Page 28 of You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty
“Maybe if you’d just fuck Nasir already, you’d stop being a little horny bunny toward his dad,” Joy suggested.
“Oh shit.” Feyi laughed. “Where is the love, sis?”
Joy shrugged. “I’m just saying. That nigga is crazy about you, sexy as fuck, hooked you up with a dream gig, literally flew you over to paradise, and is two steps away from swinging you in a hammock and dripping coconut water into your mouth from an actual fucking coconut. Frankly, I don’t know what else you’re waiting for.”
Feyi grimaced. “I don’t know if I’m waiting for anything. It just hasn’t felt right.”
“Girl, you be sticking your tongue down his throat every other night. Do you wanna fuck him or nah?”
“I don’t know.” Feyi ran a hand over her face. “I legit do not know. Maybe I’m just not ready.”
“You’re never ready for shit, Feyi. Just jump in the deep end already and figure out if you remember how to swim.”
There was a knock at the door, and Feyi stuck her head out of the closet to hear Nasir calling her name. “Fuck, I gotta go,” she whispered to Joy. “I think it’s time for lunch, and I haven’t even showered yet.”
“Yeah, please don’t show up at a whole Alim Blake’s table looking like that.”
“Wow, rude. Is it that bad?”
“You look like you just woke up from a nap. The man has two Michelin stars, for fuck’s sake. Put some makeup on and text me later.”
Joy hung up, and Feyi scrambled out, tossing her phone on the bed and opening her door.
“There you are,” Nasir said, smiling. “You do not look ready at all.” He was leaning against the doorframe and had changed out of his airplane sweats into a white tee and some wax-print shorts. His hair was damp, and he smelled like mint and cinnamon.
Feyi gave him a puppy-dog look. “Okay, see, what had happened was …”
Nasir laughed and tugged on one of her pigtails. “Uh-huh?”
“I had to call Joy! And then we started talking and—”
He held up a hand, still laughing. “Say less.”
Feyi batted her lashes at him. “I knew you’d understand. Gimme ten minutes?”
Nasir leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Take as long as you need. You want some company?”
She stepped aside so he could enter her room. “I’d love that.”
Nasir plopped down on the bed as Feyi started rummaging through her suitcase for her toilet bag. “It’s so weird seeing you here,” he said. “Like two of my worlds are colliding.”
“Are you kidding me?” she shot back. “It’s extra weird knowing your dad’s balling like this! How old is he, even?”
It was a decent pretense at an innocent question, but Joy would have seen through it in a heartbeat. Nasir suspected nothing, but then again, he had no reason to.
“Mm, I think he turns forty-eight this October.”
Feyi looked up in surprise, her brain calculating. “Oh, he had you young!”
Nineteen years. Alim was only nineteen years older than her. It was much less of a gap than she’d thought, but Feyi could already hear Joy’s voice in her head—Bitch, that’s still old enough to be your daddy! He was changing diapers while you were in diapers!
“Yeah, he and my mom were high school sweethearts. Got married not long after they graduated.”
The ghosts were always sudden. “Wow,” Feyi managed to say, going back into her suitcase so he wouldn’t see the shadow that had crossed her face. Jonah proposing a month before they finished grad school. The quick ceremony at City Hall, the proper wedding they were planning. The automated emails from the venues that kept coming long after he was a broken thing on a dark road. She cleared her throat. “So how come you’re not living in some fancy loft in the city?”
Nasir shrugged. “I like to think of my dad’s money as his money. We didn’t grow up like this, you know? Like, he started making it big my freshman year in college, so this is new. Plus”— he gestured around—“this isn’t quite my style.”
“Oh, you’re more simple, huh?”