Dark coffee

Chapter four

We were Saturday morning the day of Malik's party. It was a beautiful sunny and windy day in October. My brothers and I had been awake since very early this morning. We took breakfast, right after we started to clean the house.  While we were hiding all our precious belongings in our parents' room; The main door rang. I went to open it.  It was Hakim. When he saw me, he kissed me on my left cheek and the right one. He then greeted my brothers with a bros handshake known by the boys in my neighbourhood and went to drop his things in Jamal's room. Once he has done, he came back downstairs to help us. They decided to put some trap music while we were cleaning.

About twenty minutes later we had finished cleaning. I went in the basement with Jamal to  look for the garage key. While we're looking for it Lens came to tell me that Kaneasha and Dorcas were upstairs in my room. I looked at my phone and saw  it was 10am and Dorcas texted me to come upstairs. As soon as I saw her message, I went up to my room. Once I got there, I found them dressing.  "Hey girls!" I said to them.

I hadn't even set foot in my room that Dorcas excitedly said, "Dahila come in and close the door !"

"Hmm, why?" I asked

"Just do it!" She rolled her eyes up. I did what she asked. As soon I closed it Dorcas almost screamed "Did I just saw that good looking guy we saw the first weeks of school?"

"You mean Hakim?" I asked

"You know him?" Asked Kaneasha astonished.

"Yeah, I kinda know him. He's Jamal best homeboy since this summer but they met each other when he started College" I replied

"Lucky you! Sometimes I wish I got big brothers too just for their friends" Kaneasha added

"Enough about him. What about you Dahila? Is Darell coming tonight?" asked Dorcas. 

They looked at me with an insistent look. I ended up telling them "I'm not sure; he told me that he works." Their faces felt bad for me. To reassure them, I told them "Anyway, it's not like I wanted him to come. You forced me to invite him remember?" 

"Something changed about you, you're no longer the Dahila I knew since the beginning of this year," Dorcas said.

"She's right," Kaneasha added.

"Can we just go finish helping my brothers?" I said to change the subject. They didn't try to make me talk; we left my room and went down to the kitchen. Once we were there, we washed our hands and started to cook. The atmosphere was pretty awkward between us but they helped me to cook a macaroni pie. After that Kaneasha cooked Trinidad chicken Pelau. While Dorcas and I were cooking hamburger meats and Italian sausages in the barbecue. Around 11 am, Malik and Lens went out to the grocery to buy crisps, candies, hamburger buns, crates of soft drinks and alcohol. Meanwhile, Jamal was fixing the sound system and lights for the party in the basement with Hakim's help who studies in sound and audiovisual programming.

Around 1 pm, Jamal and Hakim came into the kitchen to eat the pizza we reheated in the oven. As soon as they came, they laughed when they saw Kaneasha, Dorcas and I who were wearing plastic bags over our heads to prevent the smell of food from penetrating our hair. The seconds after, we saw my brother take out his phone from his jogging pocket. He started filming us.

"Y'all look how immigrants are these girls"  "But who does that? Bro, have you ever seen something like that before?" He asked Hakim.

"My nigga, for real though I only saw it in Africa when I went back to my country ," Hakim replied. They burst out laughing. As if that wasn't enough, they moved closer to piss us off even more. They were so annoying. A moment  Dorcas got tired of them. She started to run after them. When she caught Jamal and Hakim; she hit them both, "I ain't playing with you!" she added before getting closer to Jamal. "Delete the video!"