Physics gives you permission to name things. Force. Vector. Resultant. Line them up, and two pushes together could move a mountain. Split them apart, and all you gotwas friction, heat, wasted work. I taught that to my students every week. I hadn’t expected to start thinking about people the same way. About her. About Rayna pressing against the world, refusing to fold. About me, standing next to her, trying to line my force with hers instead of against it.
Most Sundays I was at Grandma’s by six—fried chicken, collards, Jada talking fast, Grandma pretending she didn’t notice my shirt getting too tight across the shoulders. Not tonight. The church had a gospel concert, and Grandma was front row, her brooch catching light like a spotlight. Jada sent me a picture. I texted back a heart, then let the apartment fall quiet enough to hear the clock keep time like a metronome.
School had only been back in session a few weeks, but it already felt like midyear. AP Physics meant stacks of problem sets, pages full of equations and half-right answers. My desk was covered in quizzes waiting for red ink, my pen tapping out the beat. Early fall always hit this way—heat still clinging to the days, nights cooling just enough to remind you change was coming.
I scrubbed the sink until my reflection blinked back from steel. Tried grading quizzes, pen tapping against the margin. But numbers slid off the page. My mind went back to last night. To Rayna bent over felt like the table had been waiting on her. To the silence that rolled through the room—not because of the break, but because of her.
I’d seen her before, months back at The Green Room. Confirmation I’d been right to stop chasing a seat at the Cue Hall when it closed. That place had regulars. But none of them were Rayna. Cargoes gripping her ass like they’dbeen stitched for her alone. Black tank tied high, a strip of soft skin showing just enough to make a man forget himself. Heeled boots that turned rugged into lethal. She broke clean, three balls down, and laughed like power was just something she exhaled. Heads turned because she let them. I told myself to keep mine down. Failed.
And then last night. After the match. After her friend disappeared into the crowd. I walked her to her car and slipped my number into her hand before she pulled off. Streetlight spread itself across her cheekbones. Her chin tilted like a dare. I told myself to be calm. To be grown. Keep my hands to myself.
That lasted until my phone buzzed the second she got home.
Rayna: Made it home.
Two words. Ordinary. But my chest went lighter than it had all day. My thumbs hovered. I wasn’t about to flood her phone like some kid. I typedGood.Erased it.Glad you’re safe.Too stiff. Too careful.
Finally, I sent:
Me: You always play like that?
Three dots blinked, stopped, blinked again. I caught myself holding breath.
Rayna: Depends who’s watching.
Heat climbed the back of my neck. I leaned into thechair, glasses off, rubbing the bridge of my nose like it could calm me. It didn’t.
Me: So that was for the crowd?
Rayna: Some of it.
Her pause was long enough to make me count without meaning to.
But not all of it…
I stared at those words, pulse in my throat. My four-count went useless.
Me: Which part was mine?
No hesitation this time.
Rayna: Wouldn’t you like to know.
I let out a ragged exhale, head tipping back against the chair. My body was already answering questions my brain didn’t want to spell out. She wasn’t a variable to solve. She was the whole equation. And she had me hard.
The next day, she sent a photo of a breaker panel she’d cleaned last week. Wires straight as chalk lines, labels neat, her fingerprints probably still ghosted on the metal.
Me: That panel looks better than some of my labs.
Rayna: Don’t flirt with my panel.
Me: I’m flirting with the hand that did it.
Rayna: You talk like a man who knows how to use his hands.
Me: Now wouldn’t you like to know.
I stared at the screen too long before she answered.
