Page 23 of Written By a Woman

He stood up from resting his arms on the ledge and glanced back down at me, “Do I what?”

“Have kids?” I pressed, “Nieces? Nephews? Pets?”

Zaid huffed a laugh at that last one before leaning a hip against the front desk and pulling his phone out of his pocket to check it, “No pets, no kids. Just one nephew, and my sister is expecting another soon.”

“That’s exciting, tell her I said congrats!”

“For what?” Nikhil asked from a few feet away. His approach didn’t startle me, but it did disappoint me. I wondered if Zaid would stop talking about himself with the three of us present.

“I was telling Signe that Salma’s pregnant again,” Zaid explained to Nikhil. His eyes brightened as he clapped Zaid on the shoulder once.

“Congrats! That’s one Ansara kid down, two to go.”

I blushed, not fully understanding Nikhil’s comment, but suspecting what it meant.

To my utter amusement, Zaid blushed too. His ears turned redder than the rest of his face and neck, “Don’t remind me.”

“You’re right, your mother is probably reminding you enough.” Nikhil laughed, sliding his glance over to me and leaning in as if he were sharing a secret, “She is desperate for him to find a woman to bring home.”

I widened my eyes and grinned at Zaid, “RIP you.”

“Thanks,” Zaid sighed as if it was the worst thing in the world. I couldn’t relate. My mother didn’t give two shits if I dated or not. She was absorbed in her pottery most of the time, and just wanted me to be happy and find joy in life. Whether or not that included a partner didn’t matter either way.

I mean, I did want a partner. But I was also willing to be single forever if I didn’t find anyone that I was willing to partner up with. I wasn’t trying to settle for anything.

“Any progress in that area?” Nikhil asked, leaning a casual elbow on my desk, and resting his cheek on his fist. I decided to play along and leaned both of my elbows on the surface and rested my chin on my fists, too. Zaid smirked at the two of us before rolling his eyes and directing his next question at Nikhil, “Did you find someone to monitor the deployment for tonight?”

Aaaand I’m out.

I straightened in my chair and returned to my report for Brandon.

I worked at a tech company. I understood enough to get by and do my job well, but the nitty-gritty details of coding and software development and deploying new features on the app? That was none of my business.

Until someone else made it my business.

Then I would just ask Mary questions so she could interpret what someone was asking me to help them with.

Nikhil also straightened as he responded to Zaid’s question before the two of them turned away from my desk and started walking down the hall towards Zaid’s office. I stared at their backs for a moment, giving myself time to admire Zaid’s build without anyone noticing me, before getting absorbed in the mundane office work again.

That went…surprisingly well.

I doubted Zaid had any suspicions about my extracurricular activities.

Perhaps I should pursue acting or something.

It wasn’t until I returned home that evening that guilt and anxiety seeped into my gut again, and I paced my small space for a while until I decided to think the situation through some more.

After scrolling on my social media content, I noticed that people were still asking about the whole Zayne/Zaid thing.

Frick.

I gnawed on my bottom lip in thought, my mind spiraling with the insane number of paths to take from this point forward, before my phone started vibrating in my hand with an incoming FaceTime call.

“Hellurr!” I heard Eloise St. James’ cheerful voice as soon as her freckled face filled the screen.

“Hello to you, too!” I smiled as I plopped myself on my couch.

“I’m here too!” Iris, Eloise’s daughter, squealed in the background before shoving her mom out of the image to grin at me.