I walked over to him, pressed my chin to his shoulder, and wrapped both arms around his ribs from behind, cheek against the warm damp of his shirt. “Then turn it in late,” I pleaded, humor softening the plea. “Let the professor wait.”
He leaned back into me, tension unclenching one notch at a time. “You stay talkin’ me off ledges.”
“You stay building them.” I teased, kissing the line of his jaw where sweat had drawn a world map.
He turned, caught my mouth, kissed with gratitude and something more feral under it, then eased down beside me in the warm dip the two of us had made. The bed breathed our names; the building sighed; the city remembered it had a million other windows to haunt.
“Ro,” I whispered into the near-dark, tracing his chest tattoo with a fingernail—a crown, a date, a line that only he knew the meaning of. “You hear me?”
“I hear everything with you,” he answered, eyelids heavy, breathing slowing by choice.
“You hear Sal?” I nudged, the name like a coin on my tongue. “His warning?”
He rolled to his back, stared at the ceiling where a hairline crack had made a map of somewhere neither of us planned to visit. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.” He mouthed it like he’d memorized it without wanting to. His right hand closed over his ring, fist tightening until the knuckles paled. “I ain’t breakin’ none.”
“Then don’t run,” I breathed, a confession disguised as a dare. “When it gets loud. When it gets ugly. Don’t leave me out here explaining a vow I can’t hold alone.”
He turned his head, met my eyes in the half-light that crawled around the blind’s edge, and the boy in him dropped all the way out so the man could stand there without wobbling. “On everything I love,” he promised, voice rough as asphalt. “On Moms. On Grams. On the dead homies. On God if He’s still listening. I won’t run from this.”
“Good,” I whispered, the word settling into my bones like warm soup. “Because I’m not a porch. I’m a house.”
He chuckled, then sobered, reciting under his breath like he always does when he’s sewing a memory to a face. “Nova Rae Zore. August twenty-third. My whole calendar.”
I kissed his forehead the way aunties bless, then the corner of his mouth the way wives keep score. “Roman Zore. October nineteenth. My whole plan.”
We climbed back into bed. We lay there with our breaths learning each other’s cadence, the clock making that tiny plastic tick you only hear when everything else shuts up. Outside, a bus hissed at the stop, sighed, then labored on. Somebody hollered “Domino!” two floors down and laughter spilled after it, respectful of the hour. The apartment upstairs leaked a slow drip into a metal bowl and the sound slid down into our room like a metronome.
He dozed first, stubborn mouth finally losing its fight with sleep. I watched him until the ceiling turned one shade darker, fingers combing his hair in a rhythm my grandmother had taught me calms storms. My ring pressed a little crescent into my palm, an ache I didn’t mind wearing. When my eyes finally closed, I fell into the kind of sleep you only get after you hand God both your hands and don’t ask for one back.
A hammering-knock shook the door at what felt like the same breath later—three hard thuds that sent the hallway echoing. Ro was up in a blink, bare feet soft on linoleum, grabbing jeans from the chair and yanking them on in a way that told me he’d practiced fast mornings. I slid off the mattress, pulled his overshirt around me, and stood behind him as he checked the peephole.
“Who?” he challenged, voice clipped.
“It’s me, lil’ king,” a familiar voice crooned through the wood. Toothpick Tony. “Open up ‘fore your neighbors report me to the HOA that don’t exist.”
Ro cracked the chain and swung the door. Tony slid in sideways like a chorus line, flashing teeth and trouble. The camcorder hung from his wrist; the red light winked off. He clocked me in the shirt and grinned wider.
“Well, if that ain’t the face of holy matrimony,” he crowed, toothpick bobbing triumphantly. “Congratulations, Mrs. Low-Profile.”
“Keep your volume respectful,” Ro warned with a hand, though his mouth couldn’t hide a smile.
Tony sobered a little, sniffed the air like a hound dog, then lowered his voice to a whisper that still somehow filled the room. “On a serious note, y’all—White Lie cruised the block again. He got the little city seal ring out and everything, like he married to the budget. He made a call after. Cop car circled twice. I ain’t loving it.”
Ro’s jaw worked. “We saw.”
Tony leaned on the counter, flipped the camcorder around in his hands. “Word is he’s plotting to crash Tino’s backyard session next Friday. He been braggin’—‘bout to have the sheriffs fold lawn chairs and carry folks out on camera. Make a mess of our little joy.” He rolled the toothpick, eyes sharpening. “You know, for a viral moment before viral was a word.”
Ro’s gaze cut to me, then back to Tony. “We handle it quiet.”
Tony brightened like a switch had flipped. “Ooh, you got a plan?”
“I got a mouth,” Ro answered, a sly heat curling his words. “And a crowd that loves a clowning. He wanna pull up on the set with sheriffs to my people’s party? I’ma make him famous for the wrong reason. Whole block gon’ know he rides daddy’s name more than his bike.”
Tony barked a laugh, slapped his thigh, then sobered fast. “Aight, but for real—keep your head on a swivel, king. He petty with a budget.”
My fingers found Ro’s elbow, steadying me without making it a thing. “No weapon formed…” I breathed again into his shoulder, so only I caught it.
I pressed two fingers to his chain through his shirt, a thank-you without grammar. “We good,” He promised, eyes on the door, ears on the stairwell, mind already drawing exits and entries and where the jokes would land hardest.
