I turned and walked toward the elevator before I could do something stupid.
I made it to my truck before I looked back at her building.
Third floor. Light still on.
Just friends.
I'd meant it when I said it.Mostly.
But watching that light, I knew I was already in trouble.
CHAPTER 6
Maya
Shane Briggs kept his word.
That was the problem.
Two weeks since he'd stood in my doorway and offered friendship like it was something effortless. Something harmless. Something he could deliver without strings, without expectations, without the slow creep of obligation that always came with men who wanted something.
I’d been waiting for it to fall apart. For the texts to slow down, the visits to space out, the interest to fade, the way interest always faded when someone realized what they'd signed up for. A cramped apartment in Queens. A thirteen-year-old with trust issues. A woman so tired she could barely remember what it felt like to be wanted.
But Shane kept showing up.
Monday morning, I was in the teacher's lounge refilling my coffee. It tasted like burned regret, but it was free, and it was caffeine, and that was enough.
A murmur rippled through the room. Chairs scraped. Someone gasped.
"Is that Shane Briggs?"
I turned. Shane was standing in the doorway in jeans and a worn FDNY t-shirt, a paper cup in each hand, scanning the room until his eyes found mine.
Every teacher in the lounge went still.
He crossed the room like he didn't notice the stares, the whispers already starting. Linda elbowed the teacher beside her, barely containing her delight. He stopped in front of me and held out one of the cups.
"Passed the bodega on 43rd. I remembered you said Mondays are rough."
I'd mentioned once, in passing, a few nights ago, during one of our late-night text conversations that had become disturbingly routine, that the bodega on 43rd Street made good coffee.
"Two sugars, splash of milk." He set it in my hands. "Still warm. Figured you could use it before the Monday chaos starts."
He remembered.
I had told him about the “Monday Morning Brief” or the frantic ten-minute huddle where we were forced to sync the week’s schedule before the kids even hit the hallways.
It was our time to brace for upcoming events and manage the “weekend fallout” or whatever drama or trouble the students had found on Saturday night that would inevitably blow up in our classrooms by first period. The administration called it “boosting morale.”
"You didn't have to do that," I managed.
I always said that. Like kindness was something people needed to justify.
"I know. I was already passing by." He shrugged, easy, like this was nothing. Like bringing coffee to a woman in a room full of gossip was just something friends did.
"Well." A voice came from behind us. "Isn't that thoughtful?"
I turned. Principal Hendricks stood in the doorway, files tucked under her arm, a warm smile spreading across her face. I hadn't even noticed her walk in.
