Likotsi had considered that particular future while curled up in bed with the woman who had thoroughly captivated her. She loved her job. Thabiso was her friend, as well as her boss, but Likotsi had spent so much time planning his future that she’d severely neglected her own.
Two days later, Fab had broken Likotsi’s heart, saving her the trouble of ever having to make a choice.
Likotsi had been living in Manhattan for five months now, having had to relocate along with Thabiso so Naledi could continue her education and they could continue their courtship, but she hadn’t ever reached back out to Fab, whose last words had seemed final.
Likotsi: I thought you wanted more. Can’t we discuss this?
Fabiola C: Sorry. No.
It’d been seven months and three weeks, and the woman’s memory remained lodged in Likotsi’s heart like a cactus thorn. She remembered the way Fab’s smile always seemed a little bit wicked because the right side of her mouth raised up slightly higher than the left. She could still outline the shape of Fab’s soft curves with her palms, if she closed her eyes. She could still feel the caress of deft fingers that created living, sinuous beauty from lifeless metal and raised goose bumps as they trailed over Likotsi’s bare flesh.
Likotsi tapped at the sole of her shoe, a reminder.
Forward.
Her phone vibrated in the inner pocket of her tan mid-length cashmere trench coat, which was slightly too thin for the weather but perfectly matched her shoes. Likotsi grabbed it and glanced at the screen.
AIRDROP—“MyNameIsAccurate” would like to send you a photo, the pop-up dialogue box on her phone read.
Likotsi looked around her train car. There were two teenagers sharing one set of earbuds between them having a subdued dance party, a couple holding hands and chatting intimately, an annoyed group of tourists taking angry selfies on the other end of the car.
A cute woman of East Asian descent seated diagonally to Likotsi glanced at her, then down at her phone, then back at Likotsi. Was she “MyNameIsAccurate”?
Likotsi’s thumb hovered over her phone’s screen. She was certain her phone was secure and that she wouldn’t get a virus that might put His Highness’s safety at risk, but she hadn’t done any infosec training since before Christmas . . .
You’re not working. And aren’t you ready to finally start dating?
Likotsi accepted the photo.
Red leather gloves holding a section of drugstore receipt, onto which someone had scrawled, Likotsi?
She glanced over at the woman who had smiled at her, zeroing in on the woman’s hands. Her gloves were of the dollar store magic variety, made of black polyester not red leather.
Her phone pinged again as a photo of a new scrap of receipt came through. Are you back in New York?
Likotsi sat still. There were few people who had known about her last trip to the city. Fewer with delicately tapered fingers who would wear bright red leather gloves.
The train lurched forward, finally resuming motion, and the tourists at the other end of the train car cheered, but Likotsi gripped her phone, staring.
This time the dialogue box offered a video, and Likotsi accepted with a mix of dread and, frustratingly, hope.
It was a short clip, starting with a tight shot of Likotsi through two smeared and scratched sets of subway train windows, her posture stiff and the shaved side of head exposed because she’d absentmindedly pushed her locs to one side while examining the photo she’d received. As the camera zoomed out, it became clear that the phone was recording in selfie mode. Out the shot pulled, revealing the stretch of smooth dark skin over high, sharp cheekbones. Out, revealing red-painted lips and familiar deep brown eyes.
The woman raised her pointer finger and brushed in front of the phone’s camera—a swiping motion.
“Fabiola C, located, like, two feet away from you, has swiped right. Again,” she said before flashing that wicked smile of hers.
Likotsi almost dropped the phone but managed to hold on to it—even a shock to the system such as this couldn’t make her careless with her technology.
She stared at the paused image of Fab, with herself unfocused in the background, as if someone had managed to capture her state of being for the last seven months and three weeks. That was the version of herself she’d vowed to walk away from, and now the woman who’d caused her dejection had chosen today of all days to step out from her past.
She didn’t tremble, and tears didn’t prick at her eyes, but Likotsi felt slammed by the unfairness of it all. Her chest ached, and for a moment she hated everything that had brought Fab into her life the first time, and now the second.
She sucked in a breath against her own sacrilege—Ingoka makes no mistakes was a central tenet of her religion, the very root of everything Likotsi believed in. Still, she wished the goddess could exercise a bit more caution with Likotsi’s feelings than had been taken of late.
The door separating one car from the other opened just as the train barreled into the darkness of the subway tunnel. The roar of the wheels on the tracks filled the car, and Likotsi’s head whipped toward the noise. The train rocked back and forth as it sped toward Canal Street, but Fabiola C strolled in like a sailor used to rough seas, unbothered.
She looked . . . different. During the time they’d spent together, she’d been dressed in meticulous pinup-girl style, but now that the initial shock was fading, Fab was beginning to come into focus.