Page 52

The air in the natatorium is temperate so there’s no reason why there should be goosebumps on my skin, but there is no reason why I should be here either and here I am, so here the goosebumps are. We’ve been meticulous about our spontaneity; surveying the space earlier, we saw a door at the far end that led into a luxe shower-room, in which we found neatly folded (presumably) clean towels and a hairdryer, alleviating fears that we would have to tread damply back to the party while dripping evidence of our delinquency.

Malakai walks to the corner of the room where there’s a system speaker. He fiddles with it, says, ‘This room is soundproof,’ and for the first time, I notice it, how there’s not a sound to be heard but us, our footsteps, our breathing, our decisions. While his back is to me, I use the steps to descend into the pool, to submerge myself slowly, readying myself for the smart of cold water, but nothing comes. It feels warm, just right, light on my skin. I jump in just as Lucky Daye’s crooning fills the space from Malakai’s phone to the speakers, licking at my senses just as the water laps gently against me, welcoming me. Malakai walks back towards the pool, and I try to extend him the same courtesy as he did me, focusing on swimming and treading water as he strips himself of his clothes, but I snag on his snug boxer briefs, and air becomes iron in my throat. My gaze drops to his thighs, sturdy, muscular and thick, and how did I miss that when we had sex two months ago? Maybe it was for the best that I did. I might have lost more of my senses, because the wide plains of his chest was enough to blow the wind out of mine. Malakai has always worked out as a way to work through things, clear himself of thoughts, and it seems he’s had a lot to work through in the past couple of years. It’s more than that though. It’s how his body fills the space he moves through, as if making the air bow for him. An ownership of his physicality that makes my pulse skitter. He jumps in and laughs at my squeal at the splash, hands protecting my made-up face, and then we find ourselves in a corner, me with elbows leaning against a step as my feet float, Malakai stood in front of me, water just above his waist.

We look at each other like this for a few moments, soaking in the absurdity, the air between us fraught and smoky, and I don’t know if it’s because of the heat between us or the destruction from our world-end.

‘I have something to tell you.’ Malakai’s eyes flick from my face to the curves of my chest hovering against the line of the water. The thrill of his obvious desire is a drug, sending electricity and bad ideas through my veins, and I try to metabolise the energy into the strength necessary to survive the moment.

‘Yeah? What’s that?’

‘I’m M.’

I snort at Malakai’s blank face, at the telling twinkle of his eye, and it’s a beat before he laughs with me, gaze sobering.

‘Nah, you were right. About the song. Me and Taré’s song.’

I cool, swirling my arms through the water for a while, trying to configure my thoughts. ‘We don’t have to talk about it. You don’t owe me anything.’

Malakai’s voice is low, gentle. ‘I know, but I’m willing to be open about it. If you want me to be. At the end of the day thisisfucking weird. I dunno how I would feel if my boss was someone you’d. . .been with.’

A rigid laugh ekes out of me, with a little relief. ‘I mean, you wouldn’t take the job. Such is the male ego.’

Malakai chuckles, dips his head, scratches his jaw, looks at the water. ‘Yeah, I guess you’re right.’

My smile fades. ‘Go ahead.’

Malakai looks at the gently rippling azure of the water. ‘Uh, OK. So we met, like, two months into me being in LA. At a party.’

My stomach dives in the deep end. Two months? That was like three months after we broke up. That’sit? That’s the amount of time it took him to jump into bed with someone else? I was still holed up in my room wailing to Summer Walker and huffing peanut butter, jar to jowl. I stay still, because I don’t want any hurt or misplaced anger to slosh out of my eyes now that we’re doing relatively OK. I keep my face clean of feeling.

‘Oh,’ I say. Welldone,Keeks. Maturation. Void of chalants.

Malakai looks up, eyes, not apologetic, but empathetic–as if he understands how the revelation could wound. ‘I was. . .a fucking mess, Kiki. I was in this new city where I knew no one but my boss. I’d just lost so much that I felt lost myself. I felt like I was an imposter, living someone else’s life. Felt like I was sleepwalking half the time, honestly. And I was at one of them Hollywood parties where everybody pretends to be best friends whilst secretly hating each other. Some fuck-off house in the Hills. Kinda like this, actually. I’m tripping out. And I’m drinking too much, and just getting frustrated–people are talking to me, right, but it’s like they’re talking to me because they like theideaof talking to Matthew’s latest protégé, and I’m exotic you know, Black, but British.’ He laughs lightly. ‘So they’re treating me like some sort of specimen. Which makes no sense because so is Matthew—’

‘Yeah, but Matthew speaks like he’s out of an Agatha Christie novel. And he doesn’t have your face.’ I don’t say it as a compliment, but as a fact.

Malakai gives me a slip of a smile. ‘Anyway, someone offers me some stuff, some young white director dude. I say something like, “Nah, not really about it,” and thentheysay something very, very fucking racist about what he “knows” I get up to. Said I can be “myself”, that I don’t need to pretend around him. Then. . .well, I kinda lose it. Get up in his face. It’s like. . .it’s like I’ve been dying for a reason to lose my shit and then this Quentin Tarantino-wanna-be motherfucker has given me the reason.’

His eyes flash with old anger and he’s straightened his right hand like a blade, jabbing his left hand with it to punctuate his words. ‘I been waiting for one. And Taré’s been watching all this from where she’s been standing in the corner–had no idea she was there. She interrupts the fight, whispers to me, “I’m gonna give you two choices. You can either stay and fuck up your career, or you can come with me and have a great rest of your evening.”’ He pauses, clears his throat of nothing. ‘So. I follow her up to one of the rooms.’

I swallow and fight the tightening feeling in my stomach. I’m reeling from the revelation of Malakai’s loneliness, of his anger, at what might have happened if Taré wasn’t there.

Malakai misunderstands my silence and says, ‘I can stop.’

I shake my head because I have a feeling that Malakai needs to get it out, and I am here in the tacit capacity of ‘friend’.

‘We’re in it now.’

Malakai rolls out a hollow chuckle and nods, running a hand across the back of his head. ‘Anyway, we start talking. She said she heard my accent and immediately knew what I was going through. Said she’s been going through it too. Said she was lost too. This was just before she quit everything. We smoked a lot. Drank a lot.’ The unspokenfucked a lotpunches me in my gut and I swallow the blunt pain. ‘And, yeah, it became this. . .casual situation. We were both trying to forget. Both coming from bad break-ups, emotional shit, and we both didn’t want to talk about it. We didn’t really wanna feel anything. We spoke about work a bit and we felt like we got each other in that sense, but, if I’m being honest, that was the main connection. Chasing numbness. Not wanting to feel anything real. It wasn’t necessarily emotional, but. . . we had an understanding. We got what each other wanted at that time.’

It twists in my stomach, but I surprise myself by understanding, clarity cutting through the petty jealousy. They were two single hurting people wanting to stop the hurt in a city where no one really knew them.

‘I mean on a regular day it would be wild that I was hooking up with Taré Souza, but in the mental state I was in everything felt like a hallucination anyway. And also. . .I kind of didn’t see her like that? You know, Taré Souza, the artist we listened to? I guess because I met her in a different context. And Taré’s great close up, but I also realised she’s just human. Normal. And going through what I was going through. So it was kinda like. . .why wouldn’t this happen? It lasted about a month. It was a haze. It sort of. . .fizzled out. We both knew that it was gonna end. We checked in with each other once in a while, but we knew it wasn’t like. . .athing.We stayed friends. Just friends.’

I nod slowly, managing to keep my feelings in check, ignoring the acuteness of my relief.

Malakai moves to stand next to me in the water, leaning against the wall. He pauses, splashes lightly, face tight from balancing emotion. ‘That was a dark time for me, Scotch. I wasn’t myself. I didn’t want to feel like myself. And when Taré was talking about it I was reminded of it. I’d blocked it out. And I feel like I haven’t been able to look at it–or, like, I dunno,allowedmyself to look at it like a dark time for a long time. I think I need to say it out loud to avoid going back there.’

The warm light kisses the planes of his face and adds a fluorescence to the sheen of moisture on his skin.I look straight ahead because I know Malakai doesn’t want to feel like he’s being examined right now.