“You always this bold?” I asked.
“Only when I’m interested.”
I didn’t respond to that.
Couldn’t.
Because the truth was, I hadn’t expected this.
I’d called Alexis because she was supposed to be safe. A boundary. A way to keep Truth at a professional distance and remind myself that I had options, that I wasn’t spiraling into something I couldn’t control.
But sitting here with Alexis—feeling the heat of her attention, the way she looked at me like she knew exactly what she wanted—I realized I’d miscalculated.
This wasn’t simple.
Nothing about this was simple.
Dinner was easy.
Too easy.
We sat at a corner table, the restaurant loud and warm around us, and talked about everything—her work at Loyola, the students she loved and the ones who drove her crazy, the book she was writing about Creole identity in post-Katrina New Orleans.
She was smart. Funny. The kind of woman who could hold a conversation without needing me to carry it, who challenged me without making it feel like a fight.
And she was beautiful.
God, she was beautiful.
The candlelight caught the gold in her skin, made her eyes look darker, warmer. She laughed at something I said—something I didn’t even remember saying—and the sound of it made something in my chest tighten.
I wanted her.
That was the problem.
I wanted her in a way that had nothing to do with logic or boundaries or keeping Truth at a distance.
I wanted her because she was here, present, real. Because she looked at me like I was a man worth knowing, not a contract or a transaction or a means to an end.
“You’re quiet,” she said, breaking into my thoughts.
I blinked. “Just thinking.”
“About?”
“How much I’m enjoying this.”
She smiled. “Good. I was starting to think I was boring you.”
“Not even close.”
The waiter came by to clear our plates, and Alexis ordered dessert—bread pudding with whiskey sauce. I ordered coffee.
When the waiter left, she leaned forward slightly, her elbows on the table.
“Can I ask you something?” she said.
“Go ahead.”
