“One can only hope.” Aminah’s voice was drier than cassava as she levelled an even, unimpressed stare at Zack, a boy she hadn’t been able to stand since the time they went to the same boarding school.
Zack chuckled, rolled his tongue in his mouth, and nodded slowly. “Aminah. How are you? I didn’t see you there. Blind to bad energy.”
My eyes flicked up to the ceiling. Aminah slid her head to the side, an arm under her breasts, an elbow propped on it, sharp-taloned azure nails wrapped around her glass. “That makes no sense, you goat. Also are you nose-blind to bad energy as well? Is that why you can’t smell the stink of your own cologne? What is it, Eau de Prick?”
Zack stilled, his smile stiffening. His charm was defective around us and it always threw him off. It was like he forgot every time, and every time he went through the same kind of reckoning that to us he wasn’t an automatic knee-weakener and panty-wetter. I grinned as Aminah turned to me and kissed me on the cheek, whispering, “You good?”
I looked back at Zack. “I can handle him.”
She nodded, threw Zack the stinkiest side-eye, and kissed her teeth as she walked past him, flicking her hair as she made her way over to Kofi’s DJ booth.
Zack stepped closer to me. “You didn’t wanna come say hi to me? I know we had a fight but I thought we’d have a truce seeing as it’s my birthday.” I called Zack Kingford My Guy because I thought it would distance me from the reality that I had been hooking up—even admitting it to myself was embarrassing—with a truly jarring person. Didn’t work. We all had our vices.
In the far corner of the bar, by the DJ booth, were three beat-up leather sofas arranged in a C-shape with a black center table in the middle and three artificial candles flickering on it, a self-designated VIP area. Every month I tried to discourage its creation, tried to open it up, and every month it was colonized by the same squad before anyone else got a chance to sit there—Zack’s boys, dressed in weaker iterations of his outfit. With them, in between them, leaning against walls, sitting on the arms of the populated sofas, on the laps of Zack’s tribe, were the pretty girls who had made the contraband banner that was stuck on the wall above them. It read, in nineties’ hip-hop-style graffiti, Happy Birthday, King Zack, with a wonky crown slipping on the axis of the A in his name.
I smiled. “I had no idea it was your birthday and it wasn’t a fight, Zack. Also, you know this is not what we’re supposed to do with our access right? This is meant to be a communal area. No VIP shit.”
Zack shot me back something sly, nodded, and rubbed his chin. “You’re a VIP to me, partner. Speaking of which”—he stepped closer—“you left something at mine during our last . . . meeting.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the smooth cylinder that was Aminah’s designer lip gloss. I darted a quick glance around to make sure nobody was watching and snatched it from him, slipping it into my bag swiftly. There was no reason for him to do that in public. Except to be a dickhead.
“You’re a dickhead.” I kept my smile sweet, conscious of the fact that we were surrounded by people.
“You’re in denial,” he countered.
I gritted my teeth. This was way more drama than I’d bargained for with this whole deal. That was the entire point of Not Dating Zack. Not to feel obliged to dedicate time to him. Yeah, he had a body that was just muscle and skin and made for sin, but he was not the best talker. And that worked for me—I couldn’t get thrown by anything like a personality, a sense of humor, or intelligence—but it also meant that I found his tongue tedious when it wasn’t in my mouth.
My arrangement with Zack had started shortly after the infamous town hall incident a year ago when late-night meetings in a booked-out, tiny study room to figure out the logistics of FreakyFridayz with him led to my butt being pressed up against the desk. He was boring because, like every boy who was used to not working for what he wanted, he liked that I didn’t like him. And I liked that I didn’t like him. It was the perfect situation. He was attractive and fulfilled what I needed him to do—and nobody had to know.
Romance was a waste of time, a form of manipulation utilized by boys who didn’t wash their bedsheets regularly. It existed, sure, but I wasn’t surrounded by anyone I believed engaged in it properly, with respect for the object of affection, rather than a thirst to claim—a triumph of acquisition, rather than a triumph of winning affection. With Zack, it was clinical, uncomplicated. There was no risk of catching feelings. I had someone to make out with, without having to commit to anything longer than the duration of a Netflix movie. But this year, Zack had switched up on me, my sustained lack of attention now presenting itself as an affront that he needed to correct.