Twice Upon Qadr - A Shot At Love **EDITING**

Chapter 9

Hana sat in the library of the Masjid, her laptop open in front of her, and various layouts for a newspaper spread out on the table. She was trying to figure out the structure and the content of the paper, and had been in the library all day.

So far on her team she had Kalthoum who was good at writing and had agreed to cover activities that the youth groups did, and her brother Hisham, who was an expert on the Sahaba and had agreed to a weekly article exploring their lives. One of the brothers in Hisham’s Halaqah, Yusuf, was a graphic designer, and had agreed to help her out. She would take all the pictures of course, in addition to being the editor. She also needed someone who would be able to write a weekly article on current events, someone to cover the interfaith events that the Masjid did, someone to do a profile on guest Khateebs, and she would do this herself if she couldn’t find anyone else to, profiling influential Muslims in history and today.

What she really wanted was to do a profile on Houssam. After all, he had ranked number thirty seven in the top one hundred influential Muslims in the US, had also been listed number twenty three on the top fifty richest people under thirty, was the second youngest person ever to be drafted into the NBA, was in the top five of the best players in NBA history, and while he hadn’t acknowledged this, he was also number eighty on the top five hundred most eligible bachelor’s in the US.

He was amazing.

Okay Hana!

She shook her head, determined to get him out of her mind. After their disastrous encounter at his party, she had sat in her car and cried for another ten minutes before going to Target and just walking aimlessly around. She couldn’t go home as she had given her mother a ride to the Masjid and would need to take her home as well. But she couldn’t stay there while he was there, so she just walked around the store for half an hour until her mom called her, and after they had gone home, she had spent the rest of the day trying to come up with reasons why Houssam wasn’t good for her.

She had failed.

Instead she ended up writing everything she loved about him.

Like his character, how good he was with children, his sense of humor, his ability to make others laugh, his kindness, his loyalty to those that he loved, how religious he was, his drive and determination, after all he had followed his dream even when the odds weren’t in his favor. And then there were the things like his eyes, his hair, his arms, his height, his voice, his smile, and his laugh.

Yeah. She had it bad.

“Focus Hana.” She mumbled to herself, and she turned back towards the different styles of newspaper that were before her. Yusuf had come up with five layouts for her to choose from, and MashaAllah they were all amazing and she couldn’t decide which one she liked best. Ten minutes later she had it narrowed down between three of them, and decided to send pictures of them to Kalthoum and Ilham to get their opinions.

“Um excuse me?”

She froze, recognizing that voice, and after a few seconds, she turned around to face him.

“Yes?”

His face lit up in recognition.

“Oh Salaam Hana!” he exclaimed, and when he emphasized her name she knew he had realized his mistake in calling her Hanan.

“Walaikumasalaam Houssam. Can I help you?” she asked, trying to calm her beating heart.

“Actually yes! I was looking for the autobiography of Malcolm X, and things have changed in here since the last time I came to check out a book!” he exclaimed with a smile, and she couldn’t help but smile back. His was too beautiful.