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Interviewees: Rianne Tucker and Amari Kamau
Kiki:What drew you to your partner?
Rianne:So, I was about a year out of what I now realize was a pretty emotionally abusive relationship. I lost... important things to me. Including myself. I made bad decisions. I was pretty fucked up from it, not gonna lie. I had trust issues, intimacy issues—all of it. I didn’t date for my entire first year of uni. Like, at all. Anyway, I went away to work at this summer school in Kenya. When I got there, all the aunties kept on saying that I needed to meet the other British uni student working there, that we’d get along so well. He was on a short break in South Africa. The kids kept on saying that I was their second favorite teacher after Mr. Kamau. That really pissed me off—I mean, me, second best? I hate competition!
Kiki:I know the feeling. Especially with a man. Gross.
Rianne:Right?AndI gave them lollipops!
Amari:That’s bribery, babe. So as soon as I return, everyone’s telling me that I need to meet Rianne. The kids are telling me she looks like a princess, the aunties have already started buying their wedding hats—it’s a lot of pressure, but then I meet her and bruv, I’m done for. Gone. Obviously, she’s gorgeous, but she was also great with the kids, just so kind and patient.
Rianne:Amari came and I’m like okay, fine, fuck, he’s a bit of me. You know my type, K—don’t he look like my type? That other prick wasn’t my type, but Amari?
Kiki:Yeah, it’s like you built him. You always said your type was rap with a dash of R&B and a sprinkle of soul.
Rianne:Exactly. He’s like the embodiment of that. Sweet, sexy, kind. Everyone was happy around him. He brought joy to any room. It’s just that I wasn’t in the right mindset. I went there to work. At first, I barely spoke to him—
Amari:Well, there was that time you said “excuse me” on your way to the bathroom at a bar during a staff social. I remember that because the guys asked me if I needed a glass of water.
Rianne:This is the thing, I knew that if I talked to you, I wouldn’t want to stop. I was scared of that. One day I caught him filling up the cookie jar in the staff room with my favorite kind. I always wondered why we never ran out of them, and then I realized.
Kiki:Why didn’t you initiate conversation, Amari?
Amari:So, I’m usually a confident guy. I never struggled with babes before,
Rianne:Chill.
Amari:But with this situation I just sensed... that I should wait. Wait till it felt like she wanted me to speak. But even without speaking, we connected. We made fun of the same things. I know because we would clock things at the same time and immediately find each other’s eyes. You know that feeling? At first, I thought they were trying to hook us up because we’re the only two Brits, right? But it was more than that. Well, we were the only Black Brits. There were a couple white English people but the Kenyans weren’t huge fans. Can I say that on here? They were just doing way too much—you know, one of them was wearing an Africa pendant.
Rianne:That’s actually how we got together. We were just sitting with each other in the staff room while I was scrolling my phone, in silence, when the guy with the Africa pendant came in. It was the first time we’d seen it. He was real posh, on a “gap yah,” talking about how he couldn’t wait to tell his friends back in the UK that he’d found a new spiritual home, and that didn’t we feel so connected to nature out here, like in a real, base,animalisticsense. And the entire time, he kept touching that fucking pendant. It was so bait that he wanted us to say something. To compliment him. Anyway, as soon as he left, we bust out laughing. Like howled. Then, Amari goes—
Amari:“If I steal it for you, would you get a beer with me?”
Rianne:And I go, “He probably sleeps with it on.” Amari says that that just makes things more interesting.
[Rianne grins and plucks a gold necklace out from beneath her neckline]
Amari[grinning back]: Reparations.
Rianne:But honestly, even without him stealing from a man who used to speak in some beg “African accent” that sounded like a hate crime—
Amari:I think it was a hate crime.
Rianne:I would have gone on a date with him. What I liked about him is that he didn’t force anything. He gave us the space to happen.
Amari:But it was mostly the jewelry, right?
Rianne:What can I say? I’m a gold digger.
The next morning, I was woken up early by a stream of dawn flowing into a room that was not mine but felt as safe as my space. I found myself warm, secured against a chest that was rising and falling softly against my back, Malakai’s sweet tiger-cub snores the only sound in the room.
After we got back from the convention and changed, Malakai ordered Sweetest Ting to his place, where we indulged while watching old R&B videos, discussing the logistical issues of pleading for a woman on a street in the rain. It got late and our words slowed. I was already curled into his bed and Malakai offered to sleep on the floor, but I told him not to be silly, that it wasn’t necessary, I trusted him. Then he’d offered to put a pillow between us and I’d said that it was cool, that it wasn’t necessary, I trusted him. Why did I trust myself?
Half-asleep, I’d moved back, body curved in a tentative question mark. He didn’t wake up, but he did respond, shifting closer to me, his breath tickling the nape of my neck. It felt too natural, too easy, too comfortable. The reasons around the comfort felt like they would be hot to touch, that they could burn, so I left it alone, but the comfort itself warmed me so I let myself settle in it.
I was lying there in joggers and little else. During the night I had removed my cropped sweater to reveal my bright pink bralette. Malakai was shirtless but had kept his own joggers on too. I could feel his heart ticking away against my shoulder blade. When I reached over to pull his arm around my waist, he immediately fastened on to me, shifting his other arm behind his pillow, pulling me in closer, his lips just below my lobe.
“Scotch.” His voice was drowsy, delectable hot honey rumbling through my ear and directly to my core.
