[It's Eid so I'mma post one of my favourite South Asian romcom book ideas]
There's this girl. And she's in the arranged marriage market, right? Her parents find someone and everything seems good. The only thing is, both families refused to provide pictures so they don't know what their potential spouse looks like.
Instead each party agrees to meet at a coffee shop and explains what the other is wearing. All this communication is done between the families—they don't talk to eachother even once. [pretty normal actually]
Finally the day of the coffee date arrives. And she dresses up in the outfit she said she'd wear and goes with her mum. They park and walk towards the entrance. At that moment, her mum realizes that she forgot her phone in the car. She tells the girl to go ahead and wait near the door for her since she's an hour early any way (this fam do be like that)
So the girl goes in and instead of waiting outside in the hot sun, she goes inside. Suddenly she sees the guy in the black button down and grey jeans and a baseball hat covering his thick curly hair.
He waves at her—she realizes he recognizes her clothing. She smiles and walk toward him. She realizes that oh my god she hit the jackpot because his eyes are like the lightest shade of brown she's ever seen in her life, and his face his bronzed and his jawline clipped. Who was this man?
She sat down at the table not even knowing what had made her sit down without waiting for her mum.
Damn, how'd I get so lucky?
The guy before her looked confused for a second and then burst out laughing, "Sorry?"
Oh my god had she said that out loud?
Did she just play it off with a laugh or turn into a nervous ninny?
"Yo, Hamad! Well well, I didn't know you had company."
The guy I front of her chuckled, and his honey coloured eyes twinkled with amusement; "Neither did I."
Hamad?
"Wait, what? Oh my god." The chair slammed back as she got up, and it fell over. She bent to pick it up, but it slipped from her fingers and fell again. The loud clang echoed as though the whole cafe had gone silent to witness this interaction.
Hamad had gotten up from his chair, and walked over to help her with the chair. She was utterly mortified.
Once everything was back in its place, she took a deep breath and apologized. "I am so sorry. I mistook you for someone else. It won't happen again. Obviously. Okay I'm leaving now before I do something even more stupid."
"Wait—"
But it was too late.
Well actually in my brain her mum enters at that moment along with the other guy and his mum (he looks completely different btw. And while he is quite handsome, it's not the bonechilling Hamad kind of handsome—she realizes). And then she spends the entire two hours talking to him while also every once in a while slipping glances at the completely oblivious Hamad.
Except he isn't oblivious
He's been doing the exact same thing.
And the way she said "Damn, how'd I get so lucky?" keeps echoing in his mind.
[my friends helped me out with this part]
But wait, fun surprise, he's the potential groom's dad's trusted protégé at work.
And so obviously he's aware of the whole wedding arranging process. And they can't avoid hearing about each other..
Also, the original match doesn't work out for reasons that are nobody's fault. Which sets the stage for the romance 😂
[back to me]
The "over hearing" parts over the next year go from occasionally eavesdropping to hunting for gossip until it finally reaches agonized wanting
Okay, so after a long tedious year of back and forth and realizing how they feel, wanting to be together and convincing their parents... they're finally doing their nikkah
And after they sign the marraige contract and the imam finishes the nikkah. They go to the reception hall. She's on the stage and he goes upto her—and here all of the lil marraige traditions come into play. Finally, he gives her his signature smirk and lifts her veil. When he sees her face his smirk morphs into a soft smile. His eyes light up, widen and then an adoring look enters it. He whispers softly so only she can hear him;
"Damn, how'd I get so lucky?"
***
Is this a product of extreme loneliness and absolutely no romantic experiences? Yes, yes it is.
Eid Mubarak, guys!
