Heat fled my body. “Oh.”
He swallowed. “Maybe this isn’t a good idea, what with your project and the film and us working together. It might confuse things—”
“Of course. Totally. You’re right.”
I swiftly got up, grabbing for a sweater that wasn’t where I thought it was. Was it possible to die of embarrassment? I was sure it was happening. I was about to die in a fucking hot pink bralette. At least it made my tits look great. Not great enough for Malakai to want to kiss on them, though. Would he speak at my funeral? Sweet girl, he would say with a tasteful glimmer in his eye. But I just wasn’t into her like that.
Malakai sat up, and the soft apologetic crease between his eyes felt like hands tightening around my throat. He ran a hand across his head. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to . . .” He trailed off, as if lost for words.
Didn’t mean to what? Have me feeling like I would go insane if I didn’t have his mouth on me? I almost laughed. Instead, I fished my sweater from under the covers. “Oh my gosh, please don’t worry. I’m sorry.” I pulled it over my head and got up. “I shouldn’t even have . . . It’s cool. And you’re right. It would have been a bad idea. A terrible idea.”
“Kiki.”
I shoved my feet into my shoes and grabbed my phone and key card, still searching inside for my dignity, feeling around for the shape of it. I grasped at something with its semblance, crossing the room, where I turned to face him, my hand curved around the cool of the metal door handle. Malakai’s hand flew to the back of his head; he looked like he felt bad, like he felt sorry, and I hated it. I wished his rejection was more brittle; it would have been easier for me to cut it cleanly from me. But this, whatever this irritatingly soft thing was, was clinging on to me, tacking on to my fingers as I attempted to peel it off. It was more brutal.
“Erm . . . we’re still on for this weekend at Ty’s, right?”
In my mortified haze, I replied something like, “Yeah! Sure!”—too light and garishly bright, like cheap jewelry. I know I blurted something about an early seminar we both knew I didn’t have before running back to my halls, as fast as my Ugg knockoffs would allow me to.
Chapter 20
“What’s up with her today? She didn’t stay up long enough to give us a break down of all the Missy Elliot productions between 1995 and 2005.” Shanti’s wry husk flowed through my sleep-addled brain from up front in the driver’s seat of Mimi the Mini Cooper （christened after Mariah, Shanti informed us）。
“Oh, she and Newbie had a fight or something. They’ll figure it out. I mean it’s not like he did cosplay for bants. He’s into my sis,” Aminah’s voice piped up from beside me. My mind was still too muddled to refute this. I hadn’t told Aminah the details but she was Aminah enough to detect that something was off and not to push it until I was ready.
I slowly blinked my eyes open behind the oversized sunglasses I’d slipped on to keep the sharp winter sun from them. And to hide my puffy, sleep-deprived eyes.
Shanti shrugged as she smoothly switched lanes on the motorway so we were in the right lane to turn off toward Ty’s country house. “He better not fuck this up with her. Somehow I know it was his fault.”
Chioma turned and reached back for the box of doughnuts situated between Aminah and I. “Which one is vegan? The Pistachio White Chocolate? Cool.” She picked one up. “Yeah, probably. Man, boys are idiots.”
Aminah hummed. “Tell me about it. Yesterday Kofi was moaning about the fact that I called him bro in front of his boys at FreakyFridayz. He was all, ‘Minah, I ain’t tryna be your bro. Why you tryna play me like that?’ Play you like what? ‘Bro’ is a neutral term of endearment.”
Shanti snorted. “Yeah, not gonna lie, I’m with Kof on this one. ‘Bro’ is the kiss of death.”
Chi cackled. “Do you hate his guts, Aminah? There are kinder ways to let him down.”
“Meenz,” I said, fully awake now. “I can’t lie—that’s pretty savage.” I stretched and pushed my sunglasses up to look at her. “But then you’re probably freaked out a little by how much you like him, so you called him bro to distance yourself from your own feelings.”
Aminah raised a brow. “Oh. She’s alive? Where were you at FreakyFridayz, hmm? Maybe if you were there you could have an opinion.”
I dipped into what was left of the box of doughnuts. “I was tired.”