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Without flipping my phone up, I silence it, pushing the button on its edge, as the edge of my own irritation smooths out in the face of the blunt earnestness in his gaze.

Bakari nods. ‘Thank you.’ He inhales deeply. ‘Would you be. . .Would you—’

My stomach turns with lobster linguini and doubt and App Launch wine and why didn’t he know I was joking when I said ‘Is little Solange OK?’ the first time we met and why does he have Adrinka symbols up his arm, but eats pounded yam with a fork and knife and has not one piece of African art up in this £3,000 pcm flat, and why does he let one of his business partners, a white American guy, call him ‘Barry’ for short because he says he reminds him of Barack Obama, whatever that means?

‘Be open to having a job at Oynx?’

‘I can’t marry you—’ It spills out, hot like lava, crashing over the question. I thought I’d swallowed it down, but it had got stuck to the roof of my mouth, ready to leap out and fuck up my relationship.

Bakari freezes the same time I do. I blink. ‘Wait, what did you mean by that?’ I ask.

Bakari releases my hand. ‘What didyoumean by that?’

I swallow steel. ‘You first.’

Bakari is jarringly matter of fact, despite the sharp wariness in his eyes. ‘You quit your job, Kiki. With no plan, except to, what, help out at your parents’ restaurant?’ I tilt my head at this, and he leans forward, some faded excitement finding its way through the perturbance. ‘Look, Oynx is developing a program that tracks Black music audiences, studying listening habits for gig organisers and streaming platforms, and you’re perfect to head the research division. Who knows that stuff more than you? I need an expert to lead the new venture, and I don’t know anyone who knows more about Black music than you.’

An uneasiness rises with the breeziness with which he says this. I can’t figure out if this is better or worse than a proposal. ‘I’m flattered that you would want me for that, but. . . Ihaveleads—’

‘What leads, Kiki? Grad-school applications?’

I smart. This stings like a premenstrual bikini wax, because Ihadactually been browsing law school applications today. I could work for the UN! Amal Clooney makes it look great. Due to the time I have on my hands, I recently bingedSuitsand came to the conclusion that I really do have the butt for Meghan Markle’s wardrobe. I was quite concerned with justice, having helped organise several protests in uni and attended several marches since and I’ve only cried during an argument with one person, who, thankfully, is no longer in my life so I get to pretend that it’s never happened.

‘Or are you going to go back topublishing?’ my boyfriend continues, the word ‘publishing’ sounding as if it might as well be ‘plantation’. Which, though technically isn’t too far off, considering what I went through there,heisn’t saying it like that for the right reasons.

‘I mean, even if you did, nothing will compare with working for Oynx. With this role, you’ll have a reliable,generoussalary. And you get to fuck the boss.’ I blink and cock my head. It’s hard to tell when Bakari is joking, because the light in his eyes doesn’t change. It’s steady. He’s always so steady. You know that Bakari’s joking when he says, ‘I’m joking, by the way.’ He tells, never shows. Now, his brow raises.

‘Kiki. I’m playing, babe. Although, yeah, preferably, we’ll still have sex.’

I muster something that I hope looks like a smile and try to calm myself down enough to think about it for a second. My handsome, mostly sweet,richboyfriend is offering me a job at his company where they get free poke bowls and a constantly replenished snack bar. The least I can do is consider it. I can call myself a woman in STEM non-ironically, and not just because I used a VPN so Aminah and I can watch the next season of Abbott Elementary.

Bakari was technically right. I didn’t have a plan, and it’s because I wasn’t supposed to quit the pod. It was two months ago, at a meeting discussing contract renewal with SoundSugar execs and my agent Nina in an office with yoga balls, a foosball table and a kombucha fridge. Sat in a meeting room christened the ‘Thought Womb’ (everything was a pastel pink) and in baffling transatlantic accents by way of Berkshire by way of Clapham, executives gushed about The Heartbeat, how they were so excited about itsdiversepower and how well the live shows went.

So far, so batshit normal.

Yet, there was this odd feeling of unease in my belly, a queasiness, and I glugged some kombucha to help before remembering that I Did Not Like It. I decided then to pivot to thinking about something soothing, so I swirled my top-five Mariah Carey key-changes around in my mind. I breathed easier and mentally ran over the facts: yes the execs had been slow to reply to my emails about potential ideas lately, but the tour had sold out, and my numbers were on an incline, and though not rapid, were steady, gradually finding more of its audience. Besides, I washerein their office, which was an architectural stock photo of ‘corporate machine made to look like a creative hub’. I was fine. SoundSugar brought up the possibility of doing a live show in New York, praising my ‘unique ability’ to talk to artists on ‘their level’. This was good news; they were still invested in me, and my agent Nina sidled me a small, confident look. I nodded, easier now.

‘That sounds great,’ I said. ‘How about Lagos too?’ and they smiled, teeth LA white, 2016 HBO millennial-coming-of-age-show white, and said, ‘Definitely! We’ll definitely try and look into that– definitely, definitely explore the possibility.’

And I, used to what the repetition of ‘definitely’ meant in this kind of environment (a regimented apparatus desperately masquerading as fun and chill and lax, something like a youth pastor in skinny jeans) offered, ‘You guys know I’m hands on with everything with my tours. And I know the infrastructure can be difficult if you’re not used to the environment, but I have loads of links and relationships on the ground. I can help with the planning. I just feel like it would be cool to branch out, talk to Nigerian artists in Nigeria, talk about craft, incorporate some stripped-back live performances– think NPR Tiny Desk...’ and they smiled harder, a little heavier, a little stiffer, and one of the execs, Tristram–fuckingTristram– nodded vigorously, a thoroughly conditioned lock of hair falling over his eyes so he could push it back. He reminded me of one of those Ken-doll-handsome topless models that used to stand outside American lifestyle stores in suburban malls in the noughties, stores fashioned in an old colonial beach-house style, aggressively selling a lie, well-scented husks that sold dysmorphia and fake-college hoodies, Harvard and hunger.

‘Yes, and that’s exactly what we love about you, Kiki. Your ability to connect widely. We love your passion.’

I’m passionate, it’s true, but I like to think I’m also smart, and, wondering whether they would put money right next to their kombucha– wondering how much their love was worth– I decided to push further since I was already here, voicing ideas that made them descend into cultural panic.

‘Mhmm, so I’ve actually been doing some research into gaps in the market, and how I could expand on the structure that I already have. I can email you the numbers and the info, but essentially this is a show about peeling back layers, discovery in art and community, so–’ and I pitched the idea that had been percolating in my mind: sourcing reclusive artists, the one-hit wonders who loved artistry more than the machinery of the music industry, the ones who retreated from the beast of fame rather than the magic of creation, of weaving something from nothing. Mostly, they would be from under-represented backgrounds, those who had been pushed out by not fitting into a mould or by refusing to do so. For the first time in a while, I was excited about it; The Heartbeat had been built from finding myself, trying to make sense of my pain, or at least soothe it, and I had done that. This, though, was new, something that could propel me forward.

The execs didn’t seem to share my excitement. Their faces were smiling, but forcibly vacant, trying to figure out the best way to say no without seeming racist–and not for the first time I wondered what my place here was. The thing with cultural panic from media bosses is that there is a line. They will either appease your ideas out of guilt– one exec carefully referred to me as a ‘woman of melenated global majority background’ (I am automatically suspicious of people who can’t just say Black)– or they will fear your ideas, want to control them, tamper with and tame them. I wondered what it would be this time.

After a short silence, another exec called Verity drawled, ‘Such an ambitious idea.’ She clawed her hand to punctuate her point, nude shellac tapping on the table like a deranged pianist. ‘Love it, definitely, definitely.’ Her French tips clinked against the glass surface and further pressed and repressed the buoyancy of my hope. ‘We totally agree about expansion, but, pivoting off that, we were thinking about broadening that appeal a bit in a way that makes sense with regard to what we are doing with The Heartbeat.’

When the queen died, Verity posted a picture of the queen in her youth, captioned ‘Thank you and rest in peace to the ultimate Girl Boss. You’re an inspiration to all of us x’. I remembered this as I felt myself stiffen, guard up. Who was ‘us’ and who were ‘we’? What about me pertained to herwe? Was I compromising myself by being tied to her ‘we’? Who did she think I was? I flicked a look to Nina on the left of me, who met my gaze immediately, her green eyes sharpened under long lashes made longer with an armour of pitch-black coating.

At this point, we have mastered the art of silent communication. Just a few years older than me, she signed me as her first client when she was an associate agent. As a multi-generational South Londoner who was the first person in her family to attend university, she got what it was to claw out space for yourself in places where you were told you didn’t quite fit. At a creative mixer whilst listening to former home-county denizens reminisce about family summers and their best meals in southern France and coastal Italy (something about locally sourced fresh fruit accessed because of family country houses next to orchards), Nina had taken a delicate sip of her champagne, nodded and demurred, ‘Yeah, I feel the same about Butlins. Their buffets were to die for.’

We were both young and scrappy and hungry, and the first thing she said to me over the flat white at the coffee shop round the corner of her office was, ‘Let me know what your dreams are and I’ll back you. There’s not enough people who are in this thing because of love and that’s enough for me to wanna be in this ride with you. And if someone’s moving mad I’ll get mad for you. And after that if you still wanna get mad, have at it.’

Nina could be severe or sweet depending on how she wanted to use it. Her grandma managed a pub and had once stabbed a man with a shard of broken pint glass to defend a woman from a man getting too handsy–and she had got away with it. Right now, with her painted red lips and auburn hair gelled into a slick bun, she looked like she was channelling that power. Her back straightened up in protection, she angled her head so her small gold hoops glinted in the winter sun streaming through the wide Soho windows.