~ Jai ~
The bakery smelled like cinnamon and failure. I caught it from halfway down the block, the sweet-bitter sting of burned sugar and yeast, and for a second I almost turned around and told Ashe we could just order a new laptop. But the key was already in my hand, and Ashe was already doing that thing he did where he stood three feet behind me and looked like he could stop a truck with his forehead.
“Give me five minutes,” I said, fitting the key into the lock. “If you hear screaming, it’s just me finding out how many plants I killed.”
He nodded, once. That was Ashe for you. The man could convey an entire paragraph with a single tilt of the chin.
I pushed the door open and the smell hit me full-force: bread, yes, but underneath it, the faint ghost of coffee grounds and the must of a space that had been closed up for too long. My boots hit the worn hardwood, and the floorboard by the kitchen creaked the way it always did, and I took exactly two steps before my brain caught up with my eyes.
The apartment was full of people.
Not just people. My people. My mother stood at the bookshelf with her back to the door, pulling paperbacks off the shelves one at a time and dropping them into a black trash bag with the calm, methodical efficiency of a woman who thought she was doing me a favor. Each book hit the plastic with a soft, final thud.
My father sat at my desk, fingers moving across the keyboard of my laptop like he owned the place—which, to be fair, he probably thought he did.
And on the couch, a woman I had never seen in my life was filing her nails, one leg crossed over the other, looking about as invested in the proceedings as someone watching paint dry.
Ashe shifted his weight behind me. I felt it more than heard it—the subtle transfer of balance to the balls of his feet, the drop of his center of gravity by maybe half an inch. He was preparing, the way a man who’d spent his life preparing for worst-case scenarios always was.
I filed that under things I appreciated and would never, ever say out loud.
I cleared my throat. “It’s polite to knock,” I said.
My mother didn’t turn around. “This isn’t really your home, Jai. It’s a temporary arrangement.” She reached for another book—one of mine, a paperback with a cover I’d sweated blood over—and held it by the spine, considering. “You know Denise’s father was very understanding when I explained the situation.”
I crossed the room in four steps. The floorboards complained under my boots. I reached past her shoulder, grabbed the book out of her hand, and set it back on the shelf. Spine out. In order.
She blinked at me. “Those are garbage, Jai. They’re not helping you.”
“They’re not yours.” I took the next one from her fingers, put it back. Alphabetical, by author. I could do this in my sleep.
My father’s chair scraped against the floor. He didn’t stand, but his voice carried the weight of a man who expected to be listened to. “That’s exactly where that garbage belongs. Denise has graciously agreed to overlook your little phase, and once we’ve cleaned this up, we’ll arrange the engagement party.”
I turned. “The what?”
The room went quiet. The only sound was the soft, rhythmic scrape of Denise’s nail file against her thumbnail.
My mother set the trash bag down and brushed her hands together like she’d just finished dusting. “Denise’s family iswilling to overlook your little… hobby, Jai. That’s very generous of them.”
“Being gay is not a hobby,” I said. The words came out flat, stripped of all the things I wanted to put behind them.
My father’s jaw tightened. “Don’t speak to your mother that way.”
I looked at him, then at her, then at Denise, who had paused her filing to examine her work. My mother’s aim was genuinely terrible—she’d missed the trash bag with two of the books, and one had landed behind the couch, splayed open like it was trying to escape. I could see the spine from here: a romance novel I’d edited three times, the margins full of my handwriting.
The apartment felt smaller than it had a week ago. The walls were the same teal color, the same water stain in the corner by the window, the same crooked shelf where I kept my good coffee mugs. But something had changed. The air was thinner.
Or maybe I was just breathing wrong.
I turned back to the desk. My father’s hands were still on the keyboard, poised over the keys like he’d been interrupted mid-thought. The screen was angled away from me, but I could see the blue glow reflecting off his glasses.
I stepped closer. Looked at the screen.
The trash folder was open. Every manuscript, every draft, every file I’d ever saved—all of them, queued for deletion. The little progress bar at the bottom showed twenty-seven percent complete. He’d been at this for a while.
My chest did something complicated and unpleasant. I kept my face still.
My father was still talking. Something about family, about obligation, about what I owed them and what Denise’s father could do for my future. The words washed over me like static.
