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‘Great.’

‘Fantastic.’

Malakai looks like he’s about to add a ‘stupendous’ when a drunken ‘Keeks!’ shatters through the tensile atmosphere. We turn to see my inebriated best friend marching in heels with a balance that could see her successfully audition for Cirque du Soleil. ‘I’ve been looking for you!’ She must really be waved, because I have not moved for a while. ‘Chioma says she wants to perform a spoken word poem for us and I amnotletting you escape this. You must suffer with me! No bitch left behind! I saw the first line. It’s “Aminah and Kofi. . . love that brings to life like the first sip of coffee. . .”’ She shudders, and then her eyes drift to Malakai, realisation shadowing them before they snap back to me, sharp with alarm. ‘Uh uh. Not this. I’m getting déjà vu. Please tell me this isn’t what I think it is—’

I shrug easily. ‘Malakai and I were just working out our shit. We’re cool now. One big happy family for your wedding season.’

Aminah raises a sceptical brow, and folds her arms across her chest, eyes bouncing between us. ‘Just like that.’

A pleasant, saccharine, popstar smile appears on Malakai’s face. ‘Just like that. We realised we needed to. . . talk things out. Past completely scrubbed. We brand new. Ain’t that right, Kiki?’

I nod, stepping back from his increased proximity. ‘Right.’

Past completely scrubbed. What does that even mean when your concept of love was shaped by how someone looked at you, saw you, knew you, touched you, like you were the essence of life itself? It means that they didn’t see what you had like you did. Which means you never really had it at all. My chest hollows out a little, which is confusing, because there is nothing lost, no hope, no love.Weare nothing. I push out a smile that’s hospital-fluorescent-light bright.

‘Absolutely,’ I say. ‘It’s like we never even happened.’

Chapter 6

Carnation Contentment

Somehow, through a gross miscalculation on my part, Malakai and I are the only two people left waiting for our taxis after a flurry of hugs and kisses– ‘You sure your taxi’s on the way?’– mild threats of violence deployed in the case that one of us doesn’t text when we arrive home safely and Aminah squeezing my elbow, shooting a sharp look at Malakai and whispering for me to ‘be good’.

We are standing apart, facing the quietening East London high street. There’s a yawning revelry mingling in the cool night air as we watch buses wheeze past along with taxis carrying picante buzzed Shoreditch House stragglers, sleeping, kissing, watching their own night back on their phones lest the good time slips through their fingers, vigilantly watching to see if their crush has seen the carefree selfie, chosen from sixty-seven identical pictures.

Like a hazy, drunk apparition, a man with a handlebar moustache and a bucket hat arrives to claim a haphazardly docked Lime bike. I bite my lip to keep my smile in, but it trips out and without realising what I am looking for I turn to my left and catch Malakai’s gaze, and fuck, no, there it is. His eyes, waiting for mine, the light in them leaping out at me.

‘You see that too, right? Like, I’m not imagining that.’

I shrug. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about– Oh, wait, you mean the Victorian ghost bike rider? Mr Ramsbottom? You don’t know about him? You’ve been in the States too long, man. Came here from 1863 a few months back. Just one of those regular London things, you know. Like how you’re never really too far away from someone who used to be inSkins.’

‘Is that true?’

‘I feel like it should be.’

It’s a nonsense conversation and it feels easier to float into this to avoid the emotional intensity that’s wedged itself in the air between us. I clear my throat and check my phone– only four more minutes.

Malakai looks at me rigidly from where he’s stood, half a metre away, as if the jasmine-and-pink-pepper fragrance I’m wearing is a pathogen. ‘Where’s your man? I thought you said he was delayed.’

I swallow, and focus on my phone, ready to lie, but I find that my tongue can’t make its way around the words, too used to telling him the truth, even with the abyss between us, the Unsaid and TooMuchSaids swirling stickily in the air.

‘He wasn’t delayed.’ I swallow and look up, meeting Malakai’s gently curious gaze as he turns half a step to me, a hand in his pocket. ‘He wasn’t going to come in the first place. We. . . we’re sort of. . . on a break.’

Malakai turns to me fully now with an interest that’s stark naked, his brow slightly creased. ‘Why did you—’

I snap, chin up, ‘I wasn’t really in the mood to divulge the specificities of my relationship status to you.’

Malakai holds my gaze before nodding slowly. ‘Understandable.’ He pauses, and his eyes dance across my features. His face is inscrutable, but I can almost taste the flavour of the light in his gaze, sharp and sweet. ‘I’m sorry to hear that. I hope you guys work it out.’

I huff a corrosive chuckle. ‘Yeah, OK.’

Vague annoyance flits over his features in a way that pronounces the strength of his brows, the malleable sensuality of his lips. ‘You know, believe it or not, Kiki, I’m not badmind. Your misery doesn’t make me happy.’

I baulk and turn to him sharply. ‘Excuse the fuck out of you. Who said I’m miserable? Do I look miserable to you?’

Malakai runs his eyes across my form, and he makes me acutely aware of the fact that I forwent a bra, of how the evening breeze has hardened small softness, how the satin of my dress kisses my hips. I feel like I’m standing on honeyed quicksand. His eyes flick back up to meet mine, face betraying nothing, but his jaw is tense. ‘No.’

He sniffs and scratches the bridge of his nose, looking back out into the street. His voice is casual, like he’s just speaking to pass time. ‘So, what does that mean? You’re happy about the break?’