Mission Love

Twenty- one

Recap: Ryan bought me a dress!

"He's not showing off, Piku. It was just a formality." Mom's voice blared through the speaker of my phone, buried somewhere under a freshly laundered pile of clothes. I had tossed it there carelessly, and now it's lost.

The second I got home-after Ryan insisted on dropping me off-I had thrown myself into cleaning. Scrubbing the counters, rearranging my shelf of mismatched mugs, and tackling my ever-growing laundry mountain.

Cooking made its way in between, a batch of overly seasoned paneer curry currently cooling on the stove. Now, with the laundry nearly done, I had plans to collapse into bed..

Except, of course, I couldn't fully relax knowing that Dina might've been in a grave situation.

She wasn't answering my calls, which was driving me insane. I'm worried that she'll stock up her apartment with her stress-baking mode again.
It's her therapy-whether she's upset, overjoyed, or in existential crisis mode. She bakes, and she bakes some good stuff. Really good!

"And besides, isn't it a good thing?" Mom's voice broke through my thoughts.

"I know! But isn't a month too long?" I groaned, yanking at a stray sock that had somehow cemented itself into my comforter.
I tossed it into my sock-bag-a genius invention born out of losing too many perfectly good socks to the mysterious void.

Adulting is all about life hacks like this.
Better late than never.

"Piku, weddings are a once-in-a-lifetime event," she started again, but I wasn't about to get sucked into her monologue.

"Can I just talk to Dad, please?" I pleaded. There was instant shuffling, muffled footsteps, and the distant murmur of a news channel in the background.

"Aisha wants to talk to you!" Mom's voice rang out, followed by what I imagined was her shoving the phone into Dad's hands.

"Aisha?"

"Hi, Dad! How are you?" I asked, trying to sound chipper while simultaneously folding my shirts.

"I'm fine. What's up?" His voice had that casual-but-also-suspicious tone, like he knew I was about to pull something.

"So... I was hoping to, uh, negotiate about Ryan staying at our house. For the wedding."

"Why?" he asked, and just like that, his businessman voice was on.

"To get a better deal, obviously," I said, huffing as I tried to flatten a particularly stubborn crease on one of my shirts. "I mean, come on. One month, Dad? It's a wedding, not a semester abroad."

"Aishu, you answered your own question. It's a wedding." He stretched out the last word, chuckling like he'd made the world's funniest joke.

"Yeah, well, it's not my wedding."

"But it's your cousin's. And aren't you happy that I'm accepting him?"

I paused mid-fold, biting my lip. Happy? Sure.
Overjoyed? Not exactly.
On cloud nine? Definitely not.

"Yeah, yeah," I muttered, rolling my eyes.
"I'm thrilled."

"Good."

"Okay, here's the thing." I straightened, setting the shirts aside and rolling up my metaphorical negotiation sleeves. "How about this: Ryan stays for one week, max."

"Three weeks," he countered instantly.

"Five days," I shot back, grabbing a handful of socks for dramatic emphasis. "And he tags along with me everywhere, no exceptions."