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“Mtoto, stop looking at me with those puppy eyes,” she said, chuckling. “Go and enjoy your study group.” She gave the last two words just enough weight to make my stomach dip.

“Thank you, Auntie,” I said, standing to hug her.

She snorted and patted my back twice, reluctantly, because she knew I would not let go until she gave in. She smelled of cocoa butter and spiced tea.

“Wait.” She ducked beneath the counter and came up with a foil parcel, still warm. “Chapati. You students forget to eat.”

“Auntie, it is a study group.”

“Then you will study with food in you.”

I tucked it into my overnight bag, the one that was supposed to hold a toothbrush, pyjamas and a night of organic chemistry notes. Study group. Imani’s sofa. Almost true. The lie settled in my chest like a small, smooth stone.

“Don’t work too hard,” I said as I hurried out of the back room, past the shelves of hair products and through the archway into the main shop.

The grocery side hit me with dried fish, palm oil and spices. Sacks of unga leaned against the shelves beside boxes of Ketepa tea and tubs of Blue Band, and the old fridge by the cargo counter hummed in its corner. Uncle sat behind the till with his reading glasses sliding down his nose, counting notes.

“Study well, my daughter,” he called without looking up.

I waved anyway, grabbed my jacket from the hook and left the bell jingling behind me.

Outside, the late-afternoon heat pressed against my skin. Fried chicken from the place next door, hot tarmac, exhaust. I made a dash for the bus stop, careful not to sweat out my edges.

The bus came before I had finished worrying. The air conditioning prickled my arms as I sank into a window seat, and strip malls slid past with signs in English, Spanish, Vietnamese and Arabic. I took out my phone and practically melted into the seat when I saw Adrián’s notifications.

There were a few from my sorority, and I bit my lip as I opened his first.

Adrián: I’ve been thinking of you all day. You made me wait three whole weeks for this date.

I sure did.

Adrián: Two hours left, babe.

Adrián: See you soon, beautiful. X

I sighed and held my phone to my chest like a schoolgirl. This was my dream man. After years buried in grades, labs and deadlines, I had never really dated. I had a few wild nights out with my girls, but nothing serious. No one wanted that at twenty-two. Adrián was different. He remembered things I had said once, in passing. He asked follow-up questions. Nobody had listened to me like that in a very long time.

I tapped out a reply, Counting down, before opening the barrage of messages waiting for me. A primping session still lay ahead once I reached Imani’s place.

❦ ❦ ❦

Imani’s flat sat on the second floor of an old complex behind campus, the kind with a pool nobody swam in and a stairwell that smelled of someone else’s dinner.

I heard them before I reached the door. Music thumping through the wall. Brielle’s laugh riding over the top of it.

I didn’t get the chance to knock.

The door flew open and Brielle stood there in a satin bonnet and half a face of makeup, one false lash in place, the other held up between two fingers like a trophy.

“She’s here! Everybody, code green!”

“It’s not a code anything,” Imani called from somewhere inside.

“Code green, emerald, whatever. Get in here, girl.”

She hauled me over the threshold by the strap of my bag.

The flat hit me all at once. Hot comb and coconut oil. Nail glue. A vanilla candle nobody was watching. The window unit rattled in the lounge, losing its fight with the Houston heat, and an Afrobeats playlist bounced low from the speaker on the bookshelf.