Page 20 of Two’s Better

Fiona quickly downed her shot with a grimace. “Happy? Jesus. Leave me alone.”

“How can you not know if you’ve ever had an orgasm?” Bernice said with a cackle. “Do you not ... you know?” She made a crude gesture with her hand.

“I mean—” Fiona couldn’t seem to meet anyone’s eyes. “I do. I guess. Technically.”

“Technically?” Tamara almost yelled. “What does that mean?”

“Who’s next, abeg?” Fiona said, and being the respectful friends we were, we took the hint and moved on.

Every time I glanced at Uzezi, he was looking at me. It made me internally flail—oh God, he was being so obvious, how had the others not noticed? Had they noticed? I took a frantic, surreptitious look around. Nope. They hadn’t. How? How?

By the time the night came to an end, I felt like a livewire.

“You all can stay over if you want.” Tamara sounded excited as she got up. “Just—hold on a second!”

Ezra and Fiona shook their heads fondly, probably already aware of whatever thing Tamara was off to show us.

“Ta-da!” She came back into the sitting room holding what seemed to be—I looked closer—sleeping bags? “We bought enough for everybody. We know y’all will be spending ample time over in the future, so we thought, why not, eh? Better than trying to get home drunk.” She glanced pointedly at Prince, who was lying flat on his back, eyes blank and eyelids heavy. We all burst out laughing. He didn’t even twitch, which made us laugh harder. Good God, he was gone.

“You know what? Sure, I’d like to stay over,” Bernice said, reaching out for a bag.

“The moment I stand up from here, I am literally going to collapse,” Prince said so solemnly we all nearly choked on our saliva laughing. He was still staring blank-eyed at the ceiling. “I honestly don’t know how I’m still this coherent; I swear I’m responsible for downing half those bottles.”

“Okay, na.” Tamara giggled, handing him a sleeping bag.

“I’d better unwrap that for him,” Dayo said, taking it from Tamara, and one for himself. “I doubt he has any hand-eye coordination left.”

“I heard that.”

“I meant you to,” Dayo quipped back, and Prince’s mouth twitched.

“Obviously Fiona is staying,” Tamara said, and her best friend didn’t argue. “What about you two?” She looked at me and Uzezi.

“We can’t stay, unfortunately,” Uzezi said, beginning to stand. That tiny strip of skin on my wrist immediately grew cold. I stood as well, helplessly flexing my hand like it’d make the feeling last longer. “We’ve got a best friend date.” He waggled his eyebrows.

I resisted the urge to glance at him like, we do?

“Right,” Tamara said easily, grinning wide. Our friends knew all about our “best friend dates”. But they didn’t know we hadn’t planned one for today. “All right, then. Ezra, shall we see them out?”

“Thank you for coming,” Ezra said once we’d put our jackets on, and he and Tamara had walked us to the door. He was a foot taller but just as wonderfully fat as his girlfriend, with warm brown skin and his afro in shoulder-length twists that sparkled with golden jewellery.

“Of course,” I found myself saying, like my heart wasn’t currently trying to pound to the beat of the NTA opening sequence. “It was our pleasure.”

“Get home safe, yeah? Text the group chat when you arrive.”

“We will.” Uzezi hooked his arm around mine, tugging me in the direction of the exits. “Goodnight, guys.”

“Goodnight!”

Uzezi glanced at me, a tiny, playful smile curving his mouth. On cue, at both the eye contact and the smile, my heart skipped several beats.

“Your place or mine?”

I blushed helplessly, even though I knew he hadn’t meant it like that. Or had he? Jesus Christ, I was losing it. “Mine.”

He took my hand in his, an act he’d done many times before that now felt extraordinarily new.

Instead of walking home, he led us to the bus stop. I didn’t protest when he paid for our passes; we casually paid for shit for each other all the time, usually depending on who got to their money first.