Ali manages to convince his father to give him a ride to Khalifa's on Thursday after school. He's supposed to go home straight after soccer, but Khalifa misses another practice and Ali needs to deliver a certain warning from their coach. The drive is slow and quiet, which Ali hates because it means his father's thinking, and that never ends well.
He switches on the radio, and skips over pop music until he finds an Arabic news channel because he knows it's the only thing his father listens to. The words fly over Ali's head as he stares outside the car window, and he tries to come up with something to say.
"I'm worried about your sister," his father finally says.
Ali can hear the ticking sound of the indicator as they take another turn.
"Why?" he tries to play it cool, like he isn't interested.
His father sighs deeply. "You're her brother, Ali. She needs you to protect her when she's feeling lost."
"Lost?" he asks, smiling to himself. "Pretty sure she's at home, baba."
"I don't mean it like that and you know it."
"Why aren't you giving me a similar lecture?" he asks. "We're both 17. If she's lost, then what makes you think I'm not either?"
He can't meet his father's eyes. Can't believe he put himself on the spot like that. Instead of protecting Alia from whatever his father has planned, he's putting himself in trouble too.
"Ali, I trust you. You're my son, but if anything bad happens to Alia, I don't want you to look back with regret."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Ali says, but he has an idea, and he needs to get in touch with Alia.
-
Khalifa answers the door, letting him in before extending his hand. Ali smiles, takes his hand and lets himself get pulled in, their noses touch, and then he feels Khalifa's lips quickly brush over his own. It's so quick he feels his cheeks flush, but he says nothing, because it was an accident and it's surely happened before.
The hall is empty, which is good. He can't think beyond that point.
"You okay?"
Ali glances at Khalifa, and he thinks he just swallowed his heart. "Yeah. Just, baba was giving me a lecture. I don't want to talk about it, really."
"I get that."
Duh, Ali thinks to himself. Idiot.
"Why'd you skip practice?"
Khalifa snorts. "Can you wait till we get to my room? I'm fine by the way, thanks for asking."
"Sorry," Ali says sheepishly. "In my defense that's just another version of the same question."
"Whatever you say, Ali."
"If it makes you feel better, I covered for you."
They climb up the stairs to Khalifa's room, and turn on the AC. "Thanks."
Ali pulls out his phone and texts Alia while Khalifa sets up his playstation.
"Are you gonna tell me what happened with practice? It's the third time you missed one in a week."
"Will you tell me about that lecture with your dad in return?"
Ali watches him switch the television on. "Fine."
Khalifa has a mini fridge in his room, which Ali thinks is ridiculous and his mom would never let him drag one into his room, but Ali's not complaining as it's filled with cans of Red Bull and those bottles of Starbucks coffee that he thinks taste like shit. Although, he can't deny they've gotten him through an abundant number of late night studying.
