She let out a humorless, little laugh. “I was scared you were gonna say that. I was hoping you’d be like, ‘Nah, Lowe, you tripping.’”
“You not trippin’, and you’d be mad as hell if I lied to you. You felt what you felt. Speak on it.”
She was quiet for a second before saying, “I can’t . . . un-feel what your mouth feels like now or that dance or your dick print. Having you lying next to me right now, I just feel like some schoolgirl with a damn crush, and I’ve never felt that way about you.”
That shit hit me right in the chest.
“You not by yourself. You’ve worn this exact T-shirt around me a hundred times, and this the first time I’m lying here thinking about how easy it would be to roll over, climb between yo’ legs, and cross a damn line we wouldn’t be able to uncross.”
“Hasheem.”
My jaw flexed. “What? I’m just saying how I feel.”
“You can’t just say shit like that and expect me to go to sleep.”
A quiet laugh broke out of me. “You the one who brought up my mouth and my dick, shorty. I was over here minding my business.”
“I was . . . processing.”
“Yeah, well,” I said, voice dropping. “Same.”
For a minute, we just lay there, staring up at the netting, both of us too awake and too aware.
“So, what do we do with that?”
I turned my head to look at her.
“I don’t think we do shit with it tonight,” I said, staring up at the netting. “We tired, we jet-lagged, we halfway buzzed, and you got a whole brand watching you tomorrow.” She was quiet, so I kept going. “I’m not finna act like I don’t feel it,” I admitted. “And I’m not finna jump on you like some nigga who don’t know how to act either. We close our eyes, we get through tomorrow, and if it’s still loud in your head after that . . .” I shrugged against the pillow. “We talk about it.”
“And if it’s still loud for you?”
“It’s already loud for me,” I said, letting her have the truth. “Question is justwhenwe deal with it, not if.”
That pulled a little breath out of her.
“I don’t want to lose you, Hasheem. You’ve been my best friend since Myspace.”
“Then you won’t.”
“Okay,” she whispered.
“Get some sleep, Harlowe,” I said, rolling onto my back. “We got a whole fake love weekend to survive.”
“Good night, Hasheem.”
“Night, Harlowe.” I rolled over on my side and exhaled a deep a breath. It got quiet again, but the air between us wasn’t the same. And I knew as clear as day that we weren’t going back to how shit was before.
Touch and Truthwas supposed to be a cute little spin on Twister that Duality planned for us couples, but it did not feel cute at all. They had this big vinyl mat laid out on the floor of an open-air pavilion over the water. Each mat had little circles with prompts printed in them. R&B floated out of the speakers, soft enough to feel romantic, loud enough that everybody was still shouting over it. I glanced around at the other couples. Everybody was holding hands, kissing, moving around each other all in love. I hoped nobody noticed the awkward bubble Hasheem and I seemed to be in.
All morning, we’d been moving around each other like we had the pastor sitting in the corner judging our every breath. We didn’t share any lingering touches, no inside jokes about myass being flat, no clowning each other. We were just polite, stiff even. We’d laid our feelings out last night, and things should have been moving smoother, but they weren’t. Hasheem and I were acting like we were filming a Christian fiction.
“Hands,” the facilitator reminded us, walking around the circle of mats. “Both of you, palms together, eyes on each other. Deep breaths in . . . and out.”
Hasheem’s fingers slid against mine, swallowing my hand up. Across from us, Tiana was already giggling into Malik’s shoulder. Another couple on the left was damn near forehead to forehead. We all looked like we’d signed up for intimacy bootcamp.
“Alright, couples.” The facilitator in the Duality shirt smiled as she paced the edge of the mat. “Next round. Both of you face each other, palms together, eyes on each other.”
I took a deep breath as I brought my eyes back up to Hasheem.
