My mouth sagged. “Excuse me?”
My best friend sipped her drink and smirked. “Oh, you thought you were the only one with bars? Anyway, he’s a little too tall for me. A bit too lean. I like my men a little stockier. Me-sized.”
Aminah was five foot three and Kofi was about five seven and thick with muscle.
I nodded. “Uh-huh. Ghanaian too? A dimple? Obsessed with you? Is that your type?”
Aminah shot me a flat look before turning back to the scene before us, pointedly ignoring me. Chi-Chi’s bangles were now adding percussion to Skepta’s north London growl, mingling with the rumbling grime beat, as she waved her hand in time with her words, punctuating whatever she was saying. Shanti shook her head, smiling sarcastically, arms folded across her ample cleavage, bolstered up in the V-neck of a bright yellow body-con dress.
Aminah pulled a face. “Yikes. Those are two of the finest girls on campus. I’ve never seen anything like this. You gonna stop it before gold hoops, balayage inches, and kanekalon hair go flying? Before people start slipping on shea butter? The Vegan Cupcakes and the Baddies look like they’re about to square up to each other.”
On either side of Chioma and Shanti stood loose crowds of their respective squads, conch piercings and culottes versus bundles and body-cons. At some point beyond this place the two cliques might merge, become one, conflate, but for now identities were distinct. They had to be, lest you got lost. At the moment they were just observing, sizing each other up, maybe laughing or rolling their eyes to add wind to jabs thrown, but I could sense the potential of a blowup.
I slid my head to the side. “I don’t know yet. I kind of want to see how it plays out.”
“Malakai, I don’t understand. Honestly, I don’t,” Chi-Chi was saying, “You take me to Root—”
My brows shot up. I was right. The boy did have skills. Root was the only vaguely fancy vegan restaurant in town. They had cloth napkins.
“We vibed, like I genuinely felt like we’d maybe met before in our past life—I told you that—and now I find out that you been taking this one to chicken mortuaries.”
Aminah choked on her drink. “Is she talking about Nandos?”
I didn’t have a chance to reply because Shanti had stepped to Chioma’s face. “Babes, you better send some prayers up to your ancestors right now, tell your girls to burn up some incense or whatever the fuck you witches do, because let me tell you, you’re gonna need their help.”
Chioma laughed. “Cute. Omo, listen. I may be vegan but I eat bitches up for dinner. Don’t get confused.”
The crowd surrounding them erupted. I looked around to notice the audience for this episode of Love and Grime, Whitewell, had broadened out. The ripple effect was widening; it had escalated, was souring. Malakai had still barely said a word, like he wasn’t the one responsible for this mess. It made my blood boil, but I had no time for my wrath to focus and sharpen in his direction. A full-on fight was going to break out on my turf, and if I didn’t stop it no one else was politically neutral enough to.
Aminah turned to me, her big, darkly lined doe eyes made wider. “Now?”
“Yup,” I nodded.
I stepped forward just as Malakai finally deigned to speak. He pushed off against the wall he had been leaning against, put a hand on each of the ladies’ arms, and spoke to them at a decibel level I couldn’t catch. I paused, stepped back, and watched both girls immediately relax, their breathing slowing as Malakai spoke to them with an affable, casual face, as if a minute before the whole ecosystem of the party hadn’t been put into jeopardy. The belligerent looks on both women’s faces faded as they listened to him, their frowns slackening as they began to nod grudgingly, throwing each other wary looks of respect. Eventually, their tight, petty faces loosened enough to release smiles and jocular eye rolls, the three of them engaging in ostensibly friendly conversation for a few more moments before Shanti and Chioma hugged each other, smiled at Malakai, and then migrated to their respective tribes, rejoining the main body of the party.
My jaw almost sagged. That had never happened before. Not in our ecosystem. Crossing two girls? Malakai should have got eaten alive. I had no idea how he had managed to finesse that situation.
“Um,” Aminah’s voice piped up over a new Wizkid song. “What did I just witness? Did he just calm Brandy and Monica down? After his very cute yansh was on the line?”
“Jeez, Aminah—”
Aminah cackled filthily. “What? It’s right there, Kiki, I have eyes. He has bum. Nothing wrong with appreciation. Love the peng, hate the sinner—”