My mouth parted. Was he accusing me of . . . slut-shaming? Me, the feminist, who had words of Audre Lorde and bell hooks seared into her heart? Who knew the entirety of the prelude to Flawless! I was never lost for words and this time wasn’t any different, but it definitely took me a while to retrieve them. When I found them, they came out like bullets. I stepped closer to Malakai, eyes narrowed and seething.
“Oh, there was communication there? That’s why everybody knew who I was talking about on the radio—because all the women knew where they stood? Please. Look, just because you were able to spin something that smoothed over that mess between Chioma and Shanti doesn’t mean you’re innocent and it doesn’t mean I’ll buy it. You clearly did something for the girls to believe that they meant more to you, something that made them retroactively question your behavior. And for your information, what I did with Zack was not the same thing. Dudes have been doing what you’re doing since the beginning of time. Having their cake and eating it too. Well, guess what? The patisserie’s closed.” So maybe that last part was overkill. I continued talking, hoping to erase any damage that corny line had done to the gravity of my point. “What I’m doing is levelling the playing field. There is a difference, Malakai, and I don’t need to waste any more time trying to explain that to you.”
“Patisserie?”
Oh, for fuck’s sake. “Can we focus?”
His lips bent in an irritatingly inviting manner. “I’m focused.”
“You’re mocking.”
“Nah. It was clever. Literary.”
He was definitely mocking. Zack didn’t quite have what it took to get under my skin, but this guy was burrowing like he knew where to go. It almost made me want to stay as much as it made me want to go. Which meant I had to go.
“You know what? We’re probably done here. I think Zack’s got the message. People will have lost interest by now. It’s already been a long night and I don’t have the energy for whatever this is going to turn into. Thanks for the emergency kiss, but I think I’m gonna—” I went to walk past him.
Malakai stepped to make way for me but his eyes flashed. “I’m sorry.”
“What?” I stopped in my tracks. Men who looked like him and acted like him and, okay, fine, kissed like him, did not apologize. Even men who didn’t have his credentials didn’t apologize. Was the music that loud? I really needed to sort out the sound system because it was clearly a health hazard, causing me to hear things that did not—
“I said I’m sorry. You’re right, I hear you. I shouldn’t have compared the two situations when I really don’t know you like that. But here’s the thing”—he rubbed the back of his neck—“I want to. Been wanting to. Since the first time we met.”
My breath hitched, but I forced myself to breathe, for the expression on my face to stay the same. Cool. I hadn’t been ready for that, but it was fine. He did this all the time. Evolved. Player.
“The first time we met you were going to Zuri Isak’s room—”
“The first time we met you were coming out of Zack Kingsford’s room.”
Touché. I didn’t know if it was great or terrible that he was reasonable. Hot and reasonable. He was also was kind of a dick, the same way I was kind of a dick. It was slowly occurring to me that perhaps he wasn’t the Wasteman of Whitewell. The Wasteman of Whitewell wouldn’t have helped a girl who called him the Wasteman of Whitewell get revenge on another guy （a guy infinitely more fitting of the title）。 He wouldn’t have noticed her discomfort. Granted, he could have had his own agenda to shame me, but there were easier ways. He could have let me squirm, turned it around, and used the opportunity to embarrass me, leave me pouting into the air, but he didn’t.
Malakai cleared his throat in the silence between us.
“You know what? You probably want space. I’m gonna go. And yeah, that kiss was . . . That kiss was something but it was also nothing. I wanted to help. Me wanting to hang out with you has nothing to do with it. You don’t owe me shit.”
Either he was a preternaturally talented actor, or he was telling the truth.
“I know I don’t.”
Malakai took it as dismissal. He inclined his head deeply, pressed a hand across his chest like he was excusing himself from my court, and shot me a tiny smile. “It was an honor to be your sidekick in making a dickhead squirm, Fellow Superhuman.” He winked and stepped away from me, ready to go. My stomach flipped and spurred my hand to reach out for his wrist.