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“Seriously, Scotch, I’m good.”
I swallowed, stoically accepting one of my worst fears realized. “Okay, Malakai, if you’re suddenly not into this you have to say. This is your out—you don’t have to spare my feelings.”
Malakai’s eyes snapped sharply to mine, brows creased with incredulity. “Woah.What? Scotch, nothing like that.” He kissed my shoulder. “Neverlike that. How could you think—”
“I don’t know what to think because you’re not talking to me. Iknowsomething is up,” I said, even as the surge of hot relief washed over me, detangling the preemptive knot in my belly. I released the breath I hadn’t even known I’d been holding, but I still sensed something askew.
Malakai cleared his throat, reluctantly bringing his eyes to mine. The glint of vulnerability in them pierced my chest. “It’s really not that deep. I just, I, uh, told my dad that I got that summer job as a runner at the production house. And he said he couldn’t believe I was passing up working at his office in Lagos to be a glorified houseboy.”
Malakai released a hollow, gruff laugh as I rubbed his back, my heart cracking a little just as I knew his own had. “And I don’t even really know why I told him. Why what he thinks still matters to me. Why I think that if I win the Shades of Motion competition, or at least get shortlisted, then maybe he will begin to take this shit seriously. Me,seriously.” He shookhis head, rubbing a hand across his face. “It’s pathetic really. Can we just forget ab—”
“I got you something last week. When you told me you got the job. It arrived this morning.”
I shifted off his lap and reached for the gift bag tucked into the tote I’d dropped on his bedroom floor. Malakai’s brows furrowed in quiet curiosity as I passed the gift to him. I beckoned him to open it with a gentle jut of my chin. “Spoiler alert. It’s a framed picture of me.”
Malakai grinned as he opened the bag, the smile falling away as soon as he saw what was in it. He lifted the gift from the bag, stared at it, eyes flitting from shock to wonder to gratitude and getting increasingly shinier. My heart grew ten more sizes at his expression.
“Scotch.” His voice was a rough choke.
It was a filmmaking clapperboard. In white marker, I’d written “Untitled” as the name of the production, and “Malakai Korede” beside “director.” The date was his birthday.
I curved my hand around the back of his neck and let my thumb sweep across the sweet valley of his cheekbone. “Here’s the thing, Kai. You don’t need your dad’s cosign to live the life you want to live. You don’t need anyone’s cosign. You do what feels right to you. You’re afilmmaker,okay? And for what it’s worth, I’m proud of you. It’s not easy to step outside a path laid out for you. It’s pretty brave, actually. You’re figuring out your freedom and it’s inspiring. And one day that’s gonna be arealproduction clapperboard with your name on it.”
Malakai still hadn’t said anything, his gaze a hypnotic twilight.
“Obviously, if you’d prefer a framed picture of me that could be arrang—”
Malakai shut me up, kissing me with a ferocious sweetness that rendered me hot molasses. The kiss was so excruciatingly, exquisitely soft, so full with delicate but robust feeling, it made me want to cry.
I felt myself recline, the full force of that feeling pushing me back, myarms wrapping around his neck and pulling him down so his delectably warm weight pinned me to his bed and I felt his heartbeat sear through his T-shirt. I sucked his bottom lip and that seemed to set something divinely feral loose within him. His tongue licked with passionate and precise persistence in my mouth, like enough wasn’t enough, and I got wetter, got wilder, while the lovely,lovelythick length of his hardness pressed against me. It sent me savage as I wrapped my legs around him and ground my hips.
He tasted so dizzyingly good, so intoxicating, it felt like my consumption should be regulated. Just before the last remnants of our minds were lost, Malakai pulled back slightly to lean his forehead against mine, breath ragged. He pecked my lips sweetly, like he couldn’t help it.
“So you liked it?”
“Scotch, thank you. It’s the second-best gift I’ve ever got.”
“Second? Youshittingme? What’s the first?”
Malakai bumped his nose so tenderly with mine that my breath stopped to bow in my throat in reverence.
“You.”
