Malakai drew his head back from me, eyes widening with panic. “Oh man . . . Kiki? You okay? It’s not that I don’t want to, I promise—shit, am I making sense?”
He was adorable. This made me want to cry more. He looked so sweet and so stressed. I kissed the corner of his mouth. And then his jaw. Then his ear.
“I know you hate being called cute but you’re really fucking cute.” I smiled at Malakai’s mock frown, which made him impossibly cuter, and whispered against his lips, “And sexy. Not every guy can be both. I happen to like it. A lot.”
“Yeah?” He murmured his smile into my mouth. His delight tasted like mine. “Well, I like you a lot, Kikiola Banjo.”
It felt as good as all my best feelings melded into one: iced lemonade on a hot day, the first time I listened to the album Lemonade, hot Lagos rain on my skin while riding a bike around my grandad’s compound when I was twelve, finding a five-pound note in the pocket of a jacket, sun between my shoulder blades, a bookmarked pair of shoes on sale, someone cancelling plans I was dreading, the taste of ripe plantain fried golden, the way Frank Ocean repeats “pleasure” on “Pink Matter,” but somehow more. Somehow wider, somehow deeper. Something that was part of me now, fusing into my skin and into my soul. It made me feel like I was floating, flying, and falling at the same time. Like I was ascending while rooted safely. Before I got the chance to analyze it further, Malakai was kissing me again, and I was kissing him back.
Chapter 23
“You look . . . chirpy.” Dr. Miller’s red lips curved wryly as I placed a coffee cup on her desk. Her room smelled of the bergamot-and-tea-tree-oil-scented steam emanating from the diffuser she had in the corner of her chicly decorated office, all Swedish ergonomics, wooden imitation Bantu sculptures, and succulents.
“Oh, you must be mistaken, Dr. M. This is my usual look of urbane insouciance. You know what it must be?” I plopped myself down in the seat in front of her. “I switched up my nude lip gloss.”
Her lips twitched as she raised the cup to me in thanks and surreptitiously pushed a brown paper bag of mini flapjacks toward me.
I grinned and popped one into mouth as she said, “Well the new lip gloss suits you. I like it.” She clicked on the keyboard of her laptop so it whirred to life and brought up the documents she needed for our catch-up.
“How are you finding your partnership with young Mr. Korede?”
I tried to eat my smile but I felt it spilling out of me, just like the warmth emanating from my chest, almost keeping me as snug as Malakai’s hoodie, which I was currently wearing over tights; I’d taken it from his room, where I’d spent the night tangled up with him in his bed.
It’d been a fortnight since Ty’s country house and I’d been walking around like I’d swallowed a star: fiery, celestial, delightfully volatile, and beaming everywhere. It felt like we were supposed to be this way, like our connection had been prepped for this progression. Spending our days together held new pleasure, liberated to do all the things we had to do to keep up the pretense without the souring tinge of pretense—and with the addition of other things that weren’t allowed under the stipulated rules—like his hand squeezing my knee during lectures, like kissing in the quad, like him calling me baby, like me liking it. We were also, to our mutual delight, discovering the many creative ways we could enjoy each other before I was ready for sex.
I couldn’t articulate this to Dr. Miller for obvious reasons so I cleared my throat and hoped to push back the heat in my face. “The partnership is going well, I think.”
Dr. Miller nodded briskly—I thought I caught a glint in her eye, but it might have been wintery sunlight beaming through her office blinds.
“Good. I believe your partner thinks so too—his film is coming along very nicely. You two work well together. I can see that your voice adds something special to his film and I’m pleased by the progress you’re making with your application project. The audio reality show was a novel conceit. It’s warm, it’s engaging, and your listeners have more than doubled.”
The clip of Malakai and Zack’s scuffle had been almost definitely recorded and leaked by Simi, with evident glee in seeing me in the midst of the mess. Mercifully, it had backfired, with the hashtag #MMAMalakai spinning around campus alongside GIFs of Zack stumbling comically, slow and impotent. Our subscribers had gone up. As I allowed the warmth of the praise to sink in, a sound coming from the window threatened to distract me completely. If I listened closely, I could detect the words “Whitewell Knights.”