Aminah didn’t waste a second. “You were hiding.”
Aminah and Chioma stared at me. Shanti also pointedly glanced at me in the rearview mirror. I ignored them, and the truth, chewing slowly on my pistachio iced pastry.
Malakai and I had met at every FreakyFridayz by default for the past few weeks: it occurred seamlessly and whoever arrived first got the drinks and waited in our booth in the Cuffing Corner for the other to join. We would then people-watch, sip, talk, tease, or play our new favorite game—Which Celebrity Could You Feasibly Seduce?, in which we answered the titular question before breaking down how exactly it would occur. Our last round involved me and Trevante Rhodes at a house party （he would overhear me thoughtfully critiquing his last film and be intrigued） and in an impressive display of self-belief, Malakai’s fantasy saw him seducing Doja Cat, while he filmed her tour documentary.
I’d skipped yesterday’s FreakyFridayz, though, to recalibrate and to begin the work of convincing myself that what happened with Kai wasn’t a big deal. Not only was the rejection still too raw, but I was pretty certain Aminah would curse out Malakai’s entire lineage. Despite my humiliation, I didn’t think it was entirely fair that his great-grandchild be doomed to hideousness and a lack of rhythm just because he didn’t want to make out with me.
I exhaled and shifted uncomfortably in my seat. “I . . . we need space”—which was the truth. Aminah pressed her glossy lips together, arching her brows so high they met the rims of the Dior sunglasses perched on her head, but she said nothing.
I had no idea what I was supposed to do. Sustained space from Malakai was unfeasible at this time. Brown Sugar’s listeners were up by forty percent, and we were now the third most-listened-to show on campus. A few more weeks and it stood a chance at being number one, which would make my place on the program a shoo-in. There was also the guilty fact that Shanti and Chioma didn’t know the technicalities of my and Malakai’s relationship yet, something that had proved increasingly difficult the closer I got to them.
I swallowed. “I just want to get through this weekend, man. Linkups like these aren’t my thing and now Malakai and I are weird and—”
Shanti made a loud retching noise and glared at me through the rearview mirror. “No moaning in Mariah, unless it’s from me hooking up with a spice! Not only do you have us this weekend, you also have a footballer’s mansion with a hot tub.”
Aminah nodded. “Dassrite. We got tequila, you look cute, and Ty said in the group chat that we’re gonna do nineties and noughties karaoke, the era you’re the most annoying about—”
“And,” Chioma’s voice fizzed, “I made vegan brownies last night. They’re in the boot.”
Chioma sighed into the silence. “Weed brownies, guys—”
A woop, a holler, and a Why didn’t you say so? whipped the air in Mimi into a joyful frenzy that jolted through me and slid over the unease I felt about Malakai. I was going to a social event with a group of girls for the first time in a long time, and in the place of the stomach-tightening trepidation I expected came a thrum of warm comfort. I didn’t want to climb out of my skin or burrow myself further into it. I felt safe within it, with these three girls.
I laughed. “You’re right. My bad. Sorry for being a downer. Killa Keeks officially activated for the weekend.”
“There she is!” Aminah grinned.
The girls’ trills escalated as I connected my phone to the Bluetooth and selected a Destiny’s Child classic. “And she is feeling,” the beginning disparate twangs of the song filled the car, before we simultaneously shout-screamed, “So good!” A song title, a proclamation. We dove into the lyrics, punctuated by giddy giggles, hair flicks, and a lot of pointing as we informed an invisible nemesis that we were doing mighty fine.
“Lads, the QUEENS have arrived! Make yourself decent!” Ty’s muted voice bellowed through the wide doors of the stone farmhouse, a surprisingly elegant, nouveau riche–architectural concoction of both glass and stone, as they fell open and revealed his broad grin and handsome face. He was in his usual weather-ignorant attire of shorts and a T-shirt, an apron that read Mr. Good Lookin’ Is Cookin teetering on his broad torso.
While his father was a football star, Ty was an English-lit-studying, towering, bulked-out gentle Adonis who preferred chilling with his Blackwell crew to the chaotic raucousness of his rugby team, who were known to make jokes about the reason for his strength on the field. （He was Black! That was the joke.） His golden face glowed as he beckoned us into the warm amber crush of the house, scented with the expensive candles his mother owned, the faint aroma of BBQ, and a cocktail of colognes—within which Malakai’s, clean, inviting, and excruciating, rose to find me. My skin pricked.