AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Ah, I see,” Sarfaraz muses. “I have a small area for my garden, so there’s not a lot of space.” He draws a long square on the ground with his pointer finger to indicate to Kenan how big it is.
“You need more room than that.” Kenan gestures to the small space between two of the crops. “Otherwise, they won’t grow as well, and you’ll miss out on better quality.”
“That’s very helpful—thank you,” Sarfaraz says.
“Thank you for listening to my advice.” Kenan slaps Sarfaraz on the arm and grins at me. “That’s a good young man you’ve got.”
“So I’ve been told,” I say with a smirk, stopping in front of them. I dip my chin at Sarfaraz. “Can I talk to you for a second?”
Kenan looks between us, then says, “I think we’re okay to stop for the day. I’ll go on ahead.”
I wait until Kenan is a good few paces away before speaking to Sarfaraz. “I didn’t know you liked all this stuff,” I say in English, my eyes sweeping across the fields.
“Oh, yeah,” he says, a proud smirk on his face as he peels his worker gloves off. “My step-grandmother loved gardening, and she had the best plants on the block. My brother and I used to love helping her with it in the summer.” He keeps his attention fixed on the gloves for a moment. “My ex-wife didn’t like how much time I used to spend out in the garden. She didn’t think it was a worthy endeavor for me to spend my free time on, especially because I had so little of it in the first place.”
“That’s stupid,” I say, the words slipping out before I can register how inappropriate they are. But at Sarfaraz’s chuckle, I relax. “I think it’s very sweet. I can just imagine you in the whole farmer’s getup.” I gesture to his chest. “The plaid shirt, the overalls, the straw hat.”
Sarfaraz laughs, and I feel that same thrill in my stomach as when I heard him laugh for the first time on the train in Switzerland. “What, would you be bringing me fresh lemonade every hour?”
I cross my arms over my chest. “Who says I’d be doing that for you?”
“You’re my wife, remember?” he teases. “You can help out on the farm by bringing me lemonade.”
“You can take that attitude and go right back to the fifties with it.”
“I’m only teasing,” Sarfaraz says. “I’d want you in the fields with me—gathering eggs, taking care of the cows, mucking out the stables.”
I pause. “On second thought, I’d rather make lemonade.”
He grins. “That’s what I thought.”
He has such a sweet smile; he doesn’t do it often, but whenever he does, it takes up his whole face. His eyes brighten, like a flash of light in a dark tunnel. His lips look impossibly soft, curled up at the corners like that. I wonder if they feel as soft as they look.
“So, what did you need to talk to me about?” Sarfaraz asks, his voice interrupting my thoughts.
I blush, then explain the situation Salama’s put us in.
“Okay, I can see how that’s bad,” he allows. “But we can go along with it.”
I splutter a laugh. “That’s the last reaction I expected from you. I thought you’d be against it.”
“Look, we can’t protest too much,” Sarfaraz points out. He starts walking, and I stumble after him in the direction of Salama’s house. “If we do, they’ll figure out something’s up. They’re kind people; I would hate for them to find out we’ve lied to them.” He looks over to me. “Plus, would you leave a couple of strangers alone in your house while you weren’t there?”
From that perspective, I can see how suspicious it looks. As kind as they’ve been, and as nice as Sarfaraz and I are, they still don’t know anything about us, and it’d be better to be safe than sorry. “That’s true,” I grumble. “They’re helping us out of the goodness of their hearts, and they want to include us in their family celebration. It probably wouldn’t feel nice for them if they found out the strangers they took in were bad people.”
“Hey, we’re not that bad,” Sarfaraz protests. “All we did was lie. At least we didn’t try to rob them.”
A laugh bursts from my chest. “That’s true.”
“So, we’re settled, then?” Sarfaraz stops at the front door. “We...go with it?”
“I mean, we don’t have any other options. We’ll try to stick to the sidelines as much as we can. Besides, we won’t be the focus of the event. Everyone will be looking at the actual bride and groom.”
“Good.” Sarfaraz grabs the doorknob and pushes the door open. “We’re only here for a couple of days. How bad could it be?”
21
Maya’s Law #21:
