Her expression softens immediately. The sickle cell benefit gala. Lena’s name is on the program this year.
“She would’ve hated the attention,” Zaria says softly.
“While loving the impact,” I reply.
She nods slowly. I reach across the table and take her hand.
“I would be honored,” I say carefully, “if you’d be my date.”
Her breath catches.
“And… if you’d consider speaking. In Lena’s honor.”
Tears rise in her eyes instantly.
“Me?”
“Yes.”
“You’re her partner too,” she says quietly.
“I am,” I agree. “But you carry something unique. You loved her in a way that changed her. And she changed you.”
Her thumb rubs against mine unconsciously.
“You think I can do that?” she whispers.
“I know you can.”
Knox reappears with a dark chocolate torte with raspberry coulis. He sits the rich and decadent final course down and looks between us.
“She’d be proud,” he says simply.
When he leaves us alone again, Zaria squeezes my hand.
“I’ll do it,” she says softly. “For her.”
“For us,” I correct gently.
She smiles through her tears. “For us.”
The restaurant is quiet around us. No ghosts. No suffocating guilt. Just candlelight and conversation with the woman I love.
As we stand to leave Zaria slips her arm through mine.
“You know,” she says lightly, “this is a dangerous precedent.”
“How.”
“You keep planning romantic gestures like this, I might actually relax.”
I smirk. “Wait until you see what else I have up my sleeve.”
Today we stopped carrying unnecessary guilt and decided to step into what Lena wanted for us all along. A love of our own.
Zaria is working tonight, and Caleb invited me over for a guys’ night. Caleb’s living room shifts once the rest of the guys pile in.
Ahmir is loud first, as usual.
