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Laide had got the famed global superstar DJ she was juggling with Kofi’s cousin to come and preside at the reception. Shanti did Aminah’s hair and make-up, and Chi, with limited resources from a florist and craft store, had transformed what had been a simple set-up into a mini-wonderland.

Aminah had gasped, her eyes shining, when she saw it. ‘Oh my God, this is... this is perfect,’ and Kofi had lifted her hand to his lips, because that is what she is to him– he didn’t even have to say it– and it was just about enough to set me off, the first of a million times throughout today.

The ceremony is gorgeous, sun dousing the couple with blessings as they say the most precious words I’ve ever heard to each other. Kofi calls her ‘evidence of the divine’, Aminah calls him ‘the only man who reached my preternaturally high standards’. She thanks him ‘for being the softest part of me’ and I think I might have let out an audible sob at this point. Chioma is swaying, as if literally entranced by the display of love, Malakai’s eyes glisten and Shanti bites her lip, desperately attempting to keep her make-up intact. Tears stream down Ty’s face and I really should take a picture to send to the legions of female fans he has online to show the capacity of the prototypical beefcake, breaking down in emotion in witnessing the marriage of his friends. The gentle breeze blows reverently, in consecration of the moment, and it’s clear we’re in an enclave of unfiltered love of each other, of their love. This is real-life magic. And then they kiss and we’re cheering and I’m crying again and Aminah comes and throws her arms round me in pure delight and says, ‘Thank you. I love you. I’ll never forget this,’ and I say, ‘I love you. Thank you for letting me be part of this. You deserve this,’ and she says, ‘So do you, friend.’

She winks and passes me her lilies.

Laide yells out, ‘Hey! That’s cheating!’ and so I pass the bouquet back to Aminah, who in turn grudgingly tosses it, and Laide catches it and falls into Ty and Shanti in the process.

She smirks at them. ‘I’m so sorry, sis. Today, he’s mine.’

Ty turns to her and says, ‘Oh?’

With a roll of her eyes, Shanti informs Laide that, ‘This is the greed they warned us about in the Bible.’

Before the DJ arrives, I add to the music of our friendships’ flow and put on my playlist and then we’re floating to eighties soul, Luther Vandross flowing through the breeze, through laughter, through a-thousand-kisses, Kofi and Aminah’s song, and they test the theory over and over again, insatiable with it.

I’m dancing, swaying, floating on joy, when there’s a hand on my waist and Malakai pulling me to him. My body crashes and then melts into the contours of him, his heat finding nooks to nestle into in me.

I smile up at him, the beautiful man who is my favourite kind of trouble. ‘Hi. I want to tell you something. I’m tired of not telling you something.’

‘OK, but me too. Can I go first? Because I’m trying this new thing of not brooding and just telling you exactly how I feel when I feel it.’

‘Oh! Exciting. OK, show me, show me.’

Malakai holds my face with one hand and wraps the other round the curve of my hip. It fits there, I fit here. ‘Here is the thing, Scotch. There was never any reason for me to come to London six months before my best friend’s wedding. Let’s be real.’

I grin as his thumb strokes my lip, and his eyes brand me with love, love, love, ‘I did wonder what it was about cake-tasting—’

He surreptitiously pats my right butt cheek. ‘The same way there’s no reason for me to go back to America later this year either. The fact of the matter is, Scotch, I just want to exist near you. The fact that you let me in is a blessed bonus. I just want to be next to you. Talk to you. Touch you. Every time I see you, I’m thinking,God, how? How are you possible?I’m thinking about how I can’t believe I had you, that I let you go. I think about how I’ve never had a friend like you and never will. Because, really, you’re my best friend. Don’t tell Kofi. I’m thinking I want to build with you. I want to sweat for this, work on this. I’m thinking that taking it slow is the last thing I want to do with you. Baby, I’ll do it if you want me to, but I want to dive in all the way with you. I don’t know how to scale back my knowledge of you. Mitigate my love for you. Because that’s the other thing: I’m so in love with you, Kiki. Never fell out of it. Never tried, because getting to love you is what makes my life extraordinary, and maybe that’s selfish, but so be it. I’m never going to stop loving you. So. Yeah. You just have to deal with that. What were you going to say?’

My smile is so broad my bottom lashes could brush the top of my cheeks, and my heart is so full I can taste it;joy. ‘Oh, I was just going to say kind of exactly that, and also that I was full of shit earlier today. I was scared, but I’m not any more. I mean, the very fact that this exists makes me feel brave. . . I trust this. I trust us. I was going to say fuck the flow. Fuck going slow. That rhymed. I didn’t even realise that. See, my love for you is like poetry? I love you. Deeply, for so many reasons, but with no reason.’

Malakai grins so wide, and my soul sings so loud. ‘But with rhyme.’

‘I’m so talented. And baby, I know what you did for me. With Sákárà. And I’m so grateful—’

Kai shakes his head in dismissal. ‘Scotch, I wouldn’t be where I am in my career without those years with you beside me. I know that for a fact. You don’t have to thank me. It’s you. It was already going to happen. I didn’t do—’

‘Maybe it was already going to happen, but you helped nudge it along. You did something. A really wonderful something, and it means so much to me.’

Kai’s eyes glisten. ‘I would do anything for you, Scotch. I got you.’

‘I know. And I got you. Also, when we were having sex earlier today, you said something. Something about saying “when”. I put it down to, like, being in the throes of passion—’

‘Throes of passion, Scotch?’

‘Butdid you mean that? Because that’s a big thing.’

Malakai shrugs. ‘We’re a big thing. Some may argue the biggest thing.’ The breeze whips around us and at my braids, as if trying to push us together, as if we could be closer together, and the sun, in its generosity, decides to share some of the light it’s given to Kofi and Aminah with us. Malakai’s face glows in it, matches its intensity, and his lips curve in sincerity and mischief. He wraps his hand round the back of my neck, and lowers his face to mine, his mouth hot next to my ear, his low voice vibrating through my anatomy at the exact frequency of my rising desire. ‘Plus, you should know, Scotch, I never lie when I’m inside you.’

And it’s so stupid and it goes right between my eyes, right between my thighs, sinks into the sinews of soul and skin, and I laugh because the truth is he’s always inside me, always within, so what now? We’re here and we’re here and we try and we try and we dance to the joy of our friends, in joy of our friends, in pursuit of our own joy, in joy of the pursuit of love.

Epilogue

Sákárà Sounds

Two years later