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The assistant returns with a bottle, suspiciously on time, and enquires brightly, ‘So what do we say, ladies? Is it a yes to the dress?’

‘No,’ Aminah says, staring at her Caesar salad, after coming back from the restaurant bathroom, ‘this is all wrong. I asked for the dressing to be on the side.’ Her eyes flick up at me. ‘Why didn’t you tell them when they put it down? You know I like to control the pour.’

I sip my Provence rosé and keep my face as delicate as its finish because I know that this is not about me. I tilt my head to the side. ‘Why didn’t you go with the dress, Meenz? You loved it.’

She stabs at her salad, apparently forgetting all about my negligence. ‘I mean yeah, I definitely did, but maybe my mum is right. I don’t want it to look like I’m buying the dress just because her friend’s daughter got hers from the same vendor. I set trends! I don’t follow them! Remember when I started doing slick-back ponies in uni and then everyone started doing slick-back ponies? Besides, Sekemi Lawal– said friend’s daughter–deliberately splashed me when we were at a beach house in Lagos once when we were fourteen, because I was talking to a guy that I didn’t know was her crush. OK, maybe I did know a bit, but she was kind of a bitch before that. She would love it way too much if she thought I was copying her!’

I reach out to hold her hand, biting at my smile. ‘Hey. Nothing can ever stop Aminah Bakare from being original. That dress was stunning andyou.This wedding should be about whatyouwant. It isn’t about copying. You wanted a dress from that designer for years, babe. You’re gonna let some frenemy stop you from doing that?’

Aminah relaxes, and squeezes my hand, some of the stress and irritability eking out of eyes that were glimmering a little when she returned from the bistro bathroom. ‘You’re right. They said I can decide in a week anyway.’ She delicately tugs the skin by her eyes upwards with her forefingers. ‘Ugh,sorry, it’s just... having to hear all of these opinions all the time is driving me crazy! And not just my mum, but, God love her, Kofi’s mum too, who I adore, but, you know, she has no daughters and she wants me to wear the lace gloves her mother wore at her wedding. No offence, but I don’t want to look like a Victorian ghost bride! Plus, the other day at work, my manager Charlotte said she would be letting me take the lead with the Tolami Benson athleisure-line campaign, which is an amazing opportunity for me to flex, because I know she sees me as her little grasshopper and is grooming me for her job for when she becomes account director and then Ollie–you know, my work nemesis, goes–’ she adopts a light, Chelsealite drawl– ‘“That’s super exciting! A lot to take on with wedding stuff, though. Charlotte, let me know if you need me to share the load with Aminah,” with this bullshit smile to me. You know the one where the eyes look dead and their lips go flat?’

‘What a bitch.’

Aminah’s eyes widen. ‘O?éo! Exactly. Obviously trying to muscle in on my path to being the Comms and Branding Queen I was born to be!’ Aminah flutters her eyes closed and inhales deeply. She shimmies her shoulders, shaking the stress off. Then she puts her hands together in prayer and smiles serenely, gaze open and warm. ‘And I am back. Bad energy, stay far away. Please, distract me. Tell me about you. What have you been up to?’

I spear a cocktail of chicken, lettuce and crouton onto my fork and slide it into my mouth, crunching slowly. I haven’t told her about what happened with Malakai a month ago. I’ve barely told myself. I don’t see him for nearly three years and thesecondI lay eyes on him I’m in his bed? Well, on the couch of his suite? Extremely disappointing. Malakai had texted me when I got home that night.

Just making sure you’re home safe. Take care.

Takecare?Basically a ‘fuck you’. I thumbs-upped the message in reply. What was I supposed to say?Yeah, I’m home safe technically, but, the thing is, am I safe from you? Because my skin is still tingling where you touched me and when you called me Scotch a part of me I thought was dead twitched just like my pussy does whenever I think of you stroking me in front of the London skyline, which is bad because you clearly resent me, a notion proven by the fact that you just told me to ‘take care’ like I’m a casual hook-up from a party and not someone you dated for five years. Shit. I am a casual hook-up from a party. Never mind. Ignore all of this. Also, fuck you too!

I just didn’t think I could say that. It would compromise the cool, evolved, aloof stance I’ve decided to assume. I’m a grown-up. Exes have sex all the time and go on to live perfectly healthy lives afterwards. We haven’t spoken since because there’s nothing to say. We had emotionless sex because we wanted to. That’s it. Still, I need to unpack this to someone. This is partly the reason I suggested a lunch after the fitting at a cute little bistro in Greenwich round the corner from the boutique. Yes, to give Aminah space to decompress after what I knew would be a high-stress situation, but also to detangle what’s been on my mind for the past month. I venture into it carefully. I don’t think she’ll judge, but somehow I don’t think her directive to ‘be good’ included sex with Malakai. Some might say it expressly meantnotdoing that.

‘Um,’ I say, garnering all the strength I can from salad and rosé, ‘I’ve been up to quite a bit actually,’ just as Aminah pulls her glass from her mouth and splays a hand across her chest like a truth is bursting forth.

‘Wait, oh my gosh, quickly, by the way, I have to say I’m very impressed that you and Malakai are managing to be grown about your break-up. Kofi says he’s barely mentioned you. With you looking the way you look? I mean I can’t lie, I really thoughtMalakai was gonna try and spin the block at the engagement party. And you’re, like, all vulnerable after the Bakari thing... I just figured, I dunno, you might have done something silly. I mean can you imagine?’ Her face is a picture of perfect horror at the idea. I force a laugh out of my tightened throat, my words suddenly becoming too tough and bulky to cough out.

‘No. . .’

‘I mean the HBO drama! And God knows the last things I need right now are more liabilities and contingencies, and I don’t know what my maid of honour and best man getting into asituationwould be if not a liability and contingency. I just need good, peaceful vibes. Please promise me that you’ll continue to, like. . . not.Letting Malakai Korede put you inside trouble is not what you need right now. It would be a regression too, you know? You’ve come so far.’

I have been gently frowning and nodding in bland agreement whilst she’s speaking, my thoughts spinning, palms prickling, and it’s only when she tilts her head at me in enquiry that I realise that I am still nodding and smiling like someone who has been lobotomised. So, instead, I smile widely, brightly, manically, like someone who is on opioids, before chocking out a laugh that comes out far, far more high pitched than I intended.

‘Exactly. Imagine the mess? No, nothing is happening between Malakai and I–’ the truth– ‘and nothing ever will’– an ardent belief.

‘I’m proud of you, Keeks,’ Aminah says so sweetly that I feel sour. She shakes her head. ‘Sorry, my bad, I interrupted–you were telling me what you’ve been up to?’

Somehow, from within the spin of my mind, I’m able to pluck out something coherent and true. ‘Oh! Um! So. Don’t freak out.’

‘I will not.’

‘Thank you—’

‘. . . promise such a thing.’

‘Must you do that every time?’

Aminah beams. ‘Of course. It’s fun. You fall for it every time.’

‘OK, well, seriously. I had to sign an NDA for this, so please, please, don’t tell anyone.’

Aminah gasps. ‘Oh my gosh. Which rapper did you sleep with? How could you not tell me? Is it gonna embarrass me? Tell me if I need to fix my face to remain neutralnow.’

I reach out and grab her wrists. ‘Aminah, I have not slept with a rapper.’

Aminah relaxes, relief sagging through her body. ‘Oh, thank God. I just think we are too grown for our voice notes to be used in interludes. Although I would approve if it was, like, an exceptionally sexy one. Like Skepta. So what’s up?’

Despite the uneasiness of the prior few minutes, I allow myself to feel some positivity, some light after a tumultuous month. It’s fine that I didn’t tell Aminah what happened between Malakai and I. All it would do is give her something to stress about, and it’s not anything to stress about at all–in fact, I really doubt we’ll see each other until the wedding. I’m actually very unbothered about it. It was just good sex with people who know each other’s bodies. The crying thing was just an aftershock from seeing my ex for the first time in a couple of years. Emotionally healthy, and normal. A cleansing, actually, and now I’m purified from the noxiousness of love and lust for Malakai Korede. Telling her would be pointless andselfish,if anything. In fact, this is one of the few moments in life that one can tangibly pinpoint as a moment of radical selflessness. I’m comfortable with this reasoning, and relax back into the moment.