There was mixtape selling, jewelry hawking, shit-talking, confidence-constructing. . . . It was good. Maybe it needed a little work with narrative, but maybe it didn’t. I felt it. I wanted to know this person. I suddenly felt embarrassed. I’d been a petulant prick. Why was I threatened by someone being better than me? I was a nerd but I never, ever figured I’d be that kind of nerd. The irritation began to ebb out of me just as the credits rolled across the laptop screen: stark white letters against a black background, stars on a clear dark night, just like his stupid eyes.
A Malakai Korede Film
I slapped my laptop shut. I needed fifteen mimosas.
“I am extremely uncomfortable right now, Minah. I have to say.” We were sat at a window table of W&W, me with a half–English breakfast, Aminah with a stack of pillowy pancakes and summer fruit.
She shrugged and picked up her mimosa. “If I were you, I would lean into it. Let people stare. Besides, you look good. How do you know it’s not because of that?”
I glanced down at my outfit—a men’s black T-shirt with Fela’s face graffitied on it that had “Expensive Shit” scrawled beneath it in haphazard brushstrokes, worn as a dress, with tights and combat boots. I thought I looked good. That perspective changed, however, if I met the decoratively eyeshadowed eyes of the girls shooting me curious gazes in between dainty mouthfuls of waffles and whispers.
“I just know,” I said, as I speared some scrambled egg into my mouth. I cast a furtive glance around the flowery parlor. People were definitely talking about me, and they wanted me to know they were talking about me. Otherwise they could have just talked about me without looking. It’s not like I would have heard—Ariana Grande was playing too loudly.
“Well, do you also know what you’re gonna do for the NYU program project? Any ideas? Thought anymore about the Malakai thing?”
I took a sip of my sour Prosecco. “I have, actually. Weirdly, I think there’s a chance I could get him to do it. You know that student that Dr. Miller said was my competition?”
“Our nemesis, yeah—”
“You ladies need anything?” An almost hilariously deep baritone added accompaniment to Ariana’s silken whistles. Aminah and I glanced up to see AJ （Aaron） by our table, broad smile in place. I ran my gaze across his copper-toned arm as he lifted it to push a stray lock behind his ear （there was a pencil tucked there that he did not need, he had a tablet）。 The Eye of Horus twinkled slightly with the movement.
I felt a soft kick on my shins from Aminah’s tennis shoes. She raised a brow at me, her lips pulled back into a knowing smirk. She was challenging me. She wanted me to husk out Nothing that’s on the menu, heavy with implication, like something out of a terrible rom-com. She’d dared me to do it ten minutes ago. She cocked her head at me. “I don’t know. Do we, Kiki?”
I shrugged. “Nothing, thank you.” I deliberately avoided looking at Aminah.
“You sure? No water top-ups? Yours is looking a little low.” Aminah’s glass was still full, mine half empty. Depending how you looked at it.
I shook my head. “I’m perfect, thanks.”
Aaron nodded and smiled, his eyes flicking across me. “Yeah. . . . Well. If you need anything. Let me know.”
“Will do!”
Aaron broadened his smile to include both of us, inclined his head ever so slightly, and walked off to flirt with the cohort of Naija Princesses behind us.
“Are you kidding me?” Aminah hissed, as soon as he was out of earshot.
“Minah, please. He does that with everyone. It’s part of his job. It’s what keeps us coming back for undercooked eggs. Seriously, these are so runny. You heard me ask for well done, right? It’s more likely he fancies you, if anything.”
Aminah shook her head slowly at me. “Why do you do this? You know you fine and yet you act like—”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” I let out a groan. “This cannot be happening right now.”
Aminah’s eyes widened. “Um, excuse you?! You don’t have to swear at me. I just think it’s funny how you’re confident enough to get with Zack Kingsford, but somehow—”
Her words were lost on me, the sight my eyes had snagged on in the café window advancing ever closer and closer. I sank down into my seat, grabbed a napkin to cover half my face. “Minah, please. Look outside the window. Without looking.”
Aminah, immediately receiving the memo, slipped her oversized shades on and turned to look. Kofi and Malakai were walking directly opposite us, along Duke’s Road, Whitewell’s main shopping street. “Oh . . .” She relaxed instantly and laughed as I ducked my head, studying the vegan breakfast options from beneath the napkin. There were a lot of avocados. I glared at a ￡6.50 avocado and matcha-oat milkshake. That was new.