The novel opens with protagonist Feyikemi (Feyi) having sex in the bathroom with a man she met at a Memorial Day party she is attending with her best friend and roommate, Joy. His name is Milan, and he is the first person Feyi has been with since a car accident killed her husband five years ago. After the accident, she bought a brownstone with her husband’s life insurance money and began to live with Joy, her old college roommate. She rented a space down the block in which to do her art and tried to let her past fade, living her life doing whatever she wanted and assuring herself that it is okay to be alive when her husband is not.

In the bathroom at the party, she tells Milan exactly what she wants. She acts in what she knows is a reckless way by having unprotected sex. After, he apologizes, saying it is not how he usually behaves. Feyi reassures him that she is on birth control. He asks for her number, and she says she had not expected it to go any further, but he says he wanted to take her out from the first time he saw her.