Thank you to the lovely Lyra, who wrote this as a present for my birthday. I still find it amazing that Chryed ended up in Birmingham!
They met in the university food court. Alex's sharp eyes picking out quickly what she wanted from the familiar display, she found herself maneuvering around a slight man with luscious thick dark hair as he dithered annoyingly trying to choose what to eat. Alex was going to move on but paused, admiring his hair, and held onto her tray. "Are you ok there?"
The man looked up. He blinked. His eyes flickered rapidly. "I...errr...I was just...you don't happen to know if they do halal do you?"
"Most of them are halal," she smiled, pointing at the sign.
"Oh. I didn't see that."
Alex took in his long floppy hair, leather jacket and jeans. She noted the gold ring on his left hand. Well, a gurl could look, couldn't she? He seemed like a nice guy. The ditzy academic type, perhaps. Certainly preoccupied with something, but Alex let him pay first and then she went to find a table. The place was heaving at this time but she was fortunate enough to happen upon a group of students leaving and snagged their table, setting her tray down.
A few moments later a soft voice cleared its throat. Alex looked up to find the handsome guy in the queue hovering nearby. "I don't suppose you're sitting with anyone? I'm supposed to meet my husband here in a few minutes and there's hardly any seats free."
"Of course! You know, I don't think I ever introduced myself. I'm Alex." Alex smiled and offered her hand.
"Syed." He put down his tray and shook her hand. "Post-grad Economics."
"PhD?"
"Masters," Syed explained.
"Ah. Well I'm a tutor myself. I teach English as a Foreign Language."
"That sounds intense."
"Whereas as Masters Economics sounds like a walk in the park."
"Touché," Syed smirked.
They fell into silence for a moment, each eating their lunch while Alex snuck cheeky glances at her handsome table mate.
A few minutes later Syed's phone rang. "I should get this, sorry."
"No, go ahead."
"Christian!" Syed answered the phone. "No, I'm in the food court...no, you numpty, the other door... Wait a minute I'll stand up."
Alex watched Syed stand and scan the food hall. Through a door at the bottom emerged a tall handsome man with short blonde hair, a notably masculine figure and a little girl cuddled in his arms with a favourite moose toy clutched to her chest.
Feeling like a third wheel all of a sudden, Alex pointedly sat and ate her dinner while this perfect family hugged and kissed and had themselves a little reunion.
"I thought you weren't coming," Syed joked. He stroked his daughter's cheek and smiled at her and enjoyed the giggle he got in response. Yasmin got shy and buried her face in Christian's chest but Christian plucked her off him and handed their daughter over for Syed to hold her. Christian glanced at Alex, awkwardly. By the looks of it, they weren't going to get a table to themselves any time soon, he realised.
"Oh! Christian, this is Alex. She teaches English here. Alex, this is my husband Christian," Syed explained, one hand gesturing and the other balancing Yasmin on his hip, "And our daughter Yasmin."
Alex could tell from the hesitation in his eye that Syed was waiting to see her response. Alex smiled as warmly as she could and responded to the introduction with typical warm politeness.
"Pleased to meet you." Christian shook Alex's hand. "How's the food round here?"
"Halal," Syed jumped in.
"Well at least someone's happy. Let me just go and get something for us. I'll be right back."
That was how Alex met Christian and Syed. Stuffing their faces with samosas and lamb curry and talking about Birmingham and the gay scene and life at uni. It turned out that Syed and Christian hadn't been in Birmingham long and were still settling in here and had yet to make any real friends. Syed had started his course at the university. Christian had set himself up as a personal trainer and had a lot to say about the council's free leisure facilities and the interest in fitness it was creating. While the adults talked, Yasmin sat and coloured and stole off her Daddy's plate while ignoring her own children's portion.
"The grass is always greener," Christian joked to Alex as he watched Yasmin and Syed battle it out over who got to eat what.
Alex decided they were nice people. People who would get along with her friends. People she wouldn't mind having around.
x-x-x-x
Over time Alex and Syed started eating lunch together once or twice a week. Sometimes Syed would appeal to Alex's common sense for help dealing with the university. Sometimes Christian would join them, with or without Yasmin, who was sometimes at her mother's. Alex introduced them to people and showed them around. They made some mutual friends. Christian picked up some clients. Syed found a new mosque.
By the time Alex was starting to make plans for her birthday she considered them good friends. Good friends who sometimes needed a bit of a nudge in the right direction, but good friends nonetheless. Syed in particular needed someone to make him sit down and have a cup of tea and calm down from time to time, and Christian often asked Alex to check in on Syed over lunch. She knew Christian worried he worked too hard, not that Christian himself was one to talk with the number of clients he was taking on as a personal trainer.
Outside of university Alex often saw them at dinner parties. The couple fitted well into the group of friends Alex had gathered around her and when Yasmin was with Amira it was the perfect excuse to get together with friends of an evening, eat good food and drink too much. With the exception of Syed, who would watch Christian drink too much and then put up with all their friends giggling at Christian's overly-amorous advances as Syed tried to manouvre his husband out to a waiting taxi.
x-x-x-x
In the kitchen of their small two-up-two-down terraced house, Christian examined the card they'd received in the post as Syed cuddled up to his first cup of tea of the day. He had a mountain of reading the size of Everest to try and get through and an undergraduate seminar to tutor and student meetings and somehow he had to get work done on his thesis as well.
Syed watched Christian smile. "What?"
"Alex is having a birthday party. Its her fortieth and we're invited."
"Alex is never forty," Syed disagreed.
"Says so right here." Christian pointed at the card.
"When is it?"
"Eighteenth of May."
"Urgh! Exam season. Perfect."
"Well most of the exams should be over by then, shouldn't they?"
"I suppose."
"And there'll be plenty of friends there. Not to mention free food. Don't be an old misery guts, everyone will be going," Christian coaxed Syed.
"Alright, alright, I'll...I'll work something out with the uni. Just don't tell Alex I wasn't going to go. Please. My life wouldn't be worth living."
Christian laughed at the truth of that statement. "She's a pussy cat," he told Syed.
x-x-x-x
"What do you mean you're not coming?!" Alex exclaimed down the phone.
"Flu," Christian sniffled, and then coughed and blew his nose.
"Christian, its May not December."
"Well somehow Syed and I have both ended up with flu and Amira's buggered off to another fancy foreign photoshoot somewhere so Mas is threatening to come up from London and 'help' and Syed's going nuts about exams or marking papers or catching up or something and our bank balance looks horrendous since I can't work til I'm better..."
"You do sound a bit poorly," Alex offered. "Tell you what, why don't I pop round on Sunday and bring you some leftovers."
"Leftovers? I heard you had all your online friends flying in from God knows where. I've heard your stories, they'll eat the lot."
"Don't be unkind. They're students."
"How is it a tutor ends up with so many friends who are students anyway?"
"By being amazing and lovely."
"Not to mention modest," Christian teased. "I don't suppose you'd bring us more tissues and Lemsip while you're at it?"
"I suppose I could be persuaded," Alex teased.
"I guess we'll just have to stay in and watch Doctor Who," Christian sighed. "No use giving it to everyone."
"Doctor Who and the Eurovision Song Contest...and that fit one's on the lottery again."
"Oh, you mean what's-his-name? I hear he's coming to panto here this year. Syed won't shut up about it."
"Yasmin will love it. Her first panto."
"Syed would not be going to take Yasmin, Syed would be going to stare at fit blokes in tights. I'd be going to take Yasmin."
"As long as you go together you know I don't think it matters. You have different strengths, Christian," Alex counselled him. "That's absolutely fine. You make a perfect team and, besides, Christmas holidays are not a good time at university. He'll need something to cheer him up."
"I just feel so old, Alex. Sometimes Syed thinks he looks like me but I know what he means, he means he looks like a gorgeously slim version of me. I on the other hand put on another pound last week."
"Nonsense! It's the flu talking. You're only as old as you feel. You'll be right as rain next week."
"I guess you're right. Syed thinks a lot of things." Christian moped. "Urgh! I am so over this flu! I hate being stuck inside. I'd go for a walk if I could actually bear to move."
"As far as I'm concerned you are both beautiful and gorgeous with or without flu and I will pop round to see my gorgeous and handsome flu-ridden friends on Sunday with so much food you'll think Syed's mother came to visit."
"And Lemsip?"
"And Lemsip," Alex promised.
"Alright. I'll tell Syed. You can tell us all the gossip from the party." In the background another phone started ringing. "Wait a minute, that'll be him now on the mobile. I've got to go, Alex. I'll see you on Sunday, yeah?"
"Sunday." Alex hung up. Oh well, another cancellation. Never mind, there was plenty of fun to be had and plenty of people who could make it and in spite of the inevitable stresses and difficulties that life constantly presented, she would be forever grateful to have her friends.