Page 77 of Honey and Spice

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’sintomy 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 moaningabout 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 aneutralterm 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.”

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 haveusthis 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. “Weedbrownies, guys—”

A woop, a holler, and aWhy 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 forthe 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.”

“Thereshe 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, theQUEENShave 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 Cookinteetering 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.

“You’re the first squad to arrive.”

---