“Don’t but Mo me. They’ve been together almost ten years. You can’t just waltz into their lives from on high for a month and tear that family apart.”

“I’m not tearing anything apart. I—”

“How could you, Kimba?”

“She’s fucking someone else,” I blurt. Were I completely sober, I doubt I would have said that.

“She’s what?” Mona’s eyes widen and her mouth hangs open. “Aiko?”

“I shouldn’t have said anything.” I groan, not drunk enough for a hangover, but just drunk enough to make a fool of myself and put everyone’s business in the streets.

“But ya did, so go on. Explain.”

“You and Ezra are friends. He’ll tell you when the time is right.”

“The time is right now, honey. You opened this can of worms. Don’t try to go shoving them back in now.”

I sigh and pluck at the frothy, shimmery layers of my skirt. “She asked for an open relationship. Ezra didn’t want it, said things weren’t getting better, and they’ve decided to break it off.”

“Aiko asked for an open relationship?” Mona’s face is skeptical. “Homegirl gets jealous, green as a butter bean over Ezra. I can’t imagine her being okay with him…are you sure?”

“Well, that’s what he told me. He says he wanted to make a clean break because they’ve been having trouble for a while.”

I sit up enough to glance at her over my shoulder. “Is that true?”

“I mean, I know they were seeing a counselor, but I assumed it was just them being smart, proactive. Keeping the lines of communication open.”

“Oh, they’re open all right,” I say dryly. “According to him, they’re over.”

“So Ezra told you this and you two kissed?”

I clear my throat. “Twice.”

“And did you do more than kiss?”

I love Mona, but I’m not getting into the details of Ezra’s fingers inside me, his mouth hot and suckling at my breast. In my mind’s eye, there’s an aerial shot of Ezra and me on that trampoline, breathing hard, turned into each other, unable to look away in the moonlight, intimacy curling deliciously between our bodies.

“Just kissed, but he wants more.” I meet her eyes across the room. “So do I.”

“Look, I’m not that chick who tells a grown-ass woman where to get the dick or how to run her life,” she says, “but I wouldn’t be your friend if I didn’t say this. They are a family. Aiko is not just some girl he found on Tinder and then decided it’s quits. He hasn’t been with anyone but her for ten years, and they have a son together. Things happened fast and things just happened. It ain’t over ’til it’s over, and if anyone gets hurt when things go south, it’ll be you.”