Honey and Spice(23)
“I said I’m sorry. You’re right, I hear you. I shouldn’t have compared the two situations when I really don’t know you like that. But here’s the thing”—he rubbed the back of his neck—“I want to. Been wanting to. Since the first time we met.”
My breath hitched, but I forced myself to breathe, for the expression on my face to stay the same. Cool. I hadn’t been ready for that, but it was fine. He did this all the time. Evolved. Player.
“The first time we met you were going to Zuri Isak’s room—”
“The first time we met you were coming out of Zack Kingsford’s room.”
Touché. I didn’t know if it was great or terrible that he was reasonable. Hot and reasonable. He was also was kind of a dick, the same way I was kind of a dick. It was slowly occurring to me that perhaps he wasn’t the Wasteman of Whitewell. The Wasteman of Whitewell wouldn’t have helped a girl who called him the Wasteman of Whitewell get revenge on another guy (a guy infinitely more fitting of the title). He wouldn’t have noticed her discomfort. Granted, he could have had his own agenda to shame me, but there were easier ways. He could have let me squirm, turned it around, and used the opportunity to embarrass me, leave me pouting into the air, but he didn’t.
Malakai cleared his throat in the silence between us.
“You know what? You probably want space. I’m gonna go. And yeah, that kiss was . . . That kiss was something but it was also nothing. I wanted to help. Me wanting to hang out with you has nothing to do with it. You don’t owe me shit.”
Either he was a preternaturally talented actor, or he was telling the truth.
“I know I don’t.”
Malakai took it as dismissal. He inclined his head deeply, pressed a hand across his chest like he was excusing himself from my court, and shot me a tiny smile. “It was an honor to be your sidekick in making a dickhead squirm, Fellow Superhuman.” He winked and stepped away from me, ready to go. My stomach flipped and spurred my hand to reach out for his wrist.
He looked down at my hand and I found my gaze travelling there too, because I could not believe I’d just done that. My body was in rebellion tonight, acting without permission from my mind. When I looked back up, his eyes were glinting down into mine, asking a question. I nodded. I was here now. I might as well follow through. I dropped his wrist and any pretense that I wasn’t curious.
“I know I don’t owe you shit. Which is why you’re buying me a drink and not the other way around.”
Malakai’s smile widened. That was two shots of dark liquor on its own.
“Yes, ma’am.”
He looked like a bad decision. The best kind of bad decision.
Chapter 7
I watched Malakai elegantly move through the teaming, steaming crowd, a rum and Coke in one hand, and what looked like a straight whisky in the other. I had gone a year at Whitewell drama free, keeping myself to myself and Aminah, comfortable going from studio to class to dropping by at FreakyFridayz. Now I was sitting in Cuffing Corner, waiting for a guy to get me a drink. A guy with an extremely good butt. I bit the inside of my cheek. I was the one who’d issued a warning about this guy and now I was ogling him like some kind of smitten First Year. This was just an investigation. Surveying the threat posed to the girls of Blackwell. This was due diligence.
Malakai passed me my drink as he settled next to me on the beat-up maroon leather sofa, our knees just inches apart. The level of the music was low enough for conversation, but here, at the corner of the party and opposite the DJ booth, it was even lower. Cuffing Corner was so called because it was where potential couples who were at FreakyFridayz for a date night came to chill. The light was dimmer here and there were coffee tables with fake candles on, for a bootleg grown-and-sexy atmosphere. It was the only place in the party for us to sit and talk in relative privacy; it was a practical choice but it still elicited a necessary eye roll when Malakai suggested it.
I took the drink and flicked my eyes across him. “You’re dangerous.”
“Dangerous how?” Malakai lowered his tumbler of something dark and strong from his lips, and something dark and strong in his eyes told me he already knew exactly what I meant.
“Dangerous, like, right now, without even looking I know there are probably at least six girls in this party that want to choke me out for even breathing near you, let alone sitting in Cuffing Corner with you.”
Malakai shook his head. “It’s because I’m new. I’m still fresh. It isn’t real. It will wear off in a few weeks. If anyone’s in danger, it’s me.”
“What are you talking about?”
Malakai laughed incredulously, and then faded into a smile when he realized my face hadn’t flinched. “Shit, you’re serious.” He nodded, bit his lip, and rubbed at his jaw in a way that was obnoxiously attractive and exemplified the aforementioned danger. Malakai shifted closer to me. “I promise you, half the mandem in this room are wondering how I got Kiki Banjo’s attention.”
I rolled my eyes and with it, pushed away the flutter in my chest that came with his proximity. “They don’t talk to me. They’re scared of me.”
“Those two facts aren’t mutually exclusive. They don’t want to put in the effort that it would take to secure you, because they know you see through their shit, so they make out like it’s impossible, that you’re stush. They’d rather act like there’s something defective with you than be the guy that’s worthy of you, because that would mean they have to face their own shit—and if there’s anything mandem hate it’s facing their own shit—so they leave you alone. And you? Well, you like it that way. No mess.” He said it all casually, voice even and matter of fact.