The last part was to me, but she didn’t need to add it. Brother Rehan, as she called him, looked quite miserable and awkward in one of those long white dress outfits a lot of the guys wore to the masjid. I think Yulia called it a thobe.

At the sight of me, though, he beamed and waved.

“Hey! Goldilocks!”

“Goldilocks?” Sabrena asked curiously, but I was already backing up the stairs.

“I’m not hungry right now. You can go on without me.”

There was no way I needed to give them—or him—the impression that they would be seeing more of me. But after that first day, I seemed to run into Rehan, Sabrena, and Hala everywhere.

My house was still the last frontier, and that was enough to keep me from reaching for the real hard-hitters—elaborate noodle recipes borrowed from a classmate’s Chinese grandmother, or complicated French cakes with doughs that needed to be carefully whisked and blended and flavored. But the driveway was fair game.

“Let’s go shopping!”

“We’re having a party tonight. Wanna come?”

“Rehan’s taking us to the movies!”

I was embarrassed to admit that the last request was hardest of all to really say no to. Rehan was just . . . cool. He never said too much, as much as he had at the wedding. He just raised his eyebrows and smirked at me, in a way that always made me subtly reach up a hand and touch my ears to make sure they weren’t obviously red—uncovered, because in spite of Sabrena’s and Hala’s neatly done turbans or carefully pinned wraps, they never seemed to care that I didn’t follow suit.

At the latest superhero flick we snuck into, Sabrena’s and Hala’s pockets overflowing with dollar-store-variety chocolate mixes that they crumbled into our shared popcorn bucket during the previews, Rehan managed to sit next to me. I honestly didn’t realize, trying hard not to laugh too obviously at Sabrena and Hala’s jokes, until he nudged me during one of those quiet “he’s just like you” scenes action movies always try to sneak in.

“That look appetizing to you?”

I blinked, trying to focus on the screen as the protagonist waited in line at a Halal cart on some nondescript city corner. I rolled my eyes.

“No white sauce. Probably dry as heck. Pass.”

He chuckled, and the warmth of it spread over the nape of my neck as though he’d placed a hand there.

“What do you find so funny about that?” I hissed.

The next moment, the theater was alight with a fight scene, and I blinked rapidly as blue sparks flickered across the screen.

“Nothing at all,” Rehan murmured, and I managed to hear in spite of everything else going on. “I like the fact that you notice that much.”