Alright. Thanks Bro. Don’t do nothing I wouldn’t do.
I let the screen go dark and slid my phone back into my pocket as the city passed me by.Don’t do nothing I wouldn’t doplayed on a loop in my damn head. I needed to get a grip on whatever was shifting between me and Harlowe. I leaned back, spread my knees, and enjoyed the sights as Harlowe worked.
The bus eased to a stop, and folks started standing, fixing clothes, grabbing bags, and preparing to get off. The door folded open, and a woman in a Duality polo stepped on, tablet in hand covering her face.
“Good morning, couples,” she greeted. “Welcome to The Duality Experience Couples Escape. We’re so happy y’all made it in safe?—”
Her words trailed off as she dropped the clipboard, and her face came into view.
“Simone?” Both Harlowe and I whispered in unison. I had to be hallucinating. There was no way my ex-fiancée I hadn’t seen in a little under a year was all the way in Africa. I gazed at her, and she was still beautiful. Her hair was braided up in a ponytail, and the name tag around her neck readSimone: Brand Experiencesclear as day. Last time I saw her, she was in my hoodie on my couch, crying about how she couldn’t compete with my best friend. We’d spent two years together. I’d asked her to be my wife, but she called it off. Her eyes hit my face, then slid to my right, where Harlowe’s hand was looped through myarm. I could see the moment where she connected the dots in her head. She blinked once, pulled her smile back on, and kept going like nothing happened.
“We’re gonna ride over to the resort, get y’all checked in, and then you can relax, shower, do whatever you need before the welcome mixer tonight,” she said, moving her gaze down the aisle, not lingering on us again. “If you need anything at all, my team and I are here for you.”
If you didn’t know her, you’d think she was unbothered, but I knew her. They started letting folks off row by row. When it was our turn, I stood, grabbed our bags, and stepped into the aisle. Harlowe slid out behind me, fingers still tucked in the bend of my arm like we’d been doing this forever. We walked past Simone. Her smile stayed for the crowd, but her voice dropped low, just for us.
“Guess I should’ve been worried about her back then, huh?” she spat softly, her eyes bouncing between our faces. “Looks like I wasn’t crazy after all.”
“Hi, Simone.” Harlowe waved politely, and Simone rolled her eyes. Harlowe tightened her grip on my arm, and we kept stepping. I didn’t stop. Didn’t argue. I wasn’t about to try and prove shit to Simone. I’d done right by her when we were together. I didn’t have to answer to her now.
“You at work, Simone,” I said under my breath. “Keep it at that.”
Then I stepped down off the bus, guiding Harlowe with me.
I waiteduntil I was inside our suite before I let myself unravel. I’d made it through the entire twenty minutes of check-in, holding myself together after seeing Simone’s face get on that damn bus. Of all the people who could have been the brand experiences manager for the Duality fragrance brand, it had to be her.
“Damn,” I muttered as the door clicked shut behind us. “Out of all the people in the whole damn world . . .”
Hasheem wheeled our suitcases in like he was clocking in at a hotel job. “You want to shower first or me?” he asked, like we hadn’t just been ambushed by my ex-friend slash his ex-fiancée.
“Did you see her face?” I asked instead of answering him.
“Nah. I was too busy looking at yours.” He let the room door click behind him. “You looked like you were about to shit yourself.”
I snorted out a laugh as I rolled my eyes.
“That’s not funny.”
“You laughed.” He raised an eyebrow.
“Of all the people on this planet, it just had to be the one who hates us both.” I dragged a hand down my face. Hasheem didn’t pay me any mind. Instead, he just parked the suitcases and hit the light. The suite lit up, and my meltdown quickly froze.
“Wow.”
I stepped further inside the room and paused my rant for a second. The bed was dead center with white sheets and a cloud of netting hanging over it. Rose petals were scattered across the cover in a neat little heart because, of course, they were. This was a Valentine’s weekend escape. I kept walking, drifting toward the glass doors. There was a plunge pool and just outside and past that was nothing but ocean.
“This dope,” Hasheem said with a low whistle under his breath. “All this on somebody else’s dime? I ain’t mad at it.”
“This is insane,” I muttered, turning in a slow circle. For half a second, I let myself enjoy it—the room, the view, the fact that my little book-talking, content-creating self had been flown all the way to Zanzibar off vibes and then Simone’s face flashed back in my mind, and my stomach flipped.
“She’s the reason I got this brand trip,” I muttered, sitting on the edge of the bed so I wouldn’t start pacing. “She has to be the reason.”
“Who? Simone?” Hasheem glanced back at me from the minibar, and I nodded. It made perfect sense. Simone knew my page. She knew my content. She knew that an opportunity like this was my dream. There was no way she didn’t have something to do with them picking me.
“I’m only here because?—”
“Nah!” He cut me off. “You here in another country ’cause of some shit you built with your phone.” He walked over and joined me on the bed. “Simone might have put your name in a hat, but she ain’t build your platform. Nah, you did that. Don’t play yourself.”
“I know,” I snapped, then blew out a breath. “I know. It’s just…” My throat got tight. “Why does my biggest accomplishment in my booktok career have to be tied to her?” I sighed, rubbing my fingers across my eyes. My Simone wound had just finished scabbing over, and here she was ripping it back open in a damn Duality polo. We’d spent our early twenties as close friends. I was the one who introduced her to Hasheem. I thought it would be cute to have my two favorite people dating, and it was for a minute, but as soon as Hasheem proposed, she wanted to kick me out the friendship.
