I feel it.
The second the air shifts in the building.
It’s different than before—different from the coffee shop, where the feeling had been vague, distant, easy to ignore. This is sharper. Heavier. Intent.
Like heat sliding across skin.
I don’t turn around right away. I don’t need to.
I know that weight. I know the way it settles low in my spine, the way my shoulders instinctively pull back, the way my pulse kicks up like my body’s already bracing for him.
My husband is here.
I can feel his eyes trace me as I move—down my back, along my hips, the length of my legs as I walk past the bar. Not hurried. Not careless.
Claiming.
A smile tugs at the corner of my mouth before I can stop it.
So he called my boss.
So he thought he could decide for me.
And now he’s here, watching me work like he’s trying to figure out where he miscalculated.
I grab a tray, balance it on my palm, and deliberately bend just enough as I reach for a table—aware of every inch of myself in a way I wasn’t five minutes ago.
I straighten slowly.
Still don’t look at him.
Not yet.
Because I want him to sit with it.
That I didn’t obey.
That I’m still very muchme.
My phone buzzes in my pocket again.
Ignored.
I take an order. Pour a drink. Laugh softly at something a customer says—all the while feeling his presence grow closer, heavier, like a storm deciding when to break.
Finally, I glance toward the bar.
There he is.
Langston Blackwell—perfect suit, unreadable expression, eyes dark and locked on me like I’m the only thing in the room worth seeing.
Our gazes collide.
And this time, I don’t look away.
The smirk fully forms, slow and deliberate.
Game on Husband,I think.
