Chapter 14: Mama's Breakfast Interrogation
The screen door slammed behind Baba, rattling the windowpane, and Layla watched through the glass as his truck coughed to life in the driveway. He sat there for a moment, hunched over the steering wheel, fighting with the defroster. Then the old Ford shuddered and rolled backward, tires crunching over the frozen gravel, and the sound faded into the gray morning.
Mama waited until the truck disappeared past the cedar fence.
Then she set down her tea.
The cup clicked against the table, sharp and deliberate, and Layla felt her spine stiffen. She kept her eyes on her plate. The labneh was half-eaten, smeared with the tracks of her spoon, and she busied herself with dragging a piece of bread through the last of it like it was the most important task in the world.
"So," Mama said.
Layla didn't look up. "So what?"
"Did you shower first, or did he?"
The bread stopped halfway to Layla's mouth. She set it down. The fluorescent light above the sink flickered once, twice, then steadied—and she wished it would keep flickering, keep distracting, keep giving her somewhere else to look.
"I don't remember," she said.
"You don't remember."
"No."
Mama hummed. She picked up her cup again, blew across the surface, and took a sip that was far too casual. "Interesting. Because I remember. You went up first. Around six-fifteen. Then the water ran for twenty minutes. Then Tarek went up. Then the water ran again."
Layla bit the inside of her cheek.
"So either you showered twice," Mama continued, "which would be strange, since the hot water heater hasn't got more than fifteen minutes in it before it gives out. Or—"
"Amma."
"Or you weren't alone in there."
Layla pressed her tongue against her teeth. The copper taste bloomed—sharp, metallic—and she focused on it, let it ground her. The kitchen smelled of cumin and onions, of the bread Mama had pulled from the oven an hour ago. Warm. Familiar. She'd stood in this kitchen a thousand times. She'd never once felt like she was being dissected on its countertops.
"Amma," she said again, slower this time, "I don't know what you're—"
"You're wearing his sweater."
Layla looked down. The gray wool hung past her wrists, pooling around her fingers. She'd rolled the sleeves twice already, and they'd unrolled again.
"It's cold," she said.
"It's fifty degrees outside. The heat's been on since October."
"Cold is—"
"Layla."
She stopped.
Mama set her elbows on the table, laced her fingers together, and rested her chin on the bridge. It was the posture she used when she was about to ask about grades, or bills, or why Layla had come home four minutes past curfew in eleventh grade. It meant she already knew the answer. It meant she was just waiting for Layla to say it out loud.
"How long have you been stealing his clothes?" Mama asked.
"I'm not stealing—"
"You've got his sweater. You had his hoodie last week—the one with the zipper that's missing a pull. I saw it in the laundry."
Layla's throat tightened.
"Does he know?" Mama asked.
"He—"
"Because some men don't like it. They get territorial about their things." Mama tilted her head. "But Tarek doesn't seem like that type. He seems like the type who'd buy you one in every color if you asked."
Layla pressed her hands flat on the table. The wood was warm under her palms, worn smooth by years of elbows and plates and spilled tea. When she was small, she'd sat under this table while Mama cooked, pretending it was a cave. Now she couldn't fit under it. Now she couldn't fit anywhere without being seen.
"He gave it to me," she said.
"When?"
"In Aleppo."
Mama's eyebrows rose. Not surprise. Recognition. "The first night?"
Layla didn't answer. The silence was its own confession.
Mama leaned back in her chair. Her face was doing something complicated—the corners of her mouth twitching, her eyes bright and unreadable. She looked, Layla realized with a sinking feeling, delighted.
"Poor thing," Mama said.
"Who?"
"You. Walking around here for four months in his clothes, and me thinking you'd just grown fond of gray." She shook her head slowly. "All that time, you were missing him."
Layla's eyes stung. She blinked hard, staring at the ceiling until the feeling passed.
"Amma, can we not—"
"Six-forty. The shower stopped." Mama held up a finger. "Six-forty-two. The bathroom door opened. Six-forty-three. Footsteps in the hallway."
Layla's face went hot.
"Now," Mama said, "I'm not going to ask what happened between six-forty three and the point where I heard the tub running. I'm not going to ask why the tub was running at six-forty-five in the morning. I'm not even going to ask why a man who claims he slept in the guest room came downstairs looking like he'd won the lottery."
She paused.
"Because I already know."
"Amma."
"But I will ask this." Mama folded her hands on the table. "Is he good to you?"
The question landed like a stone in still water. Layla felt the ripples move through her—the surprise, the shame, the sudden terrifying tenderness of being asked something real.
"He is," she said.
"Look at me when you say it."
She did. Mama's eyes were brown and warm, lined with faint crow's feet, and they held Layla steady in a way no one else could. Not Baba, who loved her too easily. Not Tarek, who loved her too fiercely. Mama loved her the way a surgeon loves a patient—precisely, carefully, with full knowledge of the damage.
"He's good to me," Layla said.
"Does he listen?"
"Mostly."
"Does he apologize when he's wrong?"
"Eventually."
"Does he make you laugh?"
Layla thought about the shower door. The terrible singing. The way he'd imitated her mother's accent until she'd thrown a pillow at his head.
"Yes," she said. And then, quieter: "He makes me laugh."
Mama nodded. She picked up her tea, took a sip, made a face when she discovered it had gone cold. She set it down again and pushed it aside.
"Does he know about the test?"
Layla's stomach dropped.
"What test?"
Mama looked at her.
"Amma—"
"Cvs. The pharmacy bag in your bottom drawer. The one you shoved under your sweaters so fast you left the corner sticking out."
Layla closed her eyes.
"I wasn't snooping," Mama said. "I was putting away laundry. There's a difference."
"You went through my drawer."
"I found a pregnancy test in my eighteen-year-old daughter's bedroom. What was I supposed to do? Pretend I didn't see it?"
"Maybe." Layla's voice cracked. "Maybe that would have been—"
"Kind? Easier?" Mama's tone sharpened. "Would it have been kinder to let you keep lying awake every night, counting symptoms, wondering if the nausea was real or stress? Would it have been kinder to watch you pick at your food and blame it on the weather, when I've had four children and I know exactly what that look means?"
Layla's jaw tightened.
"I'm not a child."
"No. You're a married woman carrying my grandchild." Mama softened. " Which is exactly why I'm not going to let you do this alone."
The words hit like a fist to the chest.
Layla hadn't realized she'd been waiting to hear them—not until they were spoken. She'd been carrying the fear so long it had become a second skeleton, holding her up and weighing her down at the same time. And now Mama was looking at her like she already knew the shape of it, like she'd been waiting with a hand extended the whole time.
"I took one," Layla whispered.
Mama froze.
"When?"
"Three weeks ago. The one in December. The one after the fight."
"Tarek doesn't know."
Layla shook her head.
"He thinks—"
"He thinks it might be negative. He doesn't know I already checked." She swallowed. "It's positive, Amma. Three tests. All the same."
The kitchen went very quiet.
Mama stood up. She walked around the table, slow and deliberate, and stopped beside Layla's chair. Then she knelt—actually knelt, her bad knee popping—and took both of Layla's hands in hers.
"Habibti," she said.
And Layla broke.
She didn't sob. She'd done enough of that. It came out of her in a shaking breath, in the way her shoulders slumped forward, in the way she let her forehead drop onto her mother's shoulder. The tears were hot and silent, leaking through the wool of Mama's sweater, and Mama just held her, one hand cradling the back of her head, the other rubbing slow circles between her shoulder blades.
"I'm sorry," Layla managed.
"For what?"
"For lying. For hiding it. For—"
"Stop." Mama's voice was firm. "You were scared. That's not a sin."
"I should have told him."
"You will."
"When?"
"When you're ready." Mama pulled back. Her eyes were wet too, though she'd never admit it. "Not before."
Layla wiped her face with the sleeve of Tarek's sweater. The wool smelled like him—like cedar and soap and something darker underneath. It made her chest ache.
"He's going to be happy," Mama said.
"I know."
"You know, but you don't believe it."
"That's not—"
"Layla." Mama touched her cheek. "He came back. He stayed the night. He ate my food and laughed at your father's jokes and looked at you like you hung the moon. That man is not going anywhere."
"He has a job in Arizona."
"He has a wife in Wisconsin."
"Those things don't—"
"Those things don't what? Solve every problem?" Mama smiled. "No. They don't. But they don't make the problems unsolvable either."
Layla looked down at their joined hands—her brown skin, Mama's lighter, the veins standing out on the back of Mama's knuckles. She remembered being small enough to fit in Mama's lap. She remembered thinking her mother was the strongest person alive.
She still did.
"There's another test," Layla said.
Mama blinked. "What?"
"In my drawer. The one I threw away—I mean, I didn't throw it away. I bought another one. Before Tarek came. I couldn't bring myself to—" She stopped. "It's still there. Unopened."
Mama stood up. Her knees cracked, and she winced, but she didn't say anything about it. She just held out her hand.
"Come on," she said.
"Where?"
"To take it."
Layla's heart lurched. "Now?"
"Why not now?"
"Because—because I already know. I've known for three weeks. What difference does one more test make?"
"You're asking me that?"
Layla opened her mouth. Closed it.
Mama waited.
"The difference is that Tarek will see it," Layla whispered. "If I take it now, if I leave it on the counter, he'll—"
"He'll know."
"He'll see it and he'll know I lied."
"No." Mama shook her head. "He'll see it and he'll know you were afraid. There's a difference."
"But—"
"And then he'll do whatever he does. Cry, maybe. Call his mother. Text Sami. Whatever men do when they're happy." Mama's hand stayed out, steady and open. "But whatever it is, you won't have to carry it alone."
Layla stared at her mother's palm.
The kitchen was quiet except for the hum of the refrigerator and the faint drip of melting snow from the roof. Outside, the sky was flat and white, the kind of gray that promised more snow by afternoon. She could hear the baby in her ears—did she sound like Tarek? Would she have his laugh? Would she look at Layla the way Tarek looked at her now?
Layla reached out.
She took her mother's hand.
Mama pulled her to her feet, and they walked through the living room, past the couch where Layla's father had dozed for twenty years, past the shelf of framed photos—weddings, graduations, Layla in pigtails on her first day of kindergarten. Up the stairs, one creaking step at a time.
At the top of the landing, Mama stopped.
"I'll wait here," she said.
Layla's hand tightened on hers.
"You don't have to do it alone," Mama said. "But you should do it in your room. That's where you'll raise her. That's where she'll sleep. That's where—"
"Amma."
Mama stopped.
"You're babbling."
"I know." She laughed—a short, wet sound. "I'm nervous. Is that allowed?"
Layla looked at her. This woman who'd carried her, fed her, taught her to pray. This woman who'd known about the test before Layla had even admitted it to herself. This woman who was standing in the hallway with her fingers laced through Layla's like they had all the time in the world.
"I love you," Layla said.
Mama's face crumpled.
She pulled Layla into a hug—fierce, tight, the way she used to when Layla was small and scared of the dark. Layla buried her face in her mother's neck and breathed in the smell of cumin and clean cotton and home.
"I love you too," Mama whispered. "Now go pee on the stick."
Layla laughed.
It came out broken and wet and half-sobbing, but it was a laugh. A real one. The kind that hurt in a good way.
She pulled back. Wiped her face on Tarek's sleeve again. Turned toward her bedroom door.
"Layla."
She looked back.
Mama was smiling. Her eyes were still wet, but her mouth was steady.
"Whichever way it turns," she said, "you call me."
Layla nodded.
She closed the door.
The test was where she'd left it—tucked between a folded sweater and the back of the drawer, still in its plastic wrapper. She pulled it out and held it in both hands, the weight of it so slight it was almost laughable. A tiny thing. A stick. A chemical reaction.
Her hands didn't shake when she opened it.
Her hands didn't shake when she sat on the edge of her bed and peeled the foil wrapper back.
Her hands only started to shake when she looked at the digital display and saw the word forming—small and pink and undeniable.
She didn't scream. She didn't cry. She just sat there, holding the test, the sweater pooling around her thighs, and she listened to the sound of her own heartbeat. Steady. Strong. The baby's heartbeat underneath it, a second rhythm she was just learning to hear.
She opened the door.
Mama was still there. Still waiting. Still holding her hand out like she'd known—like she'd always known—exactly how this was going to end.
And Layla took it.
"Positive?" Mama asked.
Layla nodded.
Mama didn't cheer. She didn't pull Layla into another hug. She just squeezed her hand once, hard, and then reached up to smooth Layla's hair back from her face.
"One more test," she said.
Layla frowned.
"To show Tarek. You'll do it together. When he wakes up."
"He's awake."
Mama glanced toward the guest room. The door was still closed.
"He's pretending," she said. "Men do that. They think a closed door means privacy. It means they're listening."
Layla looked at the door. Then at the test in her hand. Then at her mother.
"Amma," she said.
"Yes?"
"How do you always know?"
Mama smiled. The kind of smile that held twenty years of sleepless nights and scraped knees and math homework and boys who called too late and the kind of secrets that only mothers and daughters share.
"Allah gave me eyes," she said. "And Allah gave me you."
She kissed Layla's forehead.
Then she turned.
"Make him breakfast," she said over her shoulder. "The man deserves to hear it over eggs."
She disappeared down the stairs.
Layla stood alone in the hallway, the test in her hand, Tarek's sweater heavy on her shoulders. Somewhere downstairs, the kettle started to whistle. Somewhere above her, the roof creaked under the weight of new snow.
She knocked on the guest room door.
It opened immediately.
Tarek stood there—rumpled, hopeful, his hair flat on one side. He looked at her face. Then at the test. Then back at her.
"Well?" he said.
She held it out.
He read it. Read it again. Then he looked up, and his eyes were so dark and so full that she felt like she was falling into them.
"Layla," he said.
"I know."
"You're—"
"I know."
He grabbed her. Lifted her off her feet. She didn't care that Mama could probably hear. She didn't care that Baba would be home in an hour with a million questions. She just held on—arms around his neck, face in his hair—while he spun her around the room like she weighed nothing at all.
"I love you," he said into her neck.
"I know," she whispered.
"Say it back."
She pulled back just enough to look at him. His eyes were wet. His mouth was trembling. He looked terrified and joyful and absolutely wrecked.
"I love you too," she said.
He kissed her.
Behind them, downstairs, Mama's kettle started to scream.
The kettle's shriek cut through the room like a warning bell.
Tarek pulled back first. His hands stayed on her hips, fingers pressing into the wool of his own sweater, and he looked at her like he was trying to memorize the exact shape of her face in this moment. Layla's lips were still buzzing. Her heart was doing something arrhythmic in her chest.
"We should go down," she said.
"Your mother knows."
"She knows everything."
"Then why is she screaming?"
Layla laughed—a short, surprised sound. "That's not her. That's the kettle."
"Right." He didn't move. "The kettle."
"Tarek."
"Layla."
She pushed at his chest. He let her go, but his hand caught hers as she turned toward the door, and she didn't pull away. They walked down the stairs together, fingers laced, the test still clutched in Layla's free hand. The steps creaked under their weight. The house smelled like burnt toast.
Mama was at the stove.
She'd taken the kettle off the burner and was holding it in one hand, pouring water into a French press with the other. She didn't turn around when they entered. She just reached for a mug—Layla's favorite, the one with the chip on the rim—and set it on the counter.
"Positive?" she asked.
Layla held up the test.
Mama glanced at it. Nodded once. Then she picked up the French press and started to plunge it, slow and steady, like this was any other morning.
"Sit," she said. "Both of you."
They sat.
Tarek pulled out Layla's chair before taking his own. His hand found her knee under the table again, and she let it stay there. The warmth of his palm bled through her leggings.
Mama set two mugs in front of them. Then she sat down across from them, folded her arms on the table, and looked at Tarek with the kind of expression that made grown men confess to crimes they hadn't committed.
"You knew?" she asked.
Tarek's jaw tightened. "I suspected."
"Suspected."
"She was sick in December. The nausea. The way she couldn't stay awake past eight. I thought maybe—" He stopped. "But she didn't say anything. And I didn't want to push."
Mama's eyes moved to Layla.
Layla stared into her coffee.
"Three weeks," Mama said. "Three weeks you've known, and you didn't tell him."
"I was scared."
"Of what?"
Layla looked up. The fluorescent light was flickering again—on, off, on—and it made Mama's face look like it was moving in stop-motion. "Of everything."
Mama held her gaze for a long moment. Then she picked up her own mug and took a sip.
"Okay," she said.
Layla blinked. "Okay?"
"Okay. You were scared. You're eighteen. You've been married four months and lived with your husband for three of them. You're carrying his child in a country he doesn't live in, in a house that isn't yours, and you spent the last month convinced he'd leave you." Mama set the mug down. "I'd be scared too."
Tarek's hand tightened on Layla's knee.
"I'm not leaving," he said.
Mama looked at him. "I know."
"You do?"
"I watched you carry her to bed last night." Mama's mouth twitched. "I also watched you try to be quiet in the bathroom. You were not quiet."
Layla choked on her coffee.
Tarek's ears went red.
"The tub," Mama continued, "is older than you are. It has been in this house since my mother's mother lived here. It has never, in forty years, made the sounds it made last night."
"Amma—"
"I'm not complaining." Mama held up a hand. "I'm observing. There's a difference."
Layla put her face in her hands.
"Also," Mama said, "I'm impressed."
Layla looked up. "What?"
"Your belly." Mama gestured with her chin. "You're four months. You're showing. I've had four children. I know exactly how much room a woman has in her for a man when she's four months along." She tilted her head. "I'm impressed you managed."
"Amma!"
"What? I'm your mother. I'm allowed to be impressed."
Tarek was studying the ceiling like it held the secrets to the universe. His hand had gone very still on Layla's knee.
"We used—" Layla started.
"I don't want to know what you used," Mama said. "I want to know if you're happy."
The question landed heavy.
Layla looked at Tarek. He looked back. His face was open in a way she hadn't seen since Aleppo—not guarded, not careful. Just him.
"I'm happy," she said.
Mama nodded. She stood up, walked to the counter, and picked up a brown paper bag Layla hadn't noticed before. She set it on the table between them.
"What's this?" Layla asked.
"Prenatal vitamins. I picked them up last week." Mama sat back down. "You're going to need them. Also, there's a list in there. Doctors in the area who take your insurance. I called around."
"You called around?"
"I'm your mother. It's what I do."
Layla pulled the bag toward her. Inside were three bottles of vitamins, a folded piece of paper covered in Mama's tiny, precise handwriting, and a small box of saltine crackers.
"For the nausea," Mama said. "Eat them before you get out of bed."
Layla's eyes burned.
"Thank you," she whispered.
Mama waved a hand. "Don't thank me. Thank Allah. He's the one who gave you a mother who notices things."
Tarek cleared his throat.
"I need to call Sami," he said.
Mama raised an eyebrow. "The brother?"
"He's not my brother."
"You've known him since you were four. He's your brother."
Tarek's mouth curved. "He's going to be an uncle now. Twice over."
"You should call him after breakfast."
"I should call him now."
Mama considered this. Then she nodded. "Use the back porch. The reception's better there."
Tarek stood. He squeezed Layla's knee once before letting go, and she watched him walk out through the mudroom, grabbing his jacket off the hook. The screen door banged behind him. Through the window, she could see him pacing the porch, phone pressed to his ear.
Mama turned to Layla.
"Now," she said. "Tell me the truth."
"About what?"
"About the test in December." Mama leaned forward. "You said it was the one after the fight. What fight?"
Layla's stomach dropped.
"It was nothing."
"Layla."
"It was—" She stopped. Took a breath. "It was before I knew. Before any of it. He called me at two in the morning his time. He'd been drinking. Not a lot, just—enough. And he said something."
"What did he say?"
"That he didn't know if he could do this. The long distance. The waiting." Layla stared at her coffee. "That he missed me so much it felt like dying. And I hung up. I didn't know what to say."
Mama was quiet for a moment.
"Then what?"
"Then the next morning he called back. Apologized. Said he didn't mean it. Said he was just tired and drunk and scared." Layla traced the rim of her mug. "But I couldn't stop thinking about it. And I started feeling sick. And I thought—"
"You thought he'd leave."
"I thought I'd be alone."
Mama reached across the table. She put her hand over Layla's, firm and warm.
"You're not alone," she said. "You have me. You have your father. You have two brothers and a sister who will spoil this baby rotten. And you have a husband who flew across the country to apologize for something he said while drunk."
"He didn't fly across the country for that."
"Then why did he come?"
Layla looked at the porch. Tarek was still out there, his back to the window, one hand shoved in his pocket. His shoulders were tense. His breath fogged in the cold.
"Because I called him," she said. "Last week. I told him I needed him, and I didn't know why, and I was scared, and I couldn't stop crying."
Mama smiled. "That's why."
"That's why what?"
"That's why he came. Not because you asked. Because you needed him to." She squeezed Layla's hand. "A man who shows up when you can't explain what's wrong is a man worth keeping."
The screen door banged again.
Tarek came back in, cheeks flushed from the cold, phone in one hand and a grin on his face that made him look ten years younger.
"Sami's an idiot," he said.
"What did he say?" Layla asked.
"He screamed. Actually screamed. I had to hold the phone away from my ear." Tarek sat back down, pulling his chair close to Layla's. "Then he said he's coming to visit. Next month. He wants to be here when the baby's born."
"Next month is February."
"I know."
"The baby's due in August."
"I know." Tarek's grin widened. "He said he's not missing this. Any of it. He's going to fly out for a week, help me find a job, and then come back in the summer."
Mama stood up. She took the French press to the sink and started rinsing it out, her back to them.
"He's not going to find work in February," she said. "Nobody hires in February. The ground's frozen. Construction's dead until March."
"I know," Tarek said. "But I'll take anything. Grocery store. Warehouse. Pizza delivery. I don't care."
"You'll take something that pays enough to feed a wife and a child."
"I'll take two somethings if I have to."
Mama turned around. Her face was unreadable.
"Then you'll stay here," she said. "Until you've got first and last month's rent saved. Then you'll find an apartment. Something close. Something with heat."
Tarek looked at Layla.
Layla looked at Tarek.
"Amma," she said, "we can't—"
"You can and you will." Mama dried her hands on a towel. "You think I'm going to let my daughter and my grandchild live in a studio apartment in Tucson while her husband works twelve-hour days? You think I'm going to let her do this alone?"
Layla's throat closed.
"Baba won't—"
"Your father will do whatever I tell him to do."
"That's not true."
Mama smiled. "It's true enough."
The back door opened. Baba came in, stomping snow off his boots, a paper bag of groceries under one arm. He looked at Mama. Then at Layla. Then at Tarek.
"What'd I miss?" he asked.
Mama walked over to him. She took the bag, set it on the counter, and said something in Arabic too quiet for Layla to hear. Baba's face went through several expressions—surprise, confusion, then something softer.
He looked at Layla.
"Well?" he said.
She held up the test.
He set the bag down. Walked over to her. Pulled her up out of her chair and into a hug so tight she couldn't breathe.
"Alhamdulillah," he said into her hair. "Alhamdulillah."
When he let her go, his eyes were wet.
"You're going to have a baby," he said.
"I know, Baba."
"You're going to have a baby."
"I know."
He turned to Tarek. For a moment, Layla's heart stopped—Baba's face was hard, unreadable. Then he held out his hand.
"Congratulations," he said.
Tarek shook it.
Baba pulled him into a hug too. Short, firm, the way men did in Syria. When they separated, Baba clapped him on the shoulder.
"You're staying," he said.
"I'm staying."
"Good." Baba nodded. "The spare room's yours. We'll clean out the storage closet for the baby. I've been meaning to do it for years anyway."
Layla looked at her mother.
Mama was smiling. Not the small, private smile from earlier. A real one. The kind that reached her eyes and made her look twenty years younger.
Layla sat back down. Tarek sat beside her. Baba poured himself a cup of coffee and joined them at the table, and for a while, no one said anything at all. They just sat there—the four of them—in the warm kitchen, with the flickering light and the burnt toast smell and the snow falling soft and steady outside the window.
Then Mama said, "So. Names."
Layla laughed. "Amma, it's four months."
"I know. That's why we need to start now." Mama pulled a pen from somewhere and started writing on the back of a receipt. "I'm thinking something traditional. Something that works in both languages."
"Not Sami," Tarek said.
"Obviously not Sami."
"Why not?"
"Because he'll think it's named after him and become insufferable."
Layla laughed again—louder this time, from her chest. Tarek looked at her, and his face did something complicated. Something that looked like wonder.
"What?" she asked.
"Nothing." He shook his head. "You're just—"
"Just what?"
He didn't answer. He just leaned over and pressed a kiss to her temple, right there in front of her parents, and Baba made a noise of protest and Mama swatted his arm and told him to be quiet, that young love was a gift from Allah.
Later—after breakfast, after Baba went back out to fix the truck, after Mama went upstairs to start cleaning the storage closet—Layla and Tarek found themselves alone in the living room.
The fire was burning low. Outside, the snow had thickened, big wet flakes that stuck to the window and blurred the world into white. Tarek was sitting on the couch, and Layla was curled against him, her head on his chest, his arm around her shoulders.
"Cold?" he asked.
"No."
"Tired?"
"Always."
"Then sleep."
"I don't want to sleep." She tilted her head up. "I want to stay here. With you."
He looked down at her. His eyes were soft in the firelight. His fingers traced slow circles on her shoulder.
"We have time," he said. "Now. We have actual time."
"I know."
"I'm not going anywhere."
"I know."
"I'm going to find a job. A real one. And we're going to get an apartment. Something with a window that faces east. For the morning light."
Layla smiled. "Since when do you care about morning light?"
"Since I started waking up next to you."
She kissed him.
It started soft—just a brush of lips, a question. He answered by pulling her closer, one hand sliding up into her hair, the other catching her hip and tugging her onto his lap. She straddled him without thinking, knees on either side of his thighs, and his hands found her waist under the sweater.
"Your parents," he murmured against her mouth.
"Upstairs."
"Your father—"
"Getting firewood."
"My point—"
She kissed him again, harder, and he stopped talking.
Her hips rolled against his, slow and deliberate, and she felt him swell beneath her—the same thickness she'd felt last night, the same heat. His hands slid down to her ass and squeezed, and she gasped into his mouth.
"Quiet," he said.
"I know."
"Your mother hears everything."
"I know."
She reached between them. Found the drawstring of his sweats. Tugged it loose.
"Layla—"
"Shut up."
He shut up.
She pulled him out—thick and already hard, the head slick at the tip. She wrapped her fingers around him and stroked once, twice, watching his jaw tighten, watching his eyes flutter closed.
"Fuck," he breathed.
She lifted up on her knees. Pushed her leggings down just enough. Then she sank down on him, slow, taking him inch by inch, and they both groaned at the same time.
"Christ," he said.
"I know."
"You're so—"
"I know."
She started to move.
Slow at first. Careful. The couch creaked under them—old springs, worn frame—and she had to bite her lip to keep from making noise. His hands found her hips and guided her, up and down, up and down, and the friction was perfect, devastating, everything.
"I missed this," she whispered.
"Me too."
"I missed you."
"I know." He kissed her throat. "I know."
She rode him faster. The fire crackled. The snow fell. Somewhere upstairs, a door opened and closed, and they both froze—but then it was quiet again, and Layla laughed, breathless, and Tarek laughed too, and he pulled her down onto his chest and fucked up into her from below.
She came first.
It hit her like a wave—sudden and deep and full, her cunt clenching around him, her mouth open in a silent cry. He followed a moment later, burying his face in her neck, spilling inside her with a groan that vibrated through her whole body.
They stayed like that. Wrapped together. Sweaty and shaking and absolutely silent.
Then, from upstairs, Mama's voice: "You have twenty minutes before your father gets back."
Layla froze.
Tarek laughed—helpless, loud, burying his face in her hair.
"I told you," he said.
"I know."
"She hears everything."
"I know."
Layla climbed off him. Pulled up her leggings. Straightened his sweater. She looked at him—flushed and rumpled and grinning like an idiot—and she felt something settle in her chest. Something she hadn't felt in months.
Safe.
She held out her hand.
"Come on," she said. "Let's go help my mother."
He took it.