6 #2
“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.
We didn’t speak during the ride home, the tension between us like a sweet, tart thing. We didn’t speak on the brief walk down the street that branched off the main road and led to our own side streets. We didn’t speak until I’d unlocked the front door and led him up to my room.
Then I spun around accusingly. “You’ve been seducing me.” Only it sounded breathless instead of accusing. “All day. You’ve been seducing me all day.”
“Maybe.” Uzezi smirked unapologetically, resting his back against my closed bedroom door, his hands tucked into his jacket pockets.
For some reason, just him standing there made me feel like my room suddenly didn’t have enough oxygen.
“So, have you given my proposal some proper thought?” God, that beard. That mouth.
“Straight to it, huh?” I said, trying to buy myself some time.
His smirk changed slightly, his eyes telling me he knew exactly what I was doing. “You know how I do.”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I have,” I said, even though I really hadn’t.
But that smile, the easy way he was standing—Christ the way he was looking at me right now, with a strange mix of fondness and desire that had my blood literally melting like golden honey in my veins.
Combine all that with the searing memory of our kisses, it was easy to make my mind up on the spot, even though it made me feel like hyperventilating.
“I mean, you’re right; it only makes sense.
You’re my best friend. I love you, and I trust you.
There’s no one else I trust more in the entire world.
It just makes sense. I don’t know why I hadn’t even thought of it before—”
He’d started walking closer as I was talking, his grin growing wider and wider the longer I was unable to stop.
“—I don’t know why I even thought it’d be weird when it’s you and it’s me. Right? I mean, we’ve been best friends for—what? Most of our lives? Why would it be weird? Even if it had been entirely platonic, it still wouldn’t be weird because ...”
I trailed off after I found myself walking backward, helplessly, despite my faux bravery, until he was crowding me into my desk.
“You’re rambling,” he murmured fondly, his hands leaving his pockets to land on the wood behind me, effectively caging me in.
“I’m nervous,” I admitted, even as I melted on the spot like I was starved for him. It felt like I was. Shit, could he hear my heartbeat going wild right now? And how could someone’s pseudo-embrace be so fucking warm? I swore I could feel the heat radiating off him all the way down to my marrows.
“Why are you nervous?” He asked the question playfully, as if to remind me that it was only him. At that, I immediately relaxed. “Very good,” he murmured, and I felt like I’d just been dunked in a volcano.
He dipped his head, and I automatically lifted my own. Our lips met, and it was every bit as devastating as the first time. I moaned into his mouth, lifting onto the tips of my toes, my arms going around his neck. His hands left my desk to cup my hips, holding firmly.
He kissed me hard and deep and hungry, until my knees threatened to give out from underneath me. When he broke the kiss, I made a pitiful, whining noise. He laughed softly.
“Been dying to do that all day,” he confessed breathily.
My eyes were clenched shut as I whispered, “Uzi, what the fuck is happening right now.” How could this feel so familiar yet so new at the same damn time?
“You’re asking me,” he teased gruffly.
“Fuck.” I looked into his eyes, then immediately looked away, overwhelmed. “What is this.”
“You’re asking me,” he repeated with an amused huff. He pressed his lips to my forehead, yet another thing he’d done many times before, but again, like the handholding, it suddenly felt different. “Want to order a snack while we watch a movie?”
“Oh.” I tried not to visibly squirm. “I thought—aren’t we going to ...?” Arousal surged at simply asking the question, even as anxiety and embarrassment spiked right with it.
“Not right now, no,” he said, placing a gentle kiss on my mouth, as if to placate any sting I might feel. This time, when he pulled away, I managed to swallow down my needy whine. Jesus, what was he doing to me? “I want it to be perfect, Fure. Which means I want you to be absolutely ready.”
“But I am ready.” It didn’t feel like a lie when I said it.
Uzezi simply lifted an eyebrow. I groaned, even as I was filled with so much love for him in that moment it felt like I could barely contain it.
“Okay, fine. Maybe I’m not precisely ready.
But ... we can ... you know ...” I was being dipped in lava again, as I whispered, every inch of me on fire, “We can take it slow ... just ...” My voice lowered even more, and I began blushing so hard it was a wonder my head didn’t instantaneously explode. “With our clothes on, or—”
“Ofure, na today I meet you?” I bit back a laugh at the pidgin. Nigerians; why were we always so dramatic? He rested his forehead against mine, his voice low when he murmured, “You’re acting like I don’t know exactly what you want.”
I swallowed when, for some odd reason I refused to examine, those words made my pussy come awake. “And what do I want?”
“To be edged,” he answered roughly. My arousal immediately went from one to two hundred. I shifted my hips restlessly, and watched his eyes darken. His lips quirked when he added, “Romantically, of course.”
A laugh burst out of me, so unexpected it almost hurt.
“Am I lying?” he teased, grinning.
“You know what? Fine. You’re right. I do want to be ... edged.” Jesus, why was that word so loaded?
“I know I’m right.” He winked. “Prepare yourself, Fure, baby. You’re not ready for what I have planned.”
“Okay, o, Uzi, baby,” I sing-songed back, laughing. “Oshey dramatic.”
“Ah, ah. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
I shook my head, grinning. Like I said, how freaking dramatic.