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Bakari looks at me like I’m a three-year-old talking about her imaginary friend. ‘I don’t actually believe we have spirits.’

‘How were we ever together?’

‘We were both extremely good-looking Black people at a party with sort of racist white people.’ My laugh leaps out of me, propelled by a surprise flash of the guy I’d thought I’d fallen in love with. ‘That was a joke by the way.’ Bakari smiles and steps to me, pulling the roses from my arms, placing them carefully against the wall with impressively semi-wild abandon and pulling me into a hug. ‘For what it’s worth, Kiki, I do think I loved you. As far as I could.’

‘I know. Same.’ I pause. ‘Sorry if I sounded harsh before. I think I got carried away—’

Bakari’s chuckle is warm. ‘Don’t worry about that. I don’t take it personally. I do think how I see things could be seen as shallow. The difference is I don’t see anything wrong with that. We’re just incompatible.’ He releases me, but his hands stay on my waist. It feels comfortable, affectionate, like we’re friends– actual friends, maybe for the first time that we’ve known each other.

‘So.’ His lips spike playfully. ‘You’re really not taking the job?’

‘Bakari, come on.’

‘Kiki, forget about us. I’ve cut you a great deal. I know you and SoundSugar don’t have the best of relationships, but you can use it to your advantage. It’s way more money. It’s a consistent cheque.’ He looks up and flicks his chin at Sákárà. ‘And you could use it to buy this place. Hire someone to run it on the day to day. Think about it, OK?’

I waver. SoundSugar did me dirty, and now they’re almost definitely using me to launder their reputation after a flopped deal, but there’s a bigger picture here: Sákárà. My parents’ legacy. Building something larger than me. And there’s also the fact that I might have to go backwards to do it. The Heartbeat was such a huge part of my life, healing me when I needed it, but I feel like I’ve outgrown it, needing only to use the components that made it tick into a new configuration. Or maybe I’m just being an idiot, and I need to check out the second job that this very rich man is offering me.

Bakari kisses my forehead as I brace my hands on his arms. ‘Think about it, Kiki.’ He cups my face with a hand. ‘Take care.’ He grins, widely, genuinely. ‘I love you.’

And I know how he means it, because when I say, ‘I love you too, Chef,’ I mean it in the same way, like I’m glad I met him, like we served our purposes in each other’s lives, like if I see him out, I’ll be happy to see him, like if we have anything, at least it’s that very awkward time in bed where we tried to be kinky and it went horribly wrong.

A pointed clearing of a throat causes my hands to drop from Bakari’s arms, and I turn to the door to see Malakai, face blank, headset round his neck, looking everywhere but our faces.

‘We’re about to start shooting.’ He doesn’t wait for a second longer before dipping back into the restaurant.

Amusement suffuses Bakari’s face. ‘I think he’s pissed.’

I pick the bouquet of roses up off the ground. ‘Good.’

Chapter 14

Live at Sákárà, No Letting Go

‘It’s not working.’ Taré has called cut for the fifth time during the shoot and Malakai grits his teeth, manages to compose it into a smile and pulls down his headset. ‘What’s up, Taré? Reminder, we have limited time.’

Taré rolls her eyes. ‘We have all the time in the world to get it right. Thishasto be right.’ She points to a couple who are supposed to be taken over by lust, dancing to her music in the middle of the dance floor, a symbol of herself, lit in gold in a darkened atmosphere. ‘That couple isn’t doing it for me.’

The actors untangle awkwardly. I feel bad for them, but she isn’t wrong. Whilst the small audience has a mix of regular people for authenticity, we picked professionals as the main couple in the video so it would be a little easier to direct, and they’re gorgeous–both with smooth, dark skin, the girl with a close-cropped cut and the guy with locs–but they’re stilted, relying solely on their beauty, focusing on it, afraid to be free within their movements. I can see the strain in them trying tobein love.

Taré catches herself and throws them a quick smile. ‘No offence. I mean they lookgreat,butthis has to be more than looking great. You have to be able to feel thefeeling.I don’t know. Maybe it’s in the way they’re holding each other? What do you think, Malakai?’

Malakai’s hands are on his waist as he watches the footage back on his monitor and nods. ‘Yeah. Yeah, I think you’re right. It’s a bit stiff. Might be a case of warming up to each other.’ He raises a placating hand to the couple. ‘You’re doing great. It’s just an ease thing. You’re supposed to be a couple, consumed by each other. The only people in the room is you.’

‘Maybe they need an example,’ Taré offers. ‘Malakai, let’s show them, maybe.’

Malakai’s brows quirk. ‘Like, us–together?’

Taré rolls her eyes with impatience. ‘Yes. Is that OK?’

‘Sure. Yep.’ Amazing. I’m about to watch my ex and my boss slow-dance in my family restaurant. No, seriously,isthis an extremely sophisticated afterlife and is this because I never pay for a bag for life at self-checkout and once scanned an XL avocado as a regular avocado?

The music is cued, and Taré steps to Malakai, wrapping her arms round his neck, while his wind across her waist like they have undoubtedly done many times before. Her face nestles against his chest as they move, and the spotlight homes in on them. My stomach turns. There’s no getting around this: I am violently jealous. They look like they fit; it’s romantic. In a way, they’re kind of a perfect love story in a ‘we found love in a hopeless place’ kind of way. Extremely pretty, extremely talented, they nurtured each other when they both felt broken. It’s a narrative that works. It’s sexy, it’s gritty and it’s realer than a university romance that turned sour. For the first time, I’m able to garner a physical image of what they’re like together and it’s even worse than I imagined, because they’rebeautiful.I know they both said nothing’s going on, but anything can be reignited. I know that better than anyone. Malakai was able to be vulnerable with her, free in a way that maybe he wasn’t able to be with me. Maybe he just got tired of wearing a mask around me. My skin pricks with heat, and I want to blame the lighting in this place, the room capacity, but really, I know, it’s the sight of a man who I still have feelings for dancing with another woman.Shit.Why do I still have feelings for Malakai?

Just as I begin to fight the urge to flap at my underarms in panic, because really, I’msweatingnow, Taré pulls away from Malakai and shakes her head. ‘Wait, this isn’t working. I need to, like, visualise it. Sweet Keeks.’ She clicks at me. ‘You. You know the music as well as I do, and you know the feeling he needs to capture. You guys are the best people to show what we need.’

I freeze, because surely I’m misunderstanding what she means, and I pipe up from where I’m sat in the role of what was supposed to be a nameless patron. ‘I’m sorry, to clarify, to show them in terms of like. . .description? I can do that!’

A hint of impatience flits over Taré’s normally genial face. ‘The dance, Sweet Keeks. Obviously.’ She clicks again at Malakai, who is looking slightly stricken. ‘Come on. Yes, we can take all the time in the world, but let’s not take the piss.’