Page 86

I whip around to Malakai, who is still shirtless, his cute morning face creased in confusion. ‘This is none of your business.’

‘I just heard my name, though.’

‘So?’ Mine and Aminah’s simultaneous screech echoes along the hall, and both men do the needful and shut the fuck up.

‘Oh, please, Aminah.’ I turn my attention back to her. ‘This was never about me. This is about you not having anything in your head, butwedding,wedding,wedding. And I am so happy for you babe, I really am, but you have leftnospace for me to talk about anything. Which is why I never told you about the first time I slept with Malakai—’

Aminah holds still and my heart seizes. ‘What? When was the first time?’

My throat suddenly feels extremely tight. I hear Kofi say, ‘Oh shit,’ and, even though it’s a deeply unhelpful addition, I have to say I echo his sentiment. I wasn’t supposed to tell her like this, but it came on a train of pent-up frustration and now it’s too late to pull it back in.

I inhale deeply. ‘The night of the engagement party.’

Aminah’s mouth drops open, and she’s silent for a few seconds, which is actually innately disturbing considering the fact that Aminah always has something to say.

‘Oh,’ is all she says. Aminah pauses and starts blinking rapidly. Shit. This is a surefire sign that she’s about to blow. She steps back, her hands on her hips. ‘Oh.Um. Does anyone else know?’

‘Aminah, what does it matter—’

‘It matters to me, Kiki. So I can know what an idiot I’ve been.’

I swallow. ‘You haven’t been an idiot, Aminah, but Shanti guessed.’

Aminah releases a heavy exhale through her mouth and she laughs mirthlessly. ‘Oh.Cool. So you just lied to me. Lied to my face like I’m a prick. I mean it’s your business, butreally?’

Aminah very, very rarely swears, not in English anyway. Daily curses are in Yoruba; special-edition furious curses are in English. Hurt fractures through her angry face, and I realise how badly I’ve messed up, because now I know it’s never about the thing itself, just the act of lying. I walk up to her, frantic now, unease crawling up my body. Aminah and I don’t fight, not like this.

‘I didn’t intend to, Meenz. I didn’t know what it was then and part of me thought it was going to be a one-off and then... and then we started working together and . . . it got complicated. I didn’t want to pull you into my confusion—’

Aminah shakes her head, eyes sharp and shiny, and I can’t remember the last time I saw her this hurt. It scares me.

‘You made it a big deal by keeping it a secret, and now look– we’re talking about you and Malakai on mybachelorette.This is so selfish of you—’

This digs at me, because this isrich, but I bite my tongue because now is not the time and she is right, this is her bachelorette party, and I will not ruin this for her, and the deposit on wine tasting is non-refundable.

‘OK. I understand you’re angry, and I’m really sorry I kept it from you. Can we talk about this later? We have wine tasting booked for this afternoon, and I also got all these spa treatments you can do to prep and recover from last ni—’

Aminah rolls her eyes. ‘No, we can’t, Kiki. You running away from things is the reason why we’re here. You ran away from telling me, and you ran away from your feelings for Malakai, which is why you ran away from telling me– and is it a friends-with-benefits situation? Because I really don’t think you can handle that—’

‘OK, Aminah,’ I snap, reeling from the offence, ‘you know what, it’s actually none of your business, and maybe I didn’t tell you because I thought you would tell me I was making a mistake and I didn’t want to hear that. And, truly, who are you to tell me about keeping secrets when you didn’t even tell me when Malakai came to London? You didn’t even tell me when he was coming to Londonthistime! Not in time! You wonder why I didn’t tell you when you didn’t exactly make me feel like I had a safe space to—’

Aminah blinks, startled, thrown off her high horse for a second before she recovers. ‘Well, maybe I was right! Look at how you’re acting. Running around in secret with him like you’re achildinstead of facing up to your shit—’

Hurt tears spring to my eyes. ‘How am Iacting,Aminah? If we want to talk about behaviour, can we talk about how I have been trying to balance my job, and being your slave-for-hire formonths andbeing around my ex, and you neveronceasked me how I was doing with it? Malakai was the love of mylife,Aminah! The truth is you did not want to know, so don’t come at me for not telling you. Oh, and thanks again for humiliating me in front of my boss, super classy. Shit, I feel like I don’t know who you are any more.’

Aminah’s eyes are glistening, and guilt floods through me, immediate regret weighing me down and I want to eat every single word I said, both the truth and defensive jabs.

‘Aminah, I didn’t mean it. I’m sor—’

Aminah shakes her head. ‘No, you’re right, actually. Thank you for that.’ She plasters a smile on her face, and straightens, scary and plastic, a pageant queen. ‘Totally right. Let’s go back to the villa. I need to nap properly and get ready for wine tasting. We need it right?’

I’m seriously freaked out now, and panic stabs at me. ‘Aminah, wait, let’s talk about—’

‘Nothing else to talk about,’ she snaps, and I become cold. ‘We are good. Let’s go back to the house. I can only wear menswear outside of the confines of a bedroom for fifteen minutes before my sense of self starts to depreciate.’

The boys interject again–we both say we’re fine, that they should go back to their rooms. The truth is we both want to be alone, away from each other. We are so not fine. We walk back to the house in the first bout of silence Aminah and I have had between us in our entire lives, and I attempt to stave off the guilt, and anger and the sick feeling that threatens to swallow me whole.

‘Aminah, please. Can you open up? I’m about to call the taxi to get to the vineyard. Also you haven’t eaten so I’ve made a sandwich for you to have on the way!’ I knock on my best friend’s door for the fifth time, getting increasingly frantic. I’ve called multiple times and it’s gone to voicemail. She’s been in her room since we got back to the villa, making a crack about how she didn’t get any sleep last night, the same rigid smile on her face.