Sweet Heat

by Bolu Babalola

He said any man who wants to “court” his daughter must be able to handle intense pressure without sweating. “If he can’t handle a little peppeh, what else can’t he handle?”’ ‘Listen. I thought I was gonna die. He was asking me my intentions whilst my entire face was on fire’

‘I just had to become one with the pain. You know how Simba saw Mufasa in the sky? Yeah, I saw my grandad.’

‘The one who died before I was born. His spirit told me to carry on, in the midst of the pepper choking me. My grandad told me that this was all for my future wife and this was just a trial of manhood I had to get through. Man just had to firm it. I was there to impress my girl’s pops – nothing was gonna mess with that.’

Awww

‘Well, you definitely earned his respect. And he thought you were hilarious. You know, afterwards, he laughed so much there were tears in his eyes? Thought it was the funniest thing in the world that you refused to drink any water as if you were legit trying to prove something.’

I was trying to prove I was good enough for you. That was serious business for me,’

‘My dad would only hate you if I hated you.’

‘I’m angry at you. I’m confused by your actions, but I don’t hate you. I could never fucking hate you. Trust me – I tried.’

Because I don’t think it’s complicated to want someone who tells you the truth.’ ‘I think it’s complicated to say you love someone and not trust that they would never do anything to hurt you.’ ‘And yet you did, so where does that leave us?’

Like I needed to believe you hated me so I could, like, unstick myself from us.’

The most damning thing of all is that I know exactly how he feels. I know what it feels like to desperately want to unstick yourself from a relationship that seems to be tacked on to you on a psychic level, so tight, so strongly, that the more you struggle the worse it gets. You beg for anything to help you rip it off, desperate enough to manufacture a belief that the other person hates you.

You were as close as it’s ever gonna get so I think he’d be cool with it. I don’t think I’m ever gonna get married. I don’t think I’m built for it. Just one of them things. I don’t think it’s for me.’

Do you know how gassed I was back there? I’m sorry if I went a little crazy or overstepped. It’s just . . . that big boss lady recognised you. Do you know how sick that is? Your work is real and it speaks. It always has. I saw you get spooked a little. I don’t know what’s going on, but I need you to remember who you are. If you don’t, I got you.

like after you’ve taken a post-operative opioid and you don’t feel any of the searing pain you’ve been through, but instead a strange, euphoric joy, as if you’re floating above reality.

We’ve been meticulous about our spontaneity; surveying the space earlier, we saw a door at the far end that led into a luxe shower-room, in which we found neatly folded (presumably) clean towels and a hairdryer, alleviating fears that we would have to tread damply back to the party while dripping evidence of our delinquency.

It’s how his body fills the space he moves through, as if making the air bow for him.

Two months? That was like three months after we broke up. That’s it? That’s the amount of time it took him to jump into bed with someone else? I was still holed up in my room wailing to Summer Walker and huffing peanut butter, jar to jowl.

‘Oh,’ I say. Well done, Keeks. Maturation. Void of chalants.

I was in this new city where I knew no one but my boss. I’d just lost so much that I felt lost myself. I felt like I was an imposter, living someone else’s life. Felt like I was sleepwalking half the time, honestly. And I was at one of them Hollywood parties where everybody pretends to be best friends whilst secretly hating each other.

‘So they’re treating me like some sort of specimen. Which makes no sense because so is Matthew—’ ‘Yeah, but Matthew speaks like he’s out of an Agatha Christie novel. And he doesn’t have your face.’

‘Anyway, someone offers me some stuff, some young white director dude. I say something like, “Nah, not really about it,” and then they say something very, very fucking racist about what he “knows” I get up to. Said I can be “myself”, that I don’t need to pretend around him. Then . . . well, I kinda lose it. Get up in his face. It’s like . . . it’s like I’ve been dying for a reason to lose my shit and then this Quentin Tarantino-wanna-be motherfucker has given me the reason.’

And Taré’s been watching all this from where she’s been standing in the corner – had no idea she was there. She interrupts the fight, whispers to me, “I’m gonna give you two choices. You can either stay and fuck up your career, or you can come with me and have a great rest of your evening.”’ He pauses, clears his throat of nothing. ‘So. I follow her up to one of the rooms.’

She said she heard my accent and immediately knew what I was going through. Said she’s been going through it too. Said she was lost too.

Both coming from bad break-ups, emotional shit, and we both didn’t want to talk about it. We didn’t really wanna feel anything. We spoke about work a bit and we felt like we got each other in that sense, but, if I’m being honest, that was the main connection. Chasing numbness. Not wanting to feel anything real.

It twists in my stomach, but I surprise myself by understanding, clarity cutting through the petty jealousy. They were two single hurting people wanting to stop the hurt in a city where no one really knew them.

And Taré’s great close up, but I also realised she’s just human. Normal. And going through what I was going through.

We both knew that it was gonna end. We checked in with each other once in a while, but we knew it wasn’t like . . . a thing. We stayed friends. Just friends.’

And when Taré was talking about it I was reminded of it. I’d blocked it out. And I feel like I haven’t been able to look at it – or, like, I dunno, allowed myself to look at it like a dark time for a long time. I think I need to say it out loud to avoid going back there.’

‘We had viewings today. For the restaurant. One of them was a couple from Berkshire. They wanna make it into a cheese-and-wine bar. Sam and Cherry. Walked into Sákárà and said it “smelled exciting”.

What does that even mean?

So much is changing. Aminah’s getting married, which is amazing, but it’s change. What if our relationship changes too? I feel it starting to happen and I can’t . . . I can’t afford to lose her. I’m already losing a home I’ve had for my entire life. My parents are moving to Lagos. I’m building a new career, which is exciting, but terrifying. I don’t have any real financial literacy so I’m bingeing Industry. It’s not really helping.

Change is good. This is just an evolution. It’s scary, but all good things are a little scary in the beginning.

you and Aminah love each other and it will be fine. You will always be fine. Sákárà is a representation of something in you, you’re allowed to acknowledge what it means to you, and you’re gonna pour it into everything you do so it’s going to live forever. No matter what.

No one has ever made me feel this way: secure in my skin and also transcending anything that could confine me. That’s depressing because no one has ever broken my heart like him either.

‘I hate being called Kai by anyone who isn’t you.’

‘That name belongs to you, Scotch. It’s yours. No matter what’s happened between us.’

I respect whatever we had enough not to do this. Because this is a dead end. Shallow. And you know it, and maybe that’s why you want it, because there’s no future here. You said it yourself: you’re not built for long-term relationships. Sorry, but I can’t use my energy this way. I’ve worked way too hard on myself to be distracted by something that is never going to work.’

Clap back.

‘But don’t demonise me for something you were cool with three months ago,’

‘It’s better you tell the truth, which is you don’t like who I am, and it worked for you for a time, and now it doesn’t. Now I sully this idea you have of yourself. And that’s cool, Kiki. Really, it is. I just want you to be honest, since you’re the one who talks about truth so much.

I think it gave you thrills to think you’d changed me. And it hurt your ego that I was the one who left, not you.’

Clap back to the clap back.

Nevertheless, I cough and do just that, blood pumping hard in my ears, heart caught just as it was about to fall again, grateful, so grateful, that I stopped myself from being fooled twice.

His voice splintered into tiny fractures as he wheezed terribly, as if all his strength was going into breathing. ‘Dad . . . heart attack . . . sleep.’

He talked to the doctors, his eyes bloodshot, his face numb, as his mum wailed her denial. She cried, soul-rattling repeated protestations of ‘no’, willing it not to be so, rejecting reality, calling truth to battle, because there is no way her larger-than-life husband had succumbed to death; no, they were supposed to go to Lagos next weekend; no, what did they mean?; no, what will her sons do without their father?; no, no, they should take her to see her husband immediately because somebody somewhere was lying, maybe even him . . . even though she’d been right next to him when it had happened; he was asleep . . . he was asleep.

I was ready to take it all, everything if I could, all of his heavy, all of his hurt.

I sobbed and rocked him as he whispered, ‘I want my dad, Keeks,’ and this time a single sob came out from him too. ‘I just want my dad,’ he repeated, and then several jagged sobs tumbled out. ‘I never said goodbye.’ With this came a howl, raw and primal, an animal dying. That sound imprinted itself on me, the sound of Malakai’s heart breaking in real time in an irreparable way, in a way I wouldn’t ever be able to fix, his pain lacerating through me.

‘Listen, I am not leaving anything to chance for the traditional wedding. Co-ed dance classes are mandatory so nobody can embarrass me on the day. Groomsmen and the bridesmaids need to be co-ordinated, like I would hate for the wedding to go viral on Bella Naija for the wrong reasons—’

Girl breathe.

Kofi’s mum said she doesn’t want her son’s heritage being drowned out and so this fusion dance to Nigerian Afrobeats and Ghanaian Afrobeats needs to be perfect—’

That's An Unhinged thing to say.

‘OK, sure, but why do those of us who are not rhythm-impaired have to join?’

‘Equity, Laide! Some of us are good, kind people who care about supporting people with no rhythm!’

‘Also,’ Kofi says, putting an arm round his fiancée’s shoulder, ‘it’s just a fun, bonding activity with the wedding party. Get to know each other before the day. Now, respectfully,’ he says, smile bright but eyes stern, ‘will you people get it together? We’ve already paid for the studio time.’

the bakery hasn’t got the exact balance of pistachio and rose that she’s needed, the renowned mixologist she wanted currently has a broken wrist (Kofi said a silent prayer of thanks for that due to his rate) and her mother has asked for her personal guest list to extend from 20 to 60 (legitimate outrage at this).

She was pissed I missed her call the night before her venue viewing (it turned out to be a question about if I was super sure that lilac wasn’t an ‘overdone’ bridesmaid dress colour) and only just about let go of me missing the viewing because I told her I’d been working late, ended up getting home at 2 a.m. and slept through my 7 a.m. alarm.