Page 61 of You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty
“I came up the back road … job ended early.” He tilted his head, his eyes like black pearls fixed on her. “Aren’t you going to come say hi? Kiss me hello?”
Alarm bells were clamoring in Feyi’s head. There was something wrong, terribly wrong about how he was looking at and talking to her. As if he knew, but he couldn’t—there was no way he could know.
“Is everything okay?” she asked, taking an imperceptible step backward, away from the strangeness radiating off him.
“You look scared,” he said. “What for? I’ve never done anything to hurt you, have I? I’ve never been anything but patient, and I’ve tried—God knows I’ve tried to care for you the way you needed. Right?”
He knew. She didn’t know how, but he knew.
“Right, Feyi?” He took a step toward her and Feyi instinctively backed away. Nasir froze, hurt passing over his face like a storm, disrupting the still mask he’d been wearing. “Wow,” he said. “That’s fucked-up.”
“I’m sorry, Nasir, I—I don’t understand what’s going on—”
“You’re backing away like I’m the bad guy? Like I’m going to do something to you?”
“Nasir—”
“Where’s my father?” She could feel what was coming off him in hot waves now—rage. Cold, blinding rage. “You were calling for him just now, weren’t you?”
“He—he went for a run.”
“Mm. So it’s just you and me, then.”
Feyi didn’t remember the last time she’d felt so scared. Nasir looked like a different person. As she watched, his left hand tightened and relaxed, making an intermittent fist.
Oh God, Alim, please come back, she thought. “Nasir, tell me what’s going on.”
His jaw flexed, muscle jumping under dark skin. “Is it true?”
Feyi felt the cool plaster of the wall behind her, the back of her legs knocking against a potted plant. “Is what true?”
“You know what?” Nasir’s voice turned light, conversational. “Let me tell you a story.”
Feyi’s pulse continued racing, not fooled by this new mask he’d put on. She watched as he leaned against the wall opposite her, folding his arms.
“I get in early, right? I figure I’ll spend a night or two in town, hang out with Lorraine, come up here and surprise you. I’ve been thinking about you for days, impatient to get back to you. Feyi, stuck up there on the mountain, waiting for me to get back.” He laughed, a short and empty sound. “So anyway, I’m at Lorraine’s, and Mr. Phillip stops by.”
Nasir paused. “Do you know Mr. Phillip? Nah, I don’t think so. Okay, so Mr. Phillip’s, like, this heavyweight badass horticulture motherfucker. He designed Dad’s gardens here and grafts trees and does all that shit. Lorraine’s been trying to see how many fruits she can graft onto some citrus tree back at the family house, and she needed a pomelo cutting. Now, the best pomelo grows, guess where?” He snapped his fingers and pointed outside. “Right here, on the mountain, in Dad’s orchard.”
Feyi put her hand over her stomach, like that would stop it from sinking as quickly as it was. Nasir’s eyes were a sharpening blade, getting ready to cut into her.
“So Mr. Phillip comes up, he doesn’t live too far from here, and he decides to swing by and say hi to Dad. Comes up the back, and then, what the fuck does he see but my father in the garden with some young lady.” Nasir’s lips curled back into a warped smile. “That’s how Mr. Phillip said it when he told me and Lorraine. Your father out there with some young lady, kissing up on her. He thought it was funny, you know? That my dad had some secret lover he didn’t know about. He never met you. He didn’t know you were at the house. He just wanted to know who the ‘young thing’ Dad had picked up was. They’ve been friends for decades.”
Feyi didn’t dare look away from Nasir, from the way he was pinning her to the wall with his words, like a butterfly.
“I thought it was someone else, at first. Like, it had to be. There’s no way. So we asked Mr. Phillip what she looked like.” Nasir shook his head, blinking back furious tears. “And you know what he said, Feyi? He said she was beautiful. That she had braids like gold, glittering under the sun. The kind of deep, black skin that always looks perfect, like a goddess, he said. Alim’s a lucky man, he said, to find a sexy little thing like that.” Nasir dragged his eyes up and down Feyi, and her skin crawled. “I can’t quite decide which parts he’s right about.”
Feyi tried to say something, but the words withered in her throat, under his condemning look. There was nothing to say, she realized. He hadn’t come to ask her if it was true; he already knew. Her vision blurred with tears, and she wiped them away hurriedly.
“Oh, you’re crying now? That’s rich, Feyi. That’s fucking hilarious.” Nasir pushed off the wall and leaned in over her, his palm on the wall behind her head. “What the fuck did you think you were doing? You went and fucked my dad behind my back? My fucking father?”
“I—”
“Shut up.” The venom in his voice amputated her words, and Feyi stared at him with wide eyes as Nasir slipped back into the light and chatty mask that was so obviously a lie. “You know what it made me think of? The first time I ever saw you. ’Cause it wasn’t at that bar, did you know? Nah, it was at the rooftop party, when you met Milan. You didn’t even notice me then. You just left the roof with him and you know, I never asked him what happened. Figured it wasn’t my business. But now I can’t help but wonder, Feyi, what did you do with him that first night? Did you suck him off in a corner of a bedroom? Is that how you got my dad? Like some signature move I didn’t get the chance to experience ’cause I was the dumbass talking about let’s take it slow?”
“Nasir—”
“Nah, don’t even say my name. Keep that shit out of your mouth.” He lowered his head and spoke directly into her ear, his voice poisonous. “You’re fucking trash, you hear me? I wish I’d never fucking met you.” Nasir slammed his palm against the wall, and Feyi flinched, cowering away from him, covering her mouth to choke back the sobs. He stepped back and stared at her, his face cold. “Go get your shit and get the fuck out of my home.”