?" He paused. His eyes found hers through the crack in the door. "Try the hall. Everyone's still in the living room."
Layla slipped out, pulling the door closed behind her. She stood in the hallway for a long moment, her heart slamming against her ribs, and tried to catch her breath.
She could still hear him moving around inside the bathroom, the sound of him finally getting out of the shower, the rustle of a towel.
She was in so much trouble.
And she didn't care.