“Your highness!”
I must have dozed off at some point, because I’ve just woken up to find Zahir in front of my chair, his nostrils flaring as his eyes bore into me. I sit upright, looking around, disorientated for a few minutes before remembering my troubled night’s sleep – his easy acceptance of my excuse, the fact I’d regretted my decision every single second of the long, lonely night, the way my body had craved his to the point of insanity. The way it was craving him now, so that even the sight of him like this, dressed in white robes with his dark hair curling a little at the nape, makes me ache for him on an urgent, primal level.
My voice is groggy – sleep and surprise coating the syllables in a heavy confusion.
“How do you feel?” Before I can answer, his hand sweeps across my brow, apparently checking for my temperature, but I sit straighter, wishing his hand would brush other parts of my body. It’s as though something has been flicked on inside of me and I have no clue how to flick it off again.
“I’m –,” I clear my throat. “Okay. Thank you,” I tack on belatedly.
“I’m glad.” His nod shows approval, and for a moment I imagine something else.
“You are?”
“Yes.” He strides deeper into my apartment, moving to the kitchen. With a frown I stand and follow, energised by his appearance, anxious on a soul-deep level to not lose sight of him for even a moment. Ignoring how pathetic that makes me, I drink him in as he reaches into the pantry and lifts out a small, shiny pot.
“What is that?”
“An Alabaya,” he says, frowning. “Surely you’ve seen one?”
I shake my head.
“Your father doesn’t drink coffee?”
“Coffee, yes,” I smile unconsciously. “He’s as addicted to the stuff as I am.”
Zahir’s frown deepens. “Then what does he make it with?”
“Um, a filter and grounds.”
His lips compress in an obvious line of disapproval and I laugh, because of all the things he disapproves of my father for, how he takes his coffee seems rather absurd.
“That is not the Qabidi way.”
My smile slips a little. “I suppose he didn’t have one of those things with him he came to America. Perhaps it’s hidden away in a cupboard in his home, here.”
The accusation sparks between us, the air around us changing in quality, growing thick and impossible to navigate, so I stand where I am as he works. In less than a minute, the kitchen is filled with an aroma that makes my tummy swirl with hunger. Coffee, yes, but spices too. I ignore an instinct to comment on the smell. I’ve been too sharply reminded of what my father lost – and coffee is barely the beginning of it.
“This is what I came to speak to you about.”
My heart lurches. “My father?”
“Indirectly.” His eyes meet mine and it’s like being seared with a hot coal. My stomach flips and the ground seems to tremble beneath my feet. I am lost, untethered, unsure for a split second of my loyalties. I can see that this pains him, and I feel a horrible, unforgivable inclination to back away, to tell him to not worry about it right now. But dad! How could I ever shelve his concerns like that when bringing him home i
s the sole reason I came to Qabid?
I tilt my chin in defiance against my own inclinations, holding his eyes for several seconds before he returns his attention to the coffee pot. He lifts the lid – the aroma in the room intensifies – then he pulls two small cups from another cupboard. I wonder how he knows his way around this room so well, but don’t ask the question. Am I afraid of the answer? Is it the spectre of a previous occupant that has my mouth filling with acid?.
He pours the liquid into the two cups, placing one on the kitchen bench and nodding at it. “For you.”
I hesitate before curiosity draws me nearer. I curve my fingers around the fine ceramic and lift it to my nose first. His eyes are on me, watching me, waiting for my reaction. I blow across the top so swirls of white steam drift from the rim.
“Do you remember where you grew up?”
Sadness moves through me, emulating the pattern of the steam. “I grew up in North Carolina.”
He nods. “Of course. I mean where you spent the first few years of your life.”
The coffee is delicious. It’s only in acknowledging that I realise a part of me had wanted to dislike it. To disapprove of something he’s obviously so proud of, something so innately Qabidi. Something he implied my father didn’t appreciate. I take another drink, letting the heat and flavour fortify me.