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Malakai smiled and relaxed against his chair. “Because we like eachother.Platonically. We’re becoming friends.”
I pulled a face. “Don’t be disgusting.”
The twinkle in his eye stuck its tongue at me. “I’m sorry to break it to you, Scotch. We’re buddies.”
“Don’t say that word around me ever again.”
“Pals.”
“I will pour my coffee all over your crotch.”
“Hmm. Interesting.” Malakai reached over to pick up my notebook and pen, and posed with them as if taking notes. “You do the drink pouring thing a lot. Is it a fetish?”
I kept my face straight. “Don’t kink shame me.”
“Sorry. Also, that is not coffee, it’s a sundae.”
I flipped my middle finger up and Malakai clutched his hands to his chest as if he was overwhelmed with the tenderness of emotion shown toward him.
He grinned at me and passed back my notebook and pen. “Lean into it. Let’s discuss this schedule, friend.”
I sat up and pulled up my calendar, back in the zone. “So, uh, we have to figure out milestones and situations we have to experience as a couple for it to be legit. Social events, dates—”
“Well, we’ve already had our first date.”
“Right, and that already got me more followers, which hopefully will translate to more listeners. We’re setting the foundation. Maybe the first show will be us... talking about how the first date establishes the terms of engagement. Or should, anyway. How it helps to undo prejudgments.”
Malakai leaned back in his chair. “And I learned the importance of transparency. From jump.” Which was funny because whenever he looked at me, I felt like I was being seen into.
I looked back at my tablet and scrolled through my calendar. “I’m going to share this with you so we’ll sync. We’ll have little things. TheBlack Pantherscreening is in two weeks, which will be cute. We’ll go to every FreakyFridayz together, sporadic lunches and coffees—”
“We got Ty Baptiste’s birthday party too, which will be a good place to cement our status and interview people.”
Ty Baptiste was ostensibly a member of Malakai’s new crew and was one of the most popular guys on campus on the nondickhead side of the social spectrum. He was like Zack’s benevolent tether. His dad was an ex-footballer but he used his wealth to spread enjoyment, like sneak paying for group dinners and using his family’s country house to throw a party for about twenty-five select Blackwell members on his birthday weekend. Aminah was invited last year but skipped when I declined to go as her plus one, ignoring my protestations that she still go when she insisted she’d rather do face masks and bingeReal Housewiveswith me anyway. I wished I could have gone for her, but the idea of it made my palms prickle like they were doing now. Going would entrench me into a social faction and I had no intention of being part of any. When you were part of something like that, the intimacy could easily sour into something that could eat you alive. There was safety on the outside. And now, I had to be inside for this whole thing to work. Ty Baptiste’s party was the most inside you could get.
“He invited me to stay in one of the rooms,” Malakai said casually as he sipped his coffee. While plenty of people booked Travelodges nearby or crashed on any flat surface or sofa, only Ty’s inner circle were allowed to stay in the extra rooms in the six-bed farmhouse. Malakai was inner circle, which meant, as his girl, I was too. And I had to make this thing believable for the show, and the show had to be listened to for my internship. So, I had to go.
Malakai must have noted the stress on my face because he leaned forward, urging me to meet his gaze. “Hey. I’ll obviously sleep on the floor or something.”
I swallowed. “It’s not that. I’m just um . . . “ I inhaled deeply. It waseasier if he knew. “I just get a little nervous with intense, close, social situations. I haven’t had the best experience in the past.”
Malakai’s brows gently furrowed. “But FreakyFridayz.”
“Is open and public and I can melt into the background. This is me being part of a group. It’s different.”
Confusion still softened his face, but he nodded. “It could be intense. We can figure out another event to—”
“No. I’ll gear myself up. It’s important that we’re a credible couple and being at a weekend away together at one of your boys’ birthdays helps that.”
“You sure? I’m cool with what you’re cool with.”
I inhaled deeply and shot him a valiantly breezy smile. “I’m sure.”
He threw me a small, lethal slant of his lips before looking down at the calendar on his phone. “Hold up. What’s this?” His brow was raised as he read out, “RomCon... The Reign of Ifekonia?”
I groaned inwardly. I’d forgot to delete it from my calendar, and now Malakai was privy to my nerdiest pursuit.I shrugged, schooled myself into nonchalance. “Uh, that’s in there by accident. It’s nothing—”
Malakai’s amusement glinted. “This ain’t nothing, Scotch. You’ve got bare emojis surrounding it. Whatever it is, it’s a big deal.”
