LITMIR.BIZ

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like coconuts!” She sagged. “Chlöe, year before last when I was falling apart and really needed Ti around, he wasn’t. On top of that, Joshua lied to me. I was desperate for answers, and he looked me in my face and lied that he didn’t know Ti was posted in Mozambique all along. But he also knew that sometimes people really can’t handle the truth. Me and Ti …” Vee’s voice cracked. “We messed up bad. We needed to run away from each other. Joshua was also the one who had to look at me every day and see how much it was killing me. And then tell his boy about it, and hear how much it was killing him. But he couldn’t own up because Ti swore him to secrecy, so he kept his word. He took care of a friend because another friend asked him to. I can’t hate him for that.”

      “Then … is this about being in love with him and not wanting to admit it? ’Cause that never ends well.”

      Chlöe studied her friend’s outline in the dim backlit lawn, watched her wordlessly slug through her dilemma. Vee’s was a dirty beauty, of the ilk of the mysterious Lovett Massaquoi’s. The lines of her cheekbones and lips were angular yet soft, her eyes heavily tilted, the bridge of her nose surprisingly slender until the fleshy tip. It was a face to make men look, and look again. At certain angles it spelled trouble, and could suck you into wanting to find out how much.

      Finally Vee said: “It’s not about Juju, it’s about Ti. I love him and never stopped.”

      “Well.” Chlöe plucked the grass, ripping up stubbly blades and stalks and rolling them between her fingers, letting the gentle wind sift them back to the ground. “Well,” she finished, nothing more to add.

      She grunted to her feet and watched Vee resume her pose of languishing on her side, legs curved to her bum. “Taking my drunk arse to bed and yours better follow soon. We’ve filed our piece, capped off our stay with a flippin’ good time and I can’t wait to leave this place in my dust tomorrow morning.” She stumbled as she tackled the incline of the grassy knoll. “I’m serious, love,” she called over her shoulder. “Don’t fall asleep out here and get fondled by a security guard. You’ve got enough problems. If I don’t see you in a half hour, I’m beeping you.”

      “Urmmgghnff,” Vee mumbled.

      Warm orange hit the back of her eyes.

      Vee blinked from a doze and abruptly squeezed her lids shut again. Too bright. Where the hell was she? Grass, cool earth under her back. Outside . . The lawn. Quiet. Opposite of inside. Noise, party, drunken louts. She patted the ground on either side of her. Empty. No Bishop. What the hell, deserter, where was she?

      Reluctantly she bid her eyelids open. Adjusting to the glare of the security floodlights took a moment. She picked up scuttling, possibly of one of the waiters or a maid, near the dark clutch of trees by the chalets. Other than that, no sign of humanity. She checked her watch: about ten minutes since Chlöe had left. She checked her phone: one new voicemail. From Titus: ‘Why you acting stank? You better holla back before I call my other hos.’

      Grinning, Vee propped up on elbows and lifted her face to the breeze. She imagined Titus’s lips, trailing velvet down the verge behind her ear, fingers entangled with hers as he lowered his body to meet hers. Sometimes a memory of their lovemaking spooked her, so vivid she had to brace herself to keep her balance.

      Then from nowhere, another image intruded: her lips in Joshua’s curls, his mouth in the hollow of her neck as he stroked where the base of her spine curved into her bum.

      Her eyes popped open.

      Joshua Allen didn’t have the good sense his Ma born him with. Messing round with his toxic ex-girlfriend, for real? Well, he needn’t waste time waiting on her if his itches needed scratching. Okay, he didn’t do short women, didn’t find the petite delicate thing thrilling, couldn’t stand their ‘scrabbling all over you in bed like over-eager mice’, or so he said. Aria Burke was proving the exception, though to be fair she wasn’t short, more like average. She could wrap her quasi-stubby, modern-jazz-and-African-interpretative-dance legs around him no problem. They’d look excellent together, their matching caramel limbs intertwined. They’d laugh together over impossibly high-brow, insular American jokes that even she couldn’t get and whisper shit to each other like ‘Oh darling, this feels so irrevocably right.’ Only they’d say it in Spanish, which they were both fluent in, because they shared that New York melting-pot backstory that she had no part of. The light-skinned, flowing-haired girls always won eventually.

      Vee swallowed, the bolus of hurt wedged in her throat going down hard. “You not comin’ do this out here, finegeh,” she chided herself.

      No matter how many ducks lined up, somewhere else the walls were crumbling. But dammit if she was going to wallow in drunken self-pity in a strange venue. She considered going back inside to the party; it was a shorter walk. Inside, where she didn’t know anyone. Except Lovett, who always hob-nobbed in tight, impenetrable cliques, doing his I’m-with-white-people laugh. Moaning, she wobbled to her feet and began the seemingly endless trek across the lawn.

      A hand closed around her arm as her shoe hit the first step at the end of the walkway. She tripped and nearly screamed.

      “I’m so sorry. I called out but you didn’t seem to hear me. You okay?”

      “N–yes. I’m fine.” She pressed a hand to her chest. “God. I didn’t think anybody else was out here.” She squinted against the security floodlights. It was the loudmouth from the convention group, the one with the black hair so stiff and glossy it looked like the plastic bristles of a shoe brush pushing through his scalp.

      “I believe this is yours.” He held out a length of purple material, whispery in the night breeze, and it was a moment before Vee recognised her scarf. She took it with muttered thanks, draping it over her arm.

      “It’s Vai … Velajoma … Vanaijema?”

      Here we go, she thought wearily. “It’s pronounced Vahn-jah-ma, almost like ‘vine’… as in ‘grapevine’. Or Voi-een-jah-ma. Either way is fine.”

      He chortled, flushing. “You gave me your card.” He waved it under her nose. “Been wondering what the pronunciation was. It’s a lovely name. I’m Gavin Berman, if you remember.”

      I did what? A vague recollection of executing the schmooze shuffle, business cards slipping with ease through her fingers, flashed in her mind. She pressed her eyes closed and ran a caress over her forehead. How many had she had?

      “So. Johnson.” He twiddled the card, flicking it under his fingers. “Hhmm. Interesting. Are you coloured?”

      God, this country. “Do I look coloured?” Vee picked a twig off the scarf.

      He laughed far too loudly. “No, no, clearly not. It’s rather curious, though. Why is your name Johnson then?”

      “Because my father’s name is Johnson. Look, I’m really sorry, but –”

      “No I’m sorry, for going about this the wrong way. It’s obnoxious. I see you’re a journalist.” He flicked the card against his thumb before slipping it into his pants pocket. “You must be covering the event. Would you like to have a drink? I’m a mine of information at the witching hour.”

      She relaxed. Slightly. “Oh no, I’m actually not on this. Just visiting. Thank you for the offer, but no thanks. I have a very early day ahead of me tomorrow.” She turned to leave and heard him bound up the stairs after her.

      “One drink.” He barred her way. “I’ll walk you back to your room.”

      His eyes roamed over and stuck to her body like something wet and slimy. He stepped close enough for a blast of his breath to hit her in the face. Vee back-pedalled, heart starting to thud. “Wha–”

      “Just think about it …” As his arm snaked around her waist, Vee saw her own arm shoot out with a will of its own. His eyes bulged as her fingers closed around his neck and shoved him against the nearest wall. A croaky gargle escaped his throat.

      “Listen here, mister ass,” she

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