“But what if you are? What if when I see you, I see my daddy? Brave, loving, a little tattered from a hard life, but what if I see you?”
Malik let her what ifs linger in the air as his chest tightened. Maybe her words hit something in him or maybe the pills were wearing on him heavier than he expected.
“Sounds like a lot of pressure.”
Aku peeked at him through her closed eyes. “Pressure makes diamonds, boy how you know how to create apps and shit but don’t know that?”
He chuckled. “Don’t ever beg a nigga to love you though. You too fly for some weak ass shit like that.”
“I ain’t begging you.” Aku sat up, fire dancing in her eyes.
His hand landed on her thigh. “I know you ain’t begging me ‘cause you wouldn’t have to. I’m just saying... Oz might look fun but it ain’t. The Wizard can’t save you because he don’t even know what to do with something so pure, precious, and fine like you.”
“You the Wizard?”
His lips curled. “Shit, the people think I am…think I’m the golden child because I do my illegal shit with charm. I ain’t shit but the son of a hustler.”
“You’re thefine assson of a hustler,” she snickered making him do the same.
“You talking out the side of your neck ‘cause you want some dick. That nigga ain’t wanna give it to you?” Malik saw Devin in the cut, read the comments on their relationship…now he had thoughts. Probably some shit he should leave in his head, but like Aku, his mind was warped by substance too.
She shrugged. “That nigga would probably give it to me but I wanted it from you.” Bold - that was the word that described Aku to the letter.
She was bold in her walk and talk. The girls in Crescent were bold too, but their shit didn’t feel like hers. Her mouth game felt lethal—soul driving.
His dick jumped but he couldn’t give it to her like this. He wanted her to be one hundred percent in her right mind and he needed not to be rolling when and if he did it.
“You need to get some sleep. I can take you home and get your car to you later,” he offered.
Her glossy eyes glared into his as her tongue swiped against her plush lips. “Nah, I’m spending the night with my new bestie.”
He laughed. “You wild, Dorothy.”
“I’m just tryna follow the yellow brick road, baby.” She made her index and middle finger walk up his thigh with lust in her eyes. “Show me your room.” She stumbled to her feet, tugging him along with her.
Malik could feel the sexual tension building between them. It had always been there, but phone conversations and late nights chilling on the hood of his car helped him not to act on it. Now, with Aku in front of him with her long legs, pretty face, and freckles, Malik didn’t know if he could deprive himself of a once in a lifetime thing.
chapter 9
. . .
Aku stared at the numbers,letters, and figures sprawled across the screen like hieroglyphics from a world she didn’t belong to. She wasn’t dumb—far from it. She just wasn’t built for this kind of smart - not this kind of precision…not this type of logic.
“So what am I looking at?” she asked, not because she really wanted to know, but because his voice had gone quiet and she missed it.
She’d been poking around since she stepped into his room, pretending to be curious, but really she just needed to feel him in his space. It smelled like Malik—earthy, clean, like spice and sweat and something warm that stayed in your throat even after the moment passed. She inhaled again, slower this time, like she could bottle it up and tuck it away for when she was lonely.
Malik didn’t look at her right away. His fingers tapped keys, his eyes red from a mix of fatigue and the pill he popped earlier. When he finally turned to her, his smirk was crooked, easy, and tired. “This the backend of the app where I fix bugs, add features, make sure nobody can hack this shit. One wrong key stroke’ll blow the whole thing up.”
She folded her arms and nodded like she understood, but she was too caught up in the fact that he saidblow the whole thing upand her mind—drunk and vulnerable—went straight to how it felt being near him…unstable and magnetic like a bomb. Like he might ruin her, and she’d thank him for it.
“I guess it looks beautiful.”
“What you mean?” Malik’s thick brows creased.
She stepped closer, and tugged on one of his loose braids without asking, letting her fingers linger. “This shows your mind…and I think your mind is beautiful.”
His eyes dropped. That was the thing about Malik—he always tried to look away when something touched him too deep, but his skin betrayed him. Yellow-brown cheeks tinged with rose. He shook his head. “You just be saying shit…so what you see when you look at me?”
