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

Chapter One

Milan was the first person Feyi had fucked since the accident.

They hooked up in a bathroom at a Memorial Day house party in Bushwick, with Feyi's glass of prosecco spilling into the sink and Milan's large hands sliding behind her thighs as he lifted her onto the bathroom counter. Speckled tiles stretched around them, washed bloody in the light of the red bulb someone had screwed into the ceiling, and a linen shower curtain hung around the bathtub, thick with monstera leaves. Feyi threw her head back, his mouth at her throat, and her long pink braids dripped over the faucet, the tips dragging against the draining bubbles of her drink.

"Tell me if you need to slow down," Milan said, his voice all tangled up, busy with want. "I know we just met or whatever."

He said it as if it could matter, or as if it was a reason to stop instead of a reason to go even faster. Feyi had first seen him back on the rooftop, when the party was in full force around them. She'd liked the way his eyes followed her as she walked, how tall he was, how broad. Her best friend, Joy, had leaned in, linking her arm with Feyi's.

"Whew, check out those thighs!" she'd whispered. "He thick as fuck. I'ma need him to turn around so I can see that ass."

Feyi had rolled her eyes. "So glad you don't have a dick," she said. "You'd be a fucking menace."

"I'd be particularly interested in his ass if I had a dick," Joy replied.

"I take that back. You're already a menace." Feyi snuck another look at the thighs in question. "Besides, you can just use a strap, you know."

"Nah, it's not the same. I wanna feel him squeeze around me." Joy had flexed her fingers into a fist to illustrate the grip, and Feyi stifled a laugh, her braids sweeping across her collarbone. Milan glanced in their direction, catching Feyi's eye and smiling at her from across the roof.

Feyi had already decided who she wanted to be that night, so she stared right back at him, unabashed, drinking in his terra-cotta skin and dark copper beard. When he nodded to his boys and started walking toward her, Joy squealed and vanished, leaving the two of them alone. Feyi wanted to cut through any potential small talk—just slice it away neatly—so she touched the buttons of Milan's shirt as soon as he was close enough.

"You're hot," she'd said, before he could even open his mouth. "Are you seeing anyone?"

A flicker of surprise had crossed his face, but Milan recovered quickly. "Nah," he replied, tipping his head to one side as he held her eyes. "You?"

For a moment, there was the scream of tires and the mad chime of broken glass, the soft petals of white lilies, and a clod of dirt breaking apart in Feyi's hand, but she brushed it all aside like smoke.

"Single," she'd said in return, stepping right into his personal space. He smelled of rain and bergamot. "And—how do they say it?—ready to mingle."

It would have been a corny line if she wasn't so beautiful, and Feyi knew it—knew how to part her lips in their full wine red, how to look up at him from under thick black lashes, how to inject a lifetime of suggestion into her voice. It was all a game, a simple formula, and there was nothing wrong with using these cards she'd been dealt. Besides, if she looked closely enough at the whole thing, none of it really mattered. He was a different kind of beautiful, and that was enough.

Although she and Joy had been drinking since brunch, Feyi wasn't drunk yet, just tipsy enough to choose him, to dive back into the deep end with his body. From the way this terra-cotta stranger had placed his hand on her lower back, welcoming her against him, he seemed to be on board with her plan. Joy was somewhere by the bar, surely restraining her glee at seeing Feyi make such a blatant move.

"I'm Milan," the stranger had said, his wide and delicious mouth curving into an amused smile.

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.