“It was…” I pause, and Anjie leans in expectantly. “Amazing!” I yell, and she squeals. In seconds it’s as though we’re back in our college dorms, sharing hookup stories and giggling the night away.
“I will need the couch cleaned immediately!” she exclaims, but it’s all punctuated by smiles and shrieks of laughter. “Who is he? Will you see him again? Willwesee him again?”
“Okay, promise not to scream or to call Sewa right now,” I demand.
Anjie’s eyes question me, but she crosses her fingers, kisses them, and places them across her heart. The little gesture signifying promises we’ve made since the days of sharing bunk beds and public showers.
“It’s the app guy.”
She screeches like a freaking owl. “I knew it!” She shoves her spoon in the bowl so she can properly dance using her arms. She looks like a baby learning motor function. I bust out laughing. “Sewa owes me fifty dollars,” she mutters as she kicks her feet.
I almost scoff, but at this point,we’rethe suckers for getting roped intoone of Sewa’s bets. “Normally, I’d feign upset, but I’m happy she lost. What did y’all bet on?”
“Oh, she said y’all would fuck in a month.”
I blink rapidly. “And you said?”
“Six weeks. I knew you needed more time to warm up to him.” She licks her spoon, realizes it’s empty, and refills her bowl.
“I hope you guys know I hate you.”
“Love you too!” Anjie reaches over to squeeze my neck, and I allow myself to be drawn into her embrace.
“How did y’all know it would happen?” I suddenly feel self-conscious. Knowing and accepting my attraction to Niyi is one thing, but it’s another thing for my friends to cosign it. I don’t need their blessing, but their approval means something.
Anjie recognizes the change in my tone. “The fire behind your eyes and voice whenever you talked about him was enough to heat several rooms.”
“I—”
“Abeg, don’t even start. You’d brush us off whenever we mentioned him, but there was always some underlying heat. You were attracted to him. It was a no-brainer.” She shrugs and returns to eating her ice cream.
Her words force me back to my initial interactions with Niyi. How he looked at me on the first day. The way he’s looked at me since, when he thinks I can’t see. Apparently, when you’re the one involved, it can be tough to see past the fog.
“I need half of the cut, by the way,” I chime in once I’m done going down memory lane.
“You didn’t even tell me anything apart from ‘amazing,’” Anjie says. She mimics my voice horribly with some high-pitched mess.
“I don’t sound like that,” I bite back.
“Sure, love-struck.”
Anjola is the most insufferable person on this planet.
“All I’ll say is that you did indeed interrupt something,” I divulge, and her mouth goes wide. “Now, tell me why you interrupted my night before I kick you out.”
Anjie puts one last scoop in her bowl.
“Heard aboutThe Cook-Off?” Her eyes grow clear and serious.
The name doesn’t ring a bell, so I shake my head.
“New TV show. A culinary contest for small restaurants owned by BIPOC in the Greater Boston area. The winner gets a hundred thousand to invest in their business.”
I smile, and the tension between my shoulder blades relaxes. A cooking contest? I am not worried one bit.
“No, don’t look excited,” she says. “I didn’t apply.”
The confession blows me out of the water. Anjie loves her restaurant. She’s constantly recipe testing and ensuring the best customer service and working conditions for her handful of chefs. She does everything herself and frequently laments about not having enough money to grow the restaurant. There’s no logical reason she wouldn’t want to apply for a contest with a hundred thousand big ones on the line.
