“I’m asking,” she said simply. Her eyes didn’t waver, and for a moment, the noise of the bar, the laughter from other tables, even the hum of the lights faded out. It was just her and him, two beings measuring each other across the table.
Hektor took another sip, slower this time, letting the heat settle in his chest. He didn’t flinch when she leaned just slightly forward, narrowing the distance. “You want a story?” he asked carefully. “It’s not one for a drink. Not yet.”
Zara smirked faintly, a trace of challenge in her eyes. “Then why are you here, if not to tell me?”
He considered her, noting the fire in her gaze, the way she didn’t look away, how small she seemed yet somehow entirely unafraid. He allowed himself a quiet acknowledgment:she’s too perceptive.
“Because someone has to keep moving, even when it’s messy,” he said finally, leaning back just enough to regain some control. “Even when it’s inconvenient. Even when it’s…personal.”
Her smirk softened into a small, knowing smile. “Convenient and personal,” she murmured, almost to herself. “Sounds like a story I’d like to hear someday.”
Hektor allowed a fleeting glance, almost a nod of respect.Someday.Maybe.But not tonight.
The conversation lingered between them, electric and unspoken, and he didn’t mind the probing eyes or the tension in the air. It was…different. And unsettling. In a good way.
Chapter 5
Zara
Zara sighed.
“If you sigh one more time…” Liora flicked a sugar packet across the table, hitting Zara squarely in the arm.
Zara caught it, tore it open, and tipped the sugar into her coffee with a slow swirl. Then, without meaning to, she sighed again.
Liora groaned dramatically. “What did Abuelita always say? ‘Every time you sigh, you lose a little piece of your soul’?”
A reluctant smile tugged at Zara’s mouth. She remembered their grandmother saying that, usually while swatting one of her American grandchildren with a dish towel for being overly dramatic. The memory hit warm and sharp at the same time, softening the tightness in her chest just a little.
Liora leaned back in her chair, tapping her nails against her mug. “She also said, ‘Mija, don’t let your heart run faster than your feet.’ You’re overthinking again.”
Zara huffed, stirring her coffee. “How do you date around, then?”
“Easy,” Liora said, shrugging like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “I don’t want to settle down, get paired off, or do any of that heteronormative bullshit.”
Zara gave a humorless little laugh. “If only it were that simple.”
They drifted into talking about the day’s assignments, about the briefing that ran long, about how Lord Eros’s assistant somehow managed to speak in both riddlesandbullet points. Liora complained about paperwork; Zara complained about enchanted translation tablets glitching.
But underneath all of it, Zara’s thoughts kept circling back to Hektor.
He’d barely looked at me today.
No, that wasn’t fair. He’d looked. Just…quickly. Professionally.
Since happy hour earlier that week, they hadn’t had much time in the same room at all. Every time she walked into a meeting, he was leaving another one. Every time she was dispatched to handle logistics with Elian, he was being pulled aside by someone higher up in the chain. They’d had, maybe, a few seconds of eye contact over a spread of maps, just enough for her stomach to do something annoying.
She wiped her thumb along the rim of her coffee cup.
Liora noticed. Of course she did.
“This better not be about him.”
Zara took a long drink of her coffee, letting the heat give her something to focus on instead of replying.
Liora groaned. “Oh, my gods, it is about him. Zara.”
Zara glared at her mug. “I didn’t say anything.”
