Me:Did I wake you?
Lil Mama:No.Can’t sleep.
Me:That normal?
The silence rattles me. Her lack of an immediate reply sends my mind spiraling, filling in gaps it has no business touching. Is she with someone else? Has she already moved on or replaced me with a new distraction?
It’s silly and I have to remind myself that this was the deal. The terms we agreed to. Even if my body—or my traitorous heart—never got the memo.
Her response finally comes through.
Lil Mama:Truth?
Me:Please.
Lil Mama:Apparently,I forgot how to sleep when I’m not with you.
And fuck. Max must’ve left a little hopeless romantic behind, because I catch myself calculating the drive to her as if she lives right around the corner.
How long it would take. What time I’d have to leave.
How soon I could be standing in front of her again.
I shut that down fast.
Not because I don’t want to go, but because I can’t half-ass anything where she’s concerned. Especially not after she didn’t curse me out or shut me down the way I half-expected just now.
So instead, I make a plan.
I’m not standing here questioning whether she fits into my life.
She does.
And I’m done pretending I can leave her behind or that I can let her go.
I can’t.
I need my woman.
You’re a Liar, Nerd Girl
Max
Friday morning feels like punishment.
I practically had to drag myself into the office, coffee in hand, eyes burning from a week of trash sleep. Canada broke my rhythm. Or maybe Eli did. Either way, I’m running on fumes and stubbornness.
Normally, I would’ve ended up at Nyles’s place for our usual routine. But thenothing serioushe mentioned before I left for Canada is absolutely serious now. He made it official on social media—he has a girlfriend now. And the way she was wrapped around him in those photos confirmed it wasn’t casual. It was real. Real enough for me to never want to disrupt.
So I stayed away and watched oldMartinepisodes last night until my eyes were forced to close.
The conference room is already full when I walk in. Legal. Internal security. Two federal investigators. Screens lit up with timelines, data flow maps, red flags highlighted in aggressive colors. The environment flows with seriousness, and it doesn’t care how tired I am.
I take my seat. Spine straight. Game face on.
They start with the overview. Reese didn’t just poke around—he mapped. He tested access points. Tried to duplicate fragments of proprietary code. Algorithms. Financial forecasting models. He masked his tracks well enough that it would’ve gone unnoticed for weeks.
If not for me.
