The city outside glowed amber and restless. Somewhere out there, Sr. was crumbling under his own greed. Let him. I had bigger things to focus on, like what Amiyah might have planned for Comic Con, and, if I was being honest with myself, the thought of seeing them both again threaded my body with an excitement I hadn’t felt since The Black Dahlia was born.
One of the perks of flying private was that the jets provided a kind of white noise that made the whole cabin feel cocooned from the world. Calla didn’t do anything halfway, not even a quick trip to New York. True Black fashion meant we were flying on her brother’s private jet, a sleek, obsidian bird cutting through the clouds.
Amiyah sat across from me, curled into one of the cream leather seats, her curls tucked under a silk scarf, barefaced and still somehow the most beautiful person I’d ever seen before noon. Calla was beside her, laptop open, a glass of wine already in hand like she’d earned it just by existing.
I’d been sitting there, watching them both, thinking about how damn right it felt, us, here, together, able to be just who we were with no judgment, when the thought hit me.
If this kept going the way it felt like it was, what would forever look like?
“So,” I said finally, setting my bourbon down. “I’ve been thinking about something.”
Amiyah glanced up, eyes soft and curious. Calla didn’t look away from her laptop, but I saw the faint lift of her brow. “That sounds dangerous,” she said dryly.
I smirked. “You’d be surprised. I just wanted to ask y’all about what you want longterm.”
That got her attention. The laptop closed with a soft click. “Define ‘long term,’ Carter.”
I shrugged, leaning back. “Marriage, kids, y’know that kind of thing.”
Amiyah tilted her head. “What about you?”
“Me?” I ran a hand down my beard, buying myself a second. “I don’t want kids. Never really have. I like my peace too much. But commitment… I could see that. Marriage, if it feels right.”
Amiyah hummed, thoughtful. “You know, I’ve never really wanted kids either. I used to feel weird about saying that out loud, like it made me less of a woman or something.”
“It doesn’t,” I said immediately, meaning it.
She gave me a small smile before continuing. “I guess part of it’s because I grew up mostly alone. My parents died in a car accident when I was ten. My grandparents raised me, but they were gone by the time I was twenty-two. Since then, it’s just been me, Lena, and her family. I’ve tried to find other family, but…” Her voice faltered, her fingers worrying the edge of her sleeve. “I can’t seem to locate any living relatives.”
The silence that followed was heavy. Calla reached over without hesitation, her hand covering Amiyah’s. “I’m sorry, baby.” Her voice softened in a way I didn’t think I’d ever heard before. “You didn’t deserve to lose that much that early, but you have us now and everyone we love as an extension of us.”
Amiyah’s chin trembled as she blinked hard. “Sometimes I tell myself I’m fine, you know? That I’m used to being alone, then I meet people who make me feel safe, and it hits me all overagain.”
Calla didn’t say anything else, just got up, and sat beside her. She pulled Amiyah in, letting her cry quietly into her shoulder. I sat there, watching them, the two of them wrapped in that quiet kind of intimacy that didn’t need an audience.
And damn if it didn’t hit me right in the chest, I was in love with both women; they were the physical embodiment of fire and ice, structure and chaos, two halves of a whole that completed me.
When Amiyah’s tears had slowed, Calla smoothed a hand down her hair, her own expression distant for a moment before she spoke. “I used to think marriage was everything,” she said softly. “That it was the one goal every woman was supposed to chase. Then I watched my parents’ marriage burn from the inside out. Sr. is the kind of man who believes love is ownership, and any woman who knows her worth should fall in line. He drilled into me that powerful men cheat, and if I was smart, I’d learn to accept it.”
Her voice didn’t waver, but her eyes hardened. “He broke my mother down piece by piece. And when she couldn’t take it anymore, she shut down instead of leaving. I told myself I’d never be her, and for a while I thought that meant I had to be like him, cold, detached, in control.”
She gave a humorless laugh. “Now I know better. Marriage doesn’t guarantee happiness. It damn sure doesn’t guarantee forever, and knowing that, I’d rather have something honest, something healthy, something custom crafted for me.”
I didn’t say anything for a while, because what the hell could I say? I knew Caleb Black Sr. by reputation, a broken child pretending to be aman who wore power like a tailored suit and left wreckage in his wake. Hearing it from Calla’s mouth, though… that was different. It was personal. It was pain turned into armor.
“You’re not him,” I said quietly.
She looked at me, her expression unreadable, and for the first time, I realized she needed to hear it just as much as I needed to say it.
“Thank you for seeing me,” she said finally.
We sat there for a while, the whir of the jet filling the silence. Amiyah was nestled against Calla’s side now, her breathing slow, calm again. I continued to watch them both, and something was settling in me, a kind of peace I hadn’t felt in a long time.
This wasn’t chaos. This connection was real, messy, and unfiltered, and for the first time in my life, I didn’t want to control it; I just wanted to be present and feel it.
By the time our jet touched down at Teterboro, the mood had shifted. The heavy stuff from the flight lingered somewhere in the air behind us, not in a bad way, more like we’d all exhaled and decided not to pick it back up again because there was an understanding of not only our wants and needs, but also the pieces of us that helped shape them.
Calla had swapped her silk blouse for a fitted hoodie and leggings that looked far too good on her to be considered “casual,” and Amiyah, well, she had this big grin on her face that told me she was plotting something. I didn’t trust it one damn bit, but it was cute as hell.
