“That’s her.” I exhaled slowly. “BlackSphere Technologies won a bid for the overpass job, and James called a meeting with her and her team to get acquainted. Lena, the first time I saw her, I couldn’t look away. She doesn’t just walk into a room; she claims it. And James? He leans toward her without even realizing it, like she’s his center of gravity. The look between them? It was possession without a single word.”
“And that made you jealous?” Lena asked.
I swallowed. “Jealous, yeah… but also turned on. Because she’s not just polished perfection. I swear there’s someone else living under her skin, someone wild, dangerous, hungry. She hides it, but I saw it flicker. And I want her. I want to be the one she lets that part out with.”
Lena’s grin spread slowly. “So let me get this straight. You want Mr. Broad Shoulders to lay you out and fuck you stupid… and you want Ms. Ice Queen to strip off that armor and devour you whole.”
I laughed, embarrassed and hot all at once. “God, when you say it like that…”
“Say it like that,” she pressed. “Don’t hide from it, Amiyah. What do you really want?”
I glanced around, leaned in. My voice was low, raw. “I want James to break me open with that body. I want his hands, his voice, his control. And I want Calla to take me apart piece by piece with her eyes, with her mouth, with whatever she’s hiding behind that mask she wears. I want them both, Lena. And I’m not sure I can keep pretending I don’t.”
Lena let out a long whistle, sitting back with a wicked grin. “Baby, you don’t want a love triangle. You want a three-alarm fire. And I’m telling you right now? If anybody can handle that storm, it’s you.”
I sipped my wine, heart pounding. For the first time, I didn’t laugh it off or deny it. I just let the truth settle in my chest, heavy and thrilling.
Because she was right.
I wanted the hurricane.
“Lawd, girl, you bold tonight!” she laughed, tossing her curls. “You really out here saying you want to be the filling in a James-and-Calla sandwich?”
I shushed her, my cheeks on fire, but before I could pull her back down into the booth, a shadow fell across thetable and my heart jumped into my mouth. It was only the server with a radiant smile and a fresh candle, the wick catching and blooming into a small sun. I laughed at myself, a quiet breath that shook loose some of the static in my chest.
“You alright?” Lena asked, eyes soft, mouth tilted like she was ready to tease me if I said yes.
“Jumpy,” I admitted. “My nerves are auditioning for a play.”
“Good,” she said. “Let them stretch. Now, talk to me.”
I turned my glass by the stem and watched the wine make a slow ruby circle. The jazz curled through the room like smoke. I wanted to be brave, so I was.
“I liked who I thought he was,” I said, meaning my ex without naming him for a second. “He showed up on time, he made me playlists, he kissed my forehead in grocery store aisles. My grandmother liked him, and that counted for too much. Then there were little lies that winked by like harmless things, and I told myself not to be the woman who finds problems where there are none. I did not trust myself, and that is the part that still stings.”
Lena nodded like a metronome keeping time. “What was the first lie your body noticed?”
“The hours,” I said. “The way he left his phone face down and told me I was controlling when I asked for clarity. He made me feel childish for wanting to know where I fit in his day. Then the cheating, the proof right there in my face. He said it was a mistake, like it had tripped and fallen into his life. He said I had become difficult. I remember standing in the shower, water too hot, and telling myself, do not swallow this rewritten story.”
“You did not swallow it,” Lena said. “You spit it out. Youleft.”
“I did,” I said, a small pride warming my ribs. “I left, and I blocked, and I returned what was his, and I sat on the floor with a bowl of cereal because I could not stomach anything heavier. I slept with my light on for a month because my dreams kept replaying the discovery like a bad movie. My body still braces sometimes, even now, before it lets me enjoy anything. I hate that muscle memory.”
“It is not the enemy,” Lena said. “It is a guard dog you trained for a war that is over. You can teach it to lie down.”
I let that picture settle. “I do not want the dog to bite James or Calla,” I said. “I do not want to bring the worst of what I learned to the front door of something good. They have a rhythm, Lena. It is not a rumor; you can see it when they stand near each other, like a tide that knows which way to go. I’m drawn to it, and intimidated by it, and both of those feel like tug-of-war on my soul.”
“What scares you most?” she asked.
“That I will be the soft part that gets bruised when the rhythm skips,” I said. “That I won’t know how to keep up, that I will disappoint them. I am not a kitchen acrobat in bed, not yet. I like certain things, I’m curious about so much, but even my curiosity feels green. With one lover, you can learn together and hide a little, with two, the mirror doubles, and I worry they will see every hesitation.”
Lena’s laugh was a velvet thing. “You keep trying to take a final exam for a class you not even enrolled in,” she said. “You do not owe anyone mastery, you owe yourself and them presence. If they want mastery more than they want you, they can hire a performer. I don’t think that’s who they are.”
“I feel that too,” I said. “James listens like the world is not more interesting than the person in front of him. Calla looks like she is inventing the room, not to control it, but to care for it. I want that care, I want to be trusted with them the way they might trust me. I am also terrified of being the reason something breaks between them.”
“You are telling me you plan to walk into a house and knock down the foundation by breathing,” Lena said, eyebrows lifting. “You give yourself too much destructive credit.”
“Say it how you will,” I said, smiling despite the knot in my chest. “I want to be honorable, I want to be careful, I want to be deliciously reckless in the parts that are safe to be reckless, and sensible in the parts where structure needs respect.”
