"So, when did you start smoking?"

Saudah had just switched off the tv when Riyaadh picked up his box of smokes. It had become something of a habit of theirs. She would make him watch a movie with her every night before they took their tea (and cigarettes) onto the balcony. He didn't mind it though. She had pretty good taste when it came to movies and she wasn't as obnoxious as his siblings when it came to his choices. She was open to his weird fascination with B-grade thrillers and shitty plots. She had giggled at his picks at first but would soon get so riled up with figuring out who the killers were that she would take to screaming at the screen every time they popped up.

"I don't know. I think in my first year of varsity." Riyaadh had been smoking for so long, he could no longer pinpoint the exact day it started.

She looked at him oddly. "I didn't realise you had to go to varsity to become a paramedic."

"I wasn't always supposed to become one." He stood up and stretched the kinks out of his neck before he helped her up off the couch. "I was studying actuarial science at first."

Saudah's hands fell to her side. "You're secretly a genius." She rubbed the side of her head, fluffing up her hair.

Riyaadh chuckled at her ruffled look. "Don't look too shocked there. I flunked out in my second year. It's actually where I met-" he stopped talking and turned away towards the balcony.

"Where you met..." Saudah took hold of his arm, and turned him around to face her. "You can say it. It's okay."

He shook himself out of her hold and took a step back. His knuckles were white as he brought his cigarette up to his lips, almost crushing the stick in his hand. "I was supposed to work for the business." Smoke escaped through the corner of his lips as he breathed out.

"Oh."

"Uhm hmm." He took her hand and led her outside where he took a seat and rested his feet against the railing. "But I guess it's better this way."

"How so?"

He didn't miss the way she had retracted into herself as he switched subjects.

"Fayaaz is better suited to the company than I am. He knows how to deal with Ilhaam better than I can."

She didn't reply. She just looked up at him as he took puff after puff before she shook her head and turned away.

"The cousin with all the kids?"

He was surprised at her question. He was surprised to hear her talking at all.

"Yup, same one."

She stretched her legs out, shuffling to the edge of the seat so she could rest her feet beside his. Something about her shorter legs amused him as she tried to get comfortable.

"So, explain this company to me," she requested, "Actually explain your whole family. Your family is far too huge for me to remember."

"My mum's side isn't that big. It's just her and her sister." Riyaadh looked down as Tommo inched his way towards them. He had gotten fatter since his first day and it was a bit difficult picking him up with one hand. "I think you met her at the wedding. She was the one with the sling."

Saudah scratched the cat beneath his chin as he settled into Riyaadh's stomach, content with his position. "Ya. She was nice."

"She's cool. She only has three daughters. And then my dad's family is..."

"Basically a function on its own?" Saudah finished for him.

He grinned at her explanation. "Something like that." He stubbed out his cigarette and flicked the stump into the bowl on the wall. "My dad has six brothers and two sisters and they're all in the business."

"What is the business exactly? I always hear about it when we go for supper but what is it?"

He shifted just a bit to accommodate Tommo as he stretched out along Riyaadh's legs. "Mostly logistics. Importing and exporting and trucking and stuff. There's different branches. Three of my dad's brothers live in Durban so they can deal with the shipping part of it and my dad and them deal with the inland transporting."

"Oh..." She chewed her lip. "So who's who in there?"

"So after my dad is my uncle Abdullah. And his kids are Bilaal, Uthmaan and Raeesa."

"The big guy?"

Riyaadh laughed out loud at that one. "Yup, the really big guy. They're in Durban though. Then is Uncle Joe and his kids are Mohammad O and Usama. Then is Uncle Nazir."

"Grumpy guy's dad?" Saudah interjected.

"Yup same one. Mikaeel. And his sister is Ilhaam- she kinda runs the business though."

"She looks like she would hey."

"Who was the lady with the cane? The pregnant one?"

"That's Mikaeel's wife. I think she's supposed to give birth sometime soon."

Saudah snuggled into his side, holding his arm in both her own. "Shame, she looked super uncomfortable. What happened to her though? With the..." she gestured to her own legs, "You know.."

"I think an auto-immune disease. It's kinda sad though. She was fine and then she just couldn't walk all of a sudden."

"Hectic..."Saudah quirked her eyebrow, "I think she's my cousin's friend?"

"Which cousin?

"Naazli. She was all surprised when she found out who your cousin was."

"Oh." He yawned as he leaned his head back. "The one with the mole?"

"Ya."

"Fayaaz thought she was hot."

Saudah burst out laughing. "Oh God, no. Don't let her husband ever find out about that!"

"Why?"

She leaned back against the chair, shuffling down once more. "Because they're disgusting. They're so into each other it's gross."

"Oh..." he wrinkled his nose, getting it entirely.

"Yup..." she shrugged. "So who's after him?"

"My uncle Ameen but he passed away about five years ago. Yaaseen and Raees' dad."

"The loud one, isn't it?" she tittered.

"Yup, there we go..." he shook his head at her reaction, but unable to sop the tilt of his lips as he looked down at her. "Who's Raees married to again? I think I met her but I can't remember."

"The one with the glasses."

"Oh okay... ya she was with us at Imtiyaaz's wedding."

"Ya. She's cool. She got roped into the company too though."

"What does she do?"

"Graphic design and anything else to do with programming."

Saudah pursed her lips. "Ya, she looks like it." she dropped her legs, curling them up beneath her instead. "So who's after that?"

"My aunty Hafsa but she and her husband passed away a heluva long time ago."

"Shame, that's sad. Did they have kids?"

"Ya, Imraan and Bilaal but they're in Bloem now. Then is my other uncles from Durban. Uncle Arshad and Uncle Anwar and then is Aunty Sharifah?"

"Super extra one?"

"Yup... wait till Eid day. She had an ice sculpture two years ago."

"An ice sculpture?" she crooked her brow at him. "Who even makes ice sculptures?"

"No clue but she found one."

"Your family is weird..."

He smiled as he wrapped his arm around her. "Want to go inside?"

"Uhm hmm." She nodded her head as she picked Tommo up off his lap. "Do you think he misses his family?"

"Nah." he wrapped his arm around her shoulder. "We're his family."

He didn't miss her gasp as he said that nor the way her arms filled with goosebumps as he touched her. She the cat down into his box, watching as he kneaded his blanket before curling up into a tight ball. "I think we make a nice family."

"I think so too."

*** 

He was already in bed, scrolling through his feed, by the time she came out of the bathroom. 'Did you know that-" he looked up and simply stared. She was wearing the tiniest pair of shorts and the thinnest, flimsiest chemisole which left absolutely nothing to the imagination.

"Did I know what?" she set her foot on the bed as she opened her tub of body butter and began to spread it languidly over her skin.

"Uhm...Did-" he cleared his throat and looked back down at the article, "Petrol is dropping by 50c next week?"

"Oh, really?" she dropped her foot and picked the other one up, before resuming her sedate pampering.

"Uhm hmm."

He swallowed, watching as her hand moved up her calves, over her knees and then up her thighs as she rubbed in her cream. He hadn't realised that her legs were covered in freckles or that she had a birth mark at the top of her inner thigh. Her hand brushed over her birth mark before going all the way back down to her toes as the last remnants were finally washed in.

"Next week Wednesday, right?"

"What's next week Wednesday?" he was riveted. It was as if she had all the time in the world to simply rub body butter into her legs...

"The petrol, Riyaadh."

"Sure."

She stood up straight and his heart began to pound faster and faster as she neared him. She leaned over him, her face right over his and her chest near brushing his own as she reached over him. "Sorry, I left my charger here this morning."

"Did you?"

She was playing so dirty and he couldn't help but fall for it.

"Uhm hmm." She rested her hand on his stomach, steadying herself as she pressed closer to him to pull the charger out from behind the mattress. "It charges better on your side."

"Really?" He wrapped his arm around her waist, steadying her as she dug her knee onto the mattress.

"Yup." Her lips were so close to his own. She had used her cherry lip-balm just before coming to bed and he could still make out its dark red tint. "Got it!" she winked down at him before she stood up straight once more. She sauntered around the bed, barely bothered by her strap that had fallen down her arm.

She got into bed, allowing the sheets to pool over her waist instead of bringing them up to cover her shoulders. "So, I'll try not to fill up too much this week then." She stretched, working out the kinks in her neck and her back before she settled down to rest her head onto her pillow.

"Why not?" her leg was rubbing against his own and all thoughts had been obliterated.

"Because of the petrol. It would just be a waste of money if the price was dropping next week anyway." She looked past him at the pedestal. "Can you pass my water bottle to me?"

"Where's it?"

"Nevermind, I'll just-" she sat up and stretched over him again, brushing against him as she reached for her water bottle on the other end of the pedestal. Her chemisole had ridden up, exposing her back to him and the tiny little henna stamp she had hidden just along her spine.

"What are you doing to me?" he breathed out as she began to move back.

She shifted just a little closer to him, pressing her hand onto the bed as she turned to face him. "And what am I doing to you?"

"I think you know what you're doing to me?" His eyes wouldn't leave her as she moved again, sitting herself over his lap.

"I'm making you as madly attracted to me as I am to you?"

His hands rested over her bare thighs, steadying her as she moved closer to him.

"Uhm hmm."

Her fingers brushed over the thin material of his t-shirt, as she rested her hands on his shoulders

"You haven't kissed me since that day, and I've been waiting for you to do it again." She brushed her lips over his own.

He pulled her closer, tightening his hold on her thighs as she moved back.

 "I know what I want," she said against his lips, "and I want you to want me too."

Her directness was the biggest turn-on.

He admired that the most in her from all her qualities but at that moment, admiration had evolved into something far more sinful than what it used to be.

Her hand moved down, brushing over his chest as she kissed him once more.

This wasn't just a peck and both of them knew it. This was a prelude to something.

 He cupped her cheek as he sucked her bottom lip into his mouth, biting gently on it. Kissing her was like fire and ice all at the same time. She was sweet and cute and passionate and sexy all at once that he didn't know what to do with it all. His hand on her thigh moved behind her, pushing her closer to him before he found his way back to the smooth, freckly, soft skin of her legs.

Her hand moved down, skimming past his ribs and down his stomach.

She was wrong if she though he didn't want her.

He ran his tongue over her palate, and swallowed her gasp as he deepened their kiss.

Her hand inched beneath his t-shirt, as she scratched her nails gently over his stomach before he pushed her back.

"I'm sorry, just-" he nudged her off him. "I can't." Riyaadh rushed into the bathroom and slammed the door before yanking his t-shirt off him. He opened the tap full blast, pushing his head beneath the gushing stream to drench himself. He turned his head, guzzling water until he felt ready to explode and only then did he turn off the tap.

He couldn't have her.

As much as he wanted to.

Farhana had made sure of it. He looked down at his navel, fingering the thumb-sized F she had carved into his skin.

How could he let Saudah see that? How could he ever let Saudah know that someone else had marked him that way?

He switched off the lights and sat himself on the counter. He didn't want to look at himself anymore. He had memorised ever scar and cut and red dot that had littered his chest and stomach... he didn't need to see it to know that it was there. He couldn't show himself to Saudah.

He couldn't deal with the shame and embarrassment of knowing he wasn't able to stand up for himself. He couldn't stop her when she took her cuticle pusher to her skin or stubbed his own cigarettes out on him. What would Saudah ever think if she had known just how much he had allowed? Or even worse- that he had allowed himself to love that woman even after she had hurt him. He had believed he deserved it.

How would Saudah be able to look at him again?

She was wrong if she thought he didn't want her. But she was right too. He wanted her but he didn't want to want her either.