His Guiding Star

Twenty

Aaban

Pakistan won. We won. I won.

It might not have been the first time I'd won a match, yet the feeling was as overwhelming as it had been then.

"I think we did good," Yusuf said after he came out of the shower, a towel around his neck while he chugged down a bottle of water.

"Think?" Zahid asked. "Man, we did very good. Dho daala unko." He pretended to be swinging his bat,0 with his hands folded around an imaginary handle.

"Ab yeh zyada hogaya," Rizwan Bhai entered the room. "We barely even won. That last wide saved us."

*"Now you're exaggerating."

"Bhai, kabhi toh credit dediya karein."

*"Bhai, give us some credit."

My phone vibrated in my pocket and I pulled it out, taking a quick glance at the screen with a bud of hope in my heart. It was a text from Chris, not Manha. Not a single text from her congratulating me, or just a damn emoji. None. I tapped on his name rather furiously, reading the two one-word texts underneath:

Chris: Congratulations.

Chris: Drinks?

Drinks? There wasn't another match anytime soon, so I guess I could indulge in a glass or two. But did I want to? My fingers typed down a reply before I could think more.

Me: Sure.

A hand clamped around my shoulder. "We're all going for dinner. Want to come? Celebratory dinner." Rizwan Bhai offered, a small smile on his face.

"I...uh, some other time?"

His hand dropped and he nodded, pocketing that hand. There were multiple pairs of eyes on me as I jogged out of the room and toward the backdoor, heading straight for the car waiting for me to not get caught up by media.

"Where to, sir?"

"The usual club."

My phone rang and yet another match of hope lit up in my chest, only to be extinguished by Zoelle's name.

"Hello."

"Hello, where are you?"

"In the car."

"Going where?"

"Club."

A pause. In those two seconds I realized that Zoelle was not only my publicist, but also my mother-in-law. I waited for the objection, the argument, the lecture, but it never came. Instead, all she said was, "Okay, but just be careful."

And maybe the objection, the argument, the lecture I had been waiting for would've been better than her approval because I thought of Manha immediately. She didn't deserve a mother who would let her husband go clubbing. She didn't deserve a husband who would do that either.