Page 53 of You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty

“I don’t think that’s possible.” Alim dropped a kiss on her cheek. “I’m saying you make me feel not alone, Feyi. I don’t think you understand how hard I’ll fight for that, how long it’s been since I had that.”

“Twenty years, four months, three weeks?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Oh, it’s like that?”

Feyi shrugged, trying to keep her voice light. “Quick maths.”

Alim pulled her closer to him. “I’m all in, sweetness. As long as you’re here with me, as long as you want this, too.”

Feyi slid her arms around his neck, lacing her hands behind his head. God, touching him felt so good, so complete. It would be so easy to believe him.

“Does everything you want still feel impossible?” he asked.

“Not as much,” she admitted. Only if she believed him.

He nodded, his eyes searching hers. “We’re doing this?”

“What, setting our lives on fire?” A corner of her mouth quirked up. “Sounds fantastic.”

Alim wrapped his arms around her. “I’ll burn with you,” he murmured, and Feyi held him as tight as she could. The mountains laughed green beyond the glass, a new world intact and fragile, for now.

Chapter Fifteen

When Feyi woke up in the morning, light was pouring in through the windows and Alim’s back was next to her, a ridged expanse of dark skin. Feyi blinked and fought the urge to touch him, rest her cheek on his shoulder blade, kiss his spine. Instead, she stared down at his body, watching his rib cage rise and fall. The night before, Alim had gone back down to the kitchen and made them breakfast for dinner—a Swiss chard and culantro shakshuka— then brought it back up to his room.

Talking about Nasir and the tangled layers of their situation had amputated what they’d started over the carrot slices, but in its place was something new and tender. Deciding to move forward meant that their feelings ran deep enough to uproot lives, and that was already enough to sit with. Neither of them particularly wanted to talk or process more—it felt enough to just be close. Alim had given Feyi one of his T-shirts and a pair of striped pajama pants, and they’d cuddled in bed while watching Bob’s Burgers till she fell asleep. When she woke up briefly in the middle of the night, Alim was asleep with his arm thrown over her stomach, his mouth slightly open. Feyi had traced his hair and watched him sleep for a while before it overtook her as well.

“I can feel you staring, you know.” Alim rolled over and squinted at her, his voice rasping. “How come you’re awake?”

Feyi could feel the warmth radiating from his body. The hair on his chest was shot through with silver, curled against his skin. She tried to ignore how close he was. “How do you even sleep when it’s this bright?” she complained. “I should’ve brought my eye mask from my room.”

Alim stretched, feline in the sunlight, and sat up in the bed. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I can get it so you can sleep in more.”

“Nah, I was just teasing.” Feyi pushed her braids out of her face. “I mean, I genuinely have no idea how the fuck you sleep with this much light, but I’m also good. I slept enough.”

She smiled at him to show that she meant it, suddenly awkward as she realized that she was in his bed, wearing his clothes. Alim fucking Blake. Joy was going to kill her, but still, it was unbelievable—literally unbelievable—that the last evening had been real, that he was shirtless in bed next to her. And the things they’d said to each other! Were they out of their minds? Had he just been carried away? Had she? Because surely, they couldn’t have agreed to this just for the possibility of a relationship. They didn’t even have the excuse of being committed to each other, because that would be ridiculous, but they were going to wreck his family just so they could date? And see where it goes? Feyi’s throat was suddenly dry and terrified. It was a mistake. It had to be a mistake. This was Nasir’s father.

“Hey.” Alim leaned toward her, concerned. “Feyi, you okay? Where did you go?”

She was in bed next to Nasir’s father. And he was shirtless. And she’d kissed him in the kitchen, felt him against her inner thigh, pushing close. What if they hadn’t stopped? What if they’d kept going when he brought her upstairs? What the fuck was she going to tell Nasir?

“Feyi.” Alim reached out and his fingers held her chin, turning her face to his. “Look at me, sweetness.”

She almost flinched at the endearment. He didn’t know her. She wasn’t worth the trouble she was bringing to his house; she’d just been fucking around, first with Milan and then with Nasir, none of it was supposed to get this serious. He was going to look for something in her worth the twenty years he’d been alone, and all he was going to find was a broken widow marking her grief in blood over and over and over again. It wasn’t going to be enough, there was no way she could make it enough. Feyi felt the back of her nose begin to sting with tears.

“Look at me,” Alim was saying, but she couldn’t, not into those stained eyes of his. That’s how all this had started in the first place. Looking in places she shouldn’t have been looking, wanting what she had no business wanting.

She stared at the white bedding until it began to blur, her body heavy and unmoving. Alim pulled her into his arms and tried to hold her.

“I’ve got you,” he whispered. “You’re okay.”

But it wasn’t true, it couldn’t be true, none of this was okay. They hadn’t done anything, they’d done too much, and even as guilty as she felt, Feyi still couldn’t stop the raw thrill that sped through her skin from being close to his. She still wanted to kiss him, feel the heat of his tongue again, his hands gripping her head, her throat, her legs.

Feyi wrenched away and slid off the bed, the cool floor hitting the soles of her feet like the only real thing in the room. She looked up at Alim just in time to see a flash of hurt skitter across his face. He pulled himself back together so quickly that she was tempted to pretend it hadn’t happened, but her guilt was burgeoning in every direction.

“I’m sorry,” she said, even as she backed away from the bed, from the gorgeous man kneeling amid white rumpled clouds, from the horrifying and lovely things he’d told her. That he would go anywhere with her, that she was light, all of it was lyrics. It wasn’t real.

“I’m sorry,” she said again. “I just—” Feyi threw up her hands, then let them fall, smacking loosely against her thighs, as helpless as she felt. “What the fuck are we doing, Alim?”