Prologue
Sleepless in Cinnamon Grove
Max
It’s two o’clock in the morning. And I know I shouldn’t be here. Again.
I’m standing in the hallway outside his door, wide awake for yet another night in a row. Lately, when sleep decides to take an extended vacation, he’s the one who somehow brings it back. One of the only people who knows just how restless I’ve been.
We ended things more than two months ago. It was clean and mutual—mostly. But whatever thread tied us together never really snapped, at least not the way it should have. We’re friends, after all, and neither of us was in any rush to give up the perks that came with dating.
So we made a pact. We’d keep showing up for each other until we couldn’t anymore. Until feelings got messy or one of us started seeing someone else. And since flights have been the only thing I’ve been catching for the past ten years, it was Nyles who caught the feelings. That was the line we promised not to cross. We even agreed the last time would actually be the last time.
It took exactly two weeks for me to break that promise.
Because here I am again, six floors above my own apartment, heart racing, hand hovering inches from his door.
I give myself one final second to walk away. One last chance to prove I don’t need him.
I don’t take it.
A girl has needs.
The door opens before I even get the chance to knock.
“How did you know I was out here?” I ask, just as the elevator doors down the hall slide shut with a bright littleding.
“My alarm system alerts me whenever someone steps off the elevator onto my floor,” he says, voice calm.
I let out a nervous laugh. “Right. I knew that.” His is the only apartment up here, which somehow makes this feel even more intimate.
He exhales slowly, like he’s bracing himself. “What’s this about, Max?”
I glance past his shoulder. “Do you have…company?”
He folds his arms across his chest, and that’s when I notice he isn’t wearing a shirt. Just basketball shorts. Nothing else. Warm brown skin. Broad shoulders. Easy confidence. A confidence that knowsexactlywhat he does to me.
To any woman, honestly.
I curse myself, not for giving in, but for never letting myself fall in love with him. Because he looks at me like a man I could love…and yet I can’t picture myself ever softening for him.
He’s everything my boss, Timantha, would want for me. He’s wealthy, wildly successful, and fine in a Luke James-meets-Kofi Siriboe kind of way. On paper, he is exactly the man I always thought I wanted.
He would be perfect, honestly, if our lives didn’t mirror each other so closely. But lately, I’ve realized I’m not as drawn to the “rich and powerful” type as I once was. I don't need a reflectionof my own ambition anymore. I need someone whose life I can’t predict because we aren't exactly the same.
As the number two and tech lead for MatchSense—the fastest-growing matchmaking app founded by a Black woman—I spend my entire day surrounded by people, mostly men, like me. Dating a man with the same demands, the same events, and the same relentless drive just feels like taking my work home with me. I don't need a partner who matches my resume. I need a partner who offers me a world outside of it.
People like me seem…redundant. And if there’s one thing people in tech absolutely hate, it’s redundancy.
He looks me up and down, his tongue darting out to lick his bottom lip. “You’re doing this to me on purpose.”
I gasp in mock offense. “Why, whatever do you mean? You surely can’t be referring to this burgundy sports bra and the matching shorts that just happen to fit in all the right places?”
Then I pull my hands from behind my back and reveal the real temptation. His eyes widen.
“You made brownies,” he groans. “You’re evil.”
I shrug, unapologetic. “Desperate times.”
