Excerpt from You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Relief flashed across his face. "Oh, okay. Cool."

They stood for a moment staring at each other, then Feyi pushed her braids back. "I should probably take a piss," she said, enjoying how blunt the words were.

"Oh! Of course." Milan turned toward the door, then paused and turned back. "Actually… can I get your number?"

Feyi raised an eyebrow. "It was that good, huh?"

Milan laughed. "I'm just saying. I wanted to take you out, soon as I saw you up on the roof."

"And you still want to?"

He frowned. "Why wouldn't I?"

Feyi shrugged. "No reason." She held out her hand for his phone and typed in her number. "Shoot me a text, I guess."

Milan leaned in to kiss her cheek, his lips soft as a wing. "I'll call you," he said before closing the bathroom door behind him as he left. The music from the party leaked through in a quick slice of sound, then quietened out again.

Feyi pulled her skirt back up and sat down on the toilet, listening as her pee hit the water, a smile half playing across her face. What the fuck had just happened? She wiped away his come and groaned. Joy was going to kill her for fucking him raw, but Feyi didn't know if she could explain it. There was just no way she could've watched him come in his hand or on her skirt or against her thigh, that arcing white. She couldn't bear to see it, not yet, not like this. It would have tipped the stranger thing too far to the other side, something sordid and used, something ugly and frantic. It felt better to be close, pressed against each other, intimate. As if they meant something. As if this was beautiful. She had just needed it not to stop, because if she was lost in Milan and his skin, if there was nothing except his momentum in and against her, hard and fast, driving out everything else, then there would be no ghosts.

There would be no memory of a fine-boned man with almond eyes and braided locs, no memory of how slow and gentle he liked to move inside her, how his voice sounded when he whispered how much he loved her. Feyi shook her head and flushed the toilet, picking up her ruined thong from the floor and tossing it in the trash. She stepped into the hallway and bumped straight into Joy, all purple sequins and long legs.

"There you are! Where did you run off to? You ready to head out? They started doing lines on the roof and you know I don't fuck around with that shit."

Feyi grimaced. "Yeah, let's go home. Call an Uber?"

"Already did, it's like seven minutes out." Joy looked over Feyi's shoulder at the reddened bathroom. "Wait, were you in there the whole time? With him?"

Feyi smiled. "I mean. You did want me to get laid."

"My bitch!" Joy threw her arms around Feyi and squeezed her tightly. "Oh, you smell of sex; I'm so proud of you!"

"Yeah, yeah. Let's get out of here." They wound through the rest of the party and out of the house, pushing through the front doors and spilling out onto the stoop.

Joy stopped and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, passing one over. "Did you tell him… you know…"

Feyi flipped open a lighter and leaned over, the flame flowering in her hands. "Did I tell him what?"

"That he's the first since the accident?"

Feyi had decided to stop smoking, but this occasion rather called for it. She made a mental note to get Joy to quit too, even as she cut her a look. "Did I tell him that he's the first guy I've fucked in the last five years?" She took a drag, then tipped her head back and blew a plume of smoke out into the air. "Of course not. Fuck I look like?"

Joy raised her hands. "I was just wondering."

"Mm-hmm." Feyi looked out at the dark street and sighed. Time to come clean. "You're gonna be mad, though."

Joy stabbed a finger in her direction. "See, I knew this was too good to be true. What the fuck did you do? And if it's nasty, say it quick, before the car gets here."

Excerpted from You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi. Copyright © 2023 by Akwaeke Emezi. Excerpted by permission of Washington Square Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.