A drink. Her shoulders slumped. “I, um … ”

Marley put her hand on Reena’s forearm. “Come. Talk to us.”

Reena was pretty sure her parents wouldn’t want her to mention the business problems outside the immediate family, but she wasn’t much in the mood to do what her parents wanted. “Sure. I’d love some of that oolong tea, if you still have it.” She followed them upstairs.

The moment she was in her cousin’s apartment she fell onto Marley’s sofa. “Want to hear some dirt about my former Tanzanian/English boyfriend?”

Marley’s eyes widened. “Holy shit, former? It’s over already? You guys seemed so great together.”

“Yeah, well, apparently appearances can be deceiving.”

They took their tea out to the back deck, where Reena told them most of the story, skirting over the part where Dad lost money to the phony architect and the part where Mum spent her free time in a poker club. Best not to broadcast all their messy secrets to her mother’s brother’s daughter.

“Holy crap,” Shayne said. “He was engaged to Jasmine Shah? I followed her Instagram. He’s the mystery fiancé she was always talking about?”

Reena nodded. “He says they actually split a while ago.”

“And you don’t believe him?” Shayne asked.

She shrugged.

“He was really into you, though,” Marley said. “You have to believe that.”

“I believe he was very good at faking it. A little too good.” Reena paused, looking at the setting sun bathing the asphalt lot in an orange glow. “You think I should believe that he’s not with her anymore?”

“Why automatically believe the Shahs?” Marley said. “You don’t even know them, and hasn’t your father always hated them?”

Reena shrugged again.

“I dunno,” Shayne said. “I’d be more likely to believe our friend than that influencer who claims her hair is real. I could see her weave in one of her pictures, for god’s sake. And her hazel eyes? Contacts.”

“Shayne, don’t be catty. Nadim has nothing to gain by lying now. You should talk to him,” Marley said.

“I just did talk to him.”

“You yelled at him. Talk, Reena,” Marley said. “There’s more to this, I can feel it.”

“You sound like Saira.”

Marley chuckled. “Your sister—she’s changed a lot, right? I shop at her store, and she somehow manages to say the wisest things while still being eighty percent inappropriate.”

“I know. She’s Bizarro Saira, now.”

“I adore your sister,” Shayne said. “She’s so delightfully extra.”

Reena smirked.

Marley sipped her wine, perfect eyebrows furrowed in thought. “I think you should trust him. You know your parents and his are a little manipulative. The Shahs might be, too. I have no reason to believe that the guy who’s become our friend in the last month would lie to us. Do you think maybe you’re looking for flaws that aren’t there?”

That was ridiculous. Absurd. But … Reena bit her lip. “Last week someone said to me, ‘You ever get scared when something fits a little too perfectly? You think it’s not possible so you look for problems that aren’t there?’ ”