Tsehay rolled her eyes as Elias negotiated a fare with one of the taxi drivers at the hotel. “Some of the staff have family who live in towns close by and went to stay with them for the weekend, and the others said they’re too tired.” She grinned at me. “So you’re stuck with us. Are you ready to do the Eskista?” she asked as she popped her shoulders back and forth.

Elias turned around in that moment and laughed as he gestured for us to get in the car. “Leave him alone, Tsehay. He might not want to do traditional dances.”

Despite my mother being Dominican, I wasn’t the most avid of dancers, but as per usual the desire to impress Elias had me wanting to act a fool. Once inside the taxi, I said to Tsehay, who was still trying to bop her head from side to side despite the cramped backseat, “I’m up for learning. But I’m not sure I can move my shoulders or my neck like that.”

Elias turned around and grinned at us. “We’ll teach you, Desta. You have your name to live up to, after all.”

My stomach clenched every time Elias looked at me like he and I were in on the same joke. It felt intimate in a way that freaked me out a little bit. Every minute I spent with him had me throbbing with a want I knew very well I could never ever act on.

We got to the place and were seated at a tall, round table, which was surrounded by low wooden stools. I glanced around, taking in the scene. The place looked more like a big event hall than the bar I expected, and there were a lot of people there already.

A server came by soon after we sat down to ask if we needed anything. Elias looked over to me and asked very seriously, “Would you join us in a coffee ceremony?”

I was already pushing it with the amount of coffee I’d had that day, but we had off tomorrow and I was not turning down anything Elias offered me at this point. “Sure,” I said with more perkiness than warranted.

Once we’d placed our orders, we turned our attention to the big stage and the performers who were dancing in the style of one of the Ethiopian tribes. I leaned over to ask which one it was and noticed that Elias and Tsehay were talking with their heads close together. They were sitting right next to me but were speaking in Amharic, and I had no hope of understanding a word they were saying.