I pause and turn to the blinking lights of the night and I taste the lie in my words. They don’t fit in my mouth right; they leave a tang my palate rejects. I shake my head. ‘Except I don’t really want that. I want to be an extremely glamorous artist who owns a dog with a man who dotes on her. There’s nothing wrong with that, right?’
Deji shoots me a small, gentle smile with eyes so soft I feel myself slowly sinking into them. I feel no need to be hoisted up.
‘There’s nothing wrong with that. I feel you. Dating is the fucking worst. First of all, there’s so much pretence involved, right? Like, the first few dates you’re basically performing a polished, cooler version of yourself. And that’s even if you find someone you want to go on a date with. Then there’s the pressure, you know? Both of you are on a date and you know it’s for one purpose. You want it to work out. Then, when it doesn’t, you’re disappointed, and somehow, within that disappointment, you gotta find it in you to build yourself up to do it all over again.’
I click my fingers in the air in affirmation. ‘This. Is. It! I just wish you could skip the awkward clumsy beginning part and get to the fun part. Meeting someone who just gets you. Feeling that alchemy of time and circumstance. Right place and right time with someone who isn’t so emotionally unavailable that they can commit to a pet guinea pig they take on a world tour but not you having a sock drawer in their apartment.’
‘That came from a deep place, huh?’
‘The bassist.’ My dry chuckle rolls into a groan and I splay a hand over my face. ‘Shit, why do I keep putting myself through this?’
Through my fingers I see Deji shrug. ‘Hope, innit. That’s not a bad thing. It’s not a character failing.’
My hand slips from my face and it rests on the balcony railing, next to his. We’re standing so close together that our legs are bumping and grazing each other. Deji’s gaze glitters with an overflow of something roiling within him and it fastens me to the spot. A comforting warmth spreads and settles itself within me.
‘By the way,’ he says, breaking the silence, ‘stripper and thug is an excellent combo, and if this is it, you pull it off well. You look like somebody’s crush off of a nineties sitcom.’
I smile. ‘Thank you. That’s super sweet and super specific.’
‘I had a huge crush on Ashley Banks.’
Heat soars up to my cheeks. ‘I see you’re a big fan of Fresh Prince.’
‘It was my favourite show.’
I laugh. ‘Imagine if all dates were as easy as this? Learning each other’s favourite childhood shows, witnessing each other’s romantic fuck-ups close-up, seeing how terrible the other is at kissing—’
Deji holds up a hand in censure, face dead serious. ‘You’re crossing a line. That was all her. There was no saving it. I’ll have you know, Orin Adu, that I am a badman lipser.’
‘Bold claim.’
‘I don’t talk shit I can’t back up.’
His voice dips in tenor and its bass reverberates through me as his eyes pin breath to the back of my throat, slowing time. The muted thumping of the Erykah Badu song playing in the bar slows and inverts in my ear, as if we’re rupturing through temporal and physical confines, because I have no idea how much time has passed now and the ground beneath my feet feels immaterial compared to the knowledge that I’m coming into. I can feel the weight of what this is pressing up against my chest, I can feel the heady fullness of what this could be making my heart giddy. There have been very few moments in my life where I have been staunchly confident, but at this very second, I have the unwavering assurance that not only is Deji a badman lipser, I will also not have to take his word for it.
He smiles with those plush-looking lips that look like they’re fashioned from marble and cloud. ‘You know, in theory, if we go somewhere else, get another drink and maybe a bite to eat, this can count as a first date. Technically, it’s kind of perfect, because we don’t have each other’s numbers. If we have a shit time, we can both go home and forget about it. If one person asks for the other’s number and the other isn’t feeling it, they are under no obligation to say yes.’
‘I’m sorry, is this your way of asking me out?’
‘If you’re about to say no, then no.’
I grin. ‘As long as you promise not to play me like a toy . . . peng boy,’ I say, paraphrasing the profound words of Lissa Underscore Loves.