“You cool?” I asked.
“No,” she said flatly. “And before you ask . . . Yes, I know I look a mess.”
I lifted the flowers. “I wasn’t even about to say anything.”
“Don’t lie to me, Hasheem.”
I lowered the flowers. “Okay. You look rough. You’re not going anymore or somethin’?”
She huffed as she stepped aside so I could enter. The fact that she wasn’t squealing about the bouquet told me something was wrong. She never let me bring her anything without making a bigdeal about it. Her silence and the fact that I was still holding the bouquet told me that whatever was bothering her was code red.
“What’s going on?” I asked, walking deeper into her living room. I kicked my shoes off at the door and my eyes bunched together. This shit looked like a tornado had hit it. Normally, Harlowe’s place was all cozy and clean and shit, like those apartments you saw on a commercial. The only thing she ever had lying around was those nasty ass books she liked to read. Tonight, though, there were clothes, hair products, and shoes everywhere. The empty suitcase in the middle of the floor served no purpose at all.
“Okay. First, thank you. The flowers are beautiful,” she said. “And everything, everything is going on.” She plopped down on the couch frantically.
“Give me the biggest disaster first.” I walked over to her kitchen and grabbed the vase she kept on the kitchen counter. I filled it with water and placed the flowers inside, just as that damn smoke detector in the hallway let out another chirp. That shit had been pecking on my nerves since I walked in. She knew she could have called me about it a long time ago. I pulled the drawer by the stove open, grabbed a fresh battery from the pack she kept in there, and walked down the hall. One quick reach and I had it off the bracket, swapping out the batteries. Once the chirping stopped, I joined her on the living room couch to hear what the hell was going on.
“My boyfriend canceled.” She exhaled, like what she’d just said made sense.
“What?” My eyes shot to her, confused as fuck. Harlowe didn’t have a boyfriend. She hadn’t had one in a long time. Not since the last bozo she’d dated had cheated on her.
“The guy I hired to play my boyfriend, okay?”
“Hol’ up! Run that back. You hired a boyfriend?” I cocked my head to the side, like she’d grown a second head. Shit, now I was even more confused.
“The brand trip I leave for tomorrow is for couples,” she rushed out. “They reached out to me because of my content. When they told me the details, I didn’t want to confess to being single. I thought I could just find someone, but every dude in my phone had an excuse. I thought I finally found someone. He agreed to pretend to be my boyfriend on this brand trip, and he just canceled on me forty minutes ago.”
“Why the hell would you accept a couples’ brand trip?”
“I don’t know . . . thirty thousand dollars and a trip to Zanzibar, maybe.” She put her hand to her face. “My reputation is on the line, and this man hit me with some shit about his baby mama and then blocked me.”
I blinked. “He blocked you?”
“Blocked me, unfollowed me, and deleted the chat. What am I going to do?”
“So you mean to tell me out of all these niggas that be in yo’ DMs and comments, you couldn’t find one that wanted a free trip to Zanzibar?”
“Oh, everybody wanted the free trip until they found out they had to be on camera,” she said, releasing a heavy sigh before allowing her words to tumble out all at once. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. I leave in the morning. I can’t show up to the trip alone. That defeats the whole point of it being a couple’s brand trip. They’re paying for chemistry, public affection, a whole romantic vibe that I do not have.” She looked up at me with those eyes, the ones that undid me every time. Then, suddenly, her eyes lit up as if a light bulb had just gone off in her head.
“Unless . . .” She breathed like she was seeing me for the first time. “Unless, Hasheem, you come with me.”
I froze. “Come with you?”
“Pretend to be my boyfriend,” she added quickly. “Please? It’s only for a few days.”
For a second, everything went quiet.I know she ain’t just ask me what I think.She asked me to go with her across the world in less than twelve hours. That wasn’t even the kicker. Nah, she wanted me to pretend to be her man. My first instinct was to laugh in her face and tell her she was wild ass fuck, but the distress on her face wouldn’t let me. Who else was she going to ask? All of her other options had fallen through. I was her most reliable option. I’d always been the one who picked up, the one who pulled up, the one always fixing shit. It was the dynamic of our friendship, and I wouldn’t change a damn thing about it. Harlowe was an only child. She didn’t have any friends. Her parents lived six states away. If she didn’t have anybody else in this world, she had me, and vice versa.
“You serious?”
“Please.” She nodded her head as she stared at me. “You’re perfect for it. You’re tall, dark, and handsome. You know me like the back of your hand, and you won’t embarrass me?—”
“I don’t know, Lowe. That’s a big ask.”
I shook my head slowly. I wasn’t some naive ass nigga. I knew what rolling with her on this brand trip could turn into. Being up under her, sharing a bed, doing all that fake PDA, kissing on camera. We couldn’t play boyfriend for a whole weekend and pretend everything was good when we got back home. But this was Harlowe, my day one, my best friend. If shit got blurred, surely we were grown enough to unblur it. Our bond was solid. The only correct answer was no, but I couldn’t stand to let her down. She looked like she was hanging on by a thread.
“Please, Hasheem. I’m all out of options. If I cancel now at the last minute, I’ll ruin a very big brand relationship. It’s Kellon and Phileigh Barnes! You know I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t need this.”
I stared at her for a minute and then shook my head. “I swear you stay getting me into some shit, man. Pretend to be in love with you?”
