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So all I say in reply is, ‘Sorry I disappointed the spirit of your grandad. I mean you stomached all that pepper only for me to end up not being your future wife.’

Malakai guffaws and shakes his head. ‘I wouldn’t stress. You were as close as it’s ever gonna get so I think he’d be cool with it. I don’t think I’m ever gonna get married. I don’t think I’m built for it. Just one of them things. I don’t think it’s for me.’

A knowledge tilts within me, and I can’t figure out if it’s comforting or discomforting. Was I forcing him to be who he wasn’t? What was real with us? In a way, it should be liberating to know that maybe we were never supposed to be together. In another, it kills me, twists the memory of us into something you’d see in a trick mirror, a joke, a nonsense.

I clear my throat of a stupid little hurt. ‘I thought you said you didn’t really listen to the podcast? Because. . .I dunno. . .you kind of gave Soraya a comprehensive breakdown.’

Malakai chuckles, leaning over his knees. ‘You have to drive a lot in LA. Traffic. I had a lot of time on my hands and I’d already finished listening to my Bible audiobook.’

‘Ah, the one narrated by Katt Williams?’

Malakai roars with laughter, and again I’m lit up, places I forgot existed re-energised, ghost towns coming alive, machinery churning into movement. It’s a headfuck, how our connection tilts us like a seesaw.

‘Yeah, exactly. Joseph finding out the baby wasn’t his hit different.’ He straightens and turns to me, eyes glittering, ‘Seriously, Kiki. Do you know how gassed I was back there? I’m sorry if I went a little crazy or overstepped. It’s just. . .that big boss lady recognisedyou.Do you know how sick that is? Your work is real and it speaks. It always has. I saw you get spooked a little. I don’t know what’s going on, but I need you to remember who you are. If you don’t, I got you. During this process, I mean.’

Malakai holds my gaze so tightly it draws me closer to him. It must do, which is why I find my thighs pressed up against his, his bare arms kissing up on the thin mesh covering mine, his heat unsettling truths such as This Is A Bad Idea, and We Could Never Get Back Together and I Can Live Without The Tongue Thing He Does. Those truths toss and turn so violently with his proximity that they break in half, and those halves break into halves and so on until the truths turn to dust, and I am suddenly not sure if they were truths to begin with or copes I constructed to look like them.

‘We’re on a mission,’ he volunteers into our quiet as if reminding himself.

I nod and look around for the first time, noticing the intricacies of the garden, with two terraces, and a set of backlit stairs that seems to be the only place free of people. An idea takes hold of me, moving my mouth before my brain has time to resist, to call it Bad.

‘Follow my lead.’

Malakai’s mouth ticks up in intrigue as I flick my head to gesture at him to rise. I get up, slip my phone out of my clutch, pressing my index to my tragus on one ear and my phone to the other.

‘Hey, my darling.’ My voice has become a slightly transatlantic drawl with a posh Lagosian curve nipped from the Bakare sisters. ‘OK, so where did you say you were?’ I ask my phantom friend loudly as I stride towards the stairs where one bouncer seems to be loitering. ‘Oh, OK, sure–yeah, I’ll be there in a second—’ I walk with purpose, heels clicking against the patio, speaking loudly, and walk straight down the stairs, Malakai right behind me, just as the young-looking bouncer interjects with, ‘Sorry, ma’am—’

I turn round, faux distractedly. ‘Sorry, one second, sweetie,’ I say into the phone as I shoot the bouncer a dazzling smile. ‘I’m sorry, sir, is there a problem?’ I twitch as if someone is arguing with me on the other side of the line. ‘Oh, honey, no, no, one of your bouncers is stopping me. . .No, I’m on my way, M–No, no, you don’t need to come down. I don’t want any trouble. He’s just doing his job.’ I turn my gaze to him and mouth ‘Sorry!’

He shakes his head and says, ‘No, I’m sorry, ma’am. Please go right through.’ I shoot him a candied grin of gratitude. ‘Oh, thanks so much–you’re a doll. Can my assistant come through too? What was your name, by the way?’

‘Of course. And my name’s Zane.’

I touch the bouncer’s elbow, look him in the eye and watch him blush. ‘Thank you, Zane. You’re such a sweetheart.’

I continue my sashay down the steps, and Malakai whispers into my ear, so close that I shiver, ‘That was impressively genius, batshit insane and slutty. I’m kind of scared of you.’ I nod in gracious acceptance of the compliment, ignoring a tiny dancing plume of desire pirouetting between my legs. ‘Very kind of you to say. It was nothing.’

‘Yeah, that’s what scares me.’

Malakai steps in front of me to haul open the heavy cedar door at the base of the steps, as I say, ‘OK, so I reckon that conversation is too long to figure out who M is. We need to go out in the field. Explore.Go off the beaten track. Going upstairs is too passé, butdownstairs? I bet that’s where all the secrets lie— Oh my God—’

Malakai and I walk into a semi-open enclosure that boasts asubgarden–a garden within a garden, looking like an enchanted glade, shrubs illuminated in the dark, large looming trees forming a loose fence around a glass construction in the middle, within which I see a blue, glittering pool. A patio path is set within the shrubs leading up to it, and Malakai turns to me, face split open in a grin.

‘Midnight swim.’

‘Are you serious?’

Malakai hitches a shoulder in a shrug, that lustre in his eyes calling me to cavort, we’rehereand we’re here. ‘We’re at a ridiculous party thrown by a mysterious culture-shifter. We’re virtually anonymous. Give me one reason why we shouldn’t?’

I try to form one, just one, but there’s a growing heat within me, and it desiccates all the ingredients I need for reason, such as sense and emotional self-preservation, because, let’s face it, I am toasting my hands on a friendly fire that threatens to blaze into an inferno. Malakai Korede is going to put me in trouble. Malakai Korede is currently putting me inside trouble. I want to put Malakai Korede inside my trouble.

He turns to look at me, smile slanting in a way that makes my heartbeat tumble, and says, ‘You good?’ and the answer is no. No, I am not ‘good’, I am fucking great, actually, like after you’ve taken a post-operative opioid and you don’t feel any of the searing pain you’ve been through, but instead a strange, euphoric joy, as if you’re floating above reality. This is fine.

‘Yeah. I’m good,’ I say, terrified, because I mean it.

Malakai, ever the gentleman, turns round as I peel my dress off, revealing my lacy black bra, my thong, folding my discarded clothing carefully and placing it on the purple-and-white terry-cloth lounge chair by the indoor pool. The light is low, the four corners of the glass structure glowing a muted gold that approximates the light of a sleeping sun, and through the glass ceiling, stars blink, saying–it seems– Sis, what the hell do you think you’re doing?

The truth is I’m not thinking at all, just feeling.