He doesn't say another word. He just jumps up, disappears into the hall closet, and returns with his most prized possession: his handheld vacuum.
In seconds, the crumbs are gone, and I can practically see Nyles's heart rate and blood pressure return to a normal rhythm.
Since we are the same, neither of us sleeps well. It was one of the first things we bonded over—back when we kept running into each other in the building’s gym at two in the morning. Our “call time,” he used to joke. It was the hour when sleep had officially given up on us, so we’d spend it on the treadmills,trying to outrun the stress and the imaginary monsters chasing us.
Then one night, months ago, we discovered we’d both grown up falling asleep to the same sitcom. So we tried doing it together. Just once.
We’d lay side by side, laughing at jokes we’ve heard a hundred times, reciting lines before the characters do, our bodies loosening inch by inch until our shoulders dropped and our breathing fell into rhythm. For the first time in forever, we slept.
After that, it became our thing.
And now it’s our loophole. Our way of pretending this isn’t a relationship…while doing so many things that make it feel like one.
Especially in the mornings. Because that’s when everything goes wrong. I always swear I’ll leave before Nyles wakes up, before he stretches, before his body finds mine. But all it takes is one brush of him against my back, one sleepy shift in the sheets, and I’m wrapped around him again like I never learned my lesson.
I know Nyles isn’t it for me. He isn’t my happily ever after. He isn’t the man who makes my heart flutter or my soul feel seen. Even if Timantha’s app tried to convince me otherwise.
Yes, Nyles and I were matched through the very app I help run. And no, I did not secretly rig the algorithm to send me only fine Black men who meet my intellectual standards.
He’s just a beautiful man with an infuriatingly perfect body, a generous endowment, and a talent for making it extremely hard to walk away.
And sometimes, hard to walk.
As the episode where Martin is sick and Gina has to take care of him plays on the massive screen in his room, I whisper a lie to myself:this is the last time.I’ll leave before he wakes. I don’t need this routine. I don't need him.
But as I drift off to the sound of canned laughter, I already know I’m a liar.
There Aren’t Enough Black Nepo Babies in the World
Max
Landing a job with Timantha Spellman is the tech-world equivalent of landing a job with Miranda Priestly inThe Devil Wears Prada. The moment she launched her app, she became the woman everyone wanted to meet, study, impress, or copy. Then she married one of the most socially conscious venture capitalists in the country, and overnight she turned into the Kimora Lee Simmons of tech. Her influence hit fast and hard, and I knew I needed to be in her orbit.
So naturally, I stalked her for months and practically offered to work for free just to learn her playbook. One day, I plan to launch my own app—an AI personal assistant designed specifically for neurodivergent women—and I study Timantha’s go-to-market strategy like it’s my personal business Bible.
I close my eyes and take a slow breath as her voice floats in from the corner office. “Max! The screen is doing that green thing again!”
I exhale and take another sip of my coffee. “Are you sure it’s green and not blue?”
“It’s…” Timantha pauses. “I think it’s green?”
I push back from my desk and head into her office, setting my coffee on the edge of her desk. “What did you do?” I ask, only half teasing.
“I didn’t do anything!”
I give her a look. “You sure you didn’t try to Skype your husband with your shirt off and accidentally start a company-wide meeting again…with me?”
“It was a mistake, Max!”
“It was sexual harassment, Tim.” I say, deadpan. “I saw a nipple!”
“I told you I was sorry! Sometimes I do wild things when I’m ovulating!”
“First of all, way too much information. Second and third of all, I need you to ovulate on your phone and not the company equipment.”
I hear a knock on Timantha’s door while I’m bent over her desk, fixing whatever she managed to break this time.
“Uh, Ms. Palmer? I’m here to review the security logs about the attempted breach last night?”
