Good For You (Al-Ameen Family #3)

Celebrating

Hey all, I'm so sorry for the late update. I lost the most important person in my life quite suddenly a few weeks back and it's been a bit rough since then. 

This chapter is really short but it's all I could do right now. Hope you all like it anyways, it's been a long time coming :) Vote, comment, share, enjoy!

Six Months Later

I enrolled in summer school to be able to make my year a bit lighter, a good idea in hindsight since I ended up working with Liam. Once the school year started, two days a week, Monday and Thursday I would go to the graduate side of campus and work with Liam and Professor Sophia.

Work was so shit, completely slow and unbearable. My love life was even more slow and unbearable.

We hadn't seen each other for six months. Our one-year anniversary was coming up but seeing each other was looking to be on the difficult side of things. Ali was in India, as decided by the parents who did not want Armaan to be alone during training season. While in India, Ali had developed clean water filtration systems for six villages, started a local cricket team for the kids, and volunteered at the local mosque with the children who were schooled there. My hero.

I went back to his house once more, for the birth of his newest nephew. Holy shit, there were a lot of boys in that family.

Inayah bhabhi and Yusuf bhai had spent much of their summer in London and so I had company around for much of the four months. But winter came again, December holidays were around the corner and tickets were too expensive for me to go to India and Ali had no time off to come here.

And that's when God showered me with rich in-laws blessings. "It's from Aisha Bhabhi and Mizan bhai," Yusuf handed me an envelope. I raised an eyebrow, turning the manila cover upside down to empty out its contents. In my hand fell a white and gold ticket.

A plane ticket. To India.

"What the..." I had to sit down. Yusuf bhai chuckled and went off to answer his ringing phone.

Inayah bhabhi sat down beside me, her hand on my knee. "It's an anniversary gift for Ali and I guess you too. The parents don't know so you two have a week to enjoy your time together before it's back to work."

"I don't know what to say," I could feel my eyes welling up. "Thank you," I wrapped my arms around her.

"You're more than welcome. We've said it before and we're saying it again, you make our brother so happy we'd do anything for you. You're leaving in two weeks, so get packing!"

And so in two weeks I was in a first class seat on Emirates to Mumbai. It was supposed to be a surprise for him but he'd found out and instead surprised me at the airport. It seems surprising him with visits was not going to happen any time soon.

The weather in India was so amazing I wanted to cry. Not to mention the joy of just being in my homeland was a joy like no other.

I pushed through the crowd as fast as I could with my suitcase cart. Ali met me halfway, grinning ear to ear despite it being 4am there.

He looked slightly different, tanner, on the rounder side, shaggier hair. But still the same goofy, carefree demeanour.

"Hi," touched my elbow, taking my cart from me, which is when I realized Armaan and some other uncle was with us.

"Hey," I dialled back the excitement, turning to say salam to the other two men.

Armaan introduced the older man to me. "This is my mom's cousin, Umar Mamu. We're staying with him and his family."