Peter Parker’s Wife

Dia • she/her • 20 • college student • •reader & writer • black

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—Saturn

Welcome to my blog

Blk • College student • queer •

• 20 year old hopeless romantic •

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Recent work: only a vampire can love you forever

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[siwar-fen-deactivated20240307]

Gaza, Palestine 1993.

[paper-mario-wiki]

do not forget the patron saint of these weeks that we celebrate ourselves proudly and openly in the streets

her name was Marsha P Johnson, and we have her to thank for so much.

remember, the first Pride was a riot, and she was one of the brave souls who endured it to help carve the path which so many of us walk today. she helped found several activist groups regarding LGBT safety and wellbeing. and she was absolutely radiant, too.

thank you, Marsha. we remember you.

[musingsofheaven]

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WHAT I NEED

summary: Garett loses his temper during a game when his father announces his upcoming marriage before the game. It worsens when he sees you sitting with his father in the stands. Seeing you with Phil messes with his head, but it ends with you reconnecting in Garett's bedroom.

pairings: garrett graham x afab!reader

warnings:7.1k words. mature themes. unprotected p in v. creampie. cum play. breeding kink. oral sex (m!receiving). blowjob. deepthroating. handjob. praise kink. dirty talk. nipple play. clitoral stimulation. body worship. hair pulling. risk of being overheard. d/s dynamics. aftercare. family conflict. read responsibly.

note: he has me in a chokehold ever since I watched the show… also!!! first time writing about Garrett, might do it again next time. reblogs and comments are very much appreciated!

Ever since Garrett packed his bags for Briar U and threw everything he had into college hockey, you two barely saw each other anymore. The daily routines you shared back home gave way to late-night texts, random phone calls, or FaceTime sessions that kept you connected as you both built entirely separate lives. You had your own things going on with your own circles, your own relationships, and your own sex lives with other people, but there was an obvious spark between you that never went away. It was clear to anyone who saw you together that the distance hadn’t changed the foundation between you because you knew each other better than anyone else did after years of growing up side by side.

You knew his biggest fears, along with the dreams he never told anyone about, and he knew yours right down to the exact way your bodies functioned or reacted under pressure. You remembered how his body felt during those private nights, and he knew your body just as well since you crossed that line together years ago to become each other’s first. Being so far away from Garrett made you miss him terribly all the time, so you agreed the exact moment his father asked you to tag along to watch one of his college hockey games. You didn’t know Phil was bringing his new girlfriend along since you truly believed he was just traveling to support his son, but you really should’ve known better with a man like him.

You absolutely hated how Phil Graham treated his son, but you still tried your best to tolerate his presence because he always treated you nicely. His father also made you promise to keep the whole trip a complete secret, which you happily did because you wanted to surprise Garrett. What you didn’t know, and Garrett didn’t know either, was that Phil planned to use this exact day to announce he was marrying a woman his son barely even recognized. You only learned about it today because you asked nosy questions of Cindy. You also had no idea that Phil had already shown up unannounced at the hockey house earlier that morning to corner Garrett before the match. They got into a heated conversation over it, and the unexpected confrontation completely messed with Garrett’s head right before the game.

Sitting next to Phil and his girlfriend in the stands made it clear why Garrett looked so betrayed and hurt when he glanced up at you. You didn’t quite understand his reaction at first, but it clicked when you watched him play badly as he missed passes he usually nailed. He kept his eyes on your section while he stumbled through his game, and his expression showed he felt like you took his father’s side by showing up with them. Garrett eventually lost his temper on the ice, so the referee kicked him straight out of the game. He walked off the rink looking completely wrecked, while you immediately jumped up from your seat to run after him through the crowded arena. “Garrett,” you called out while you pushed past a group of fans to follow him down the corridor.

He didn’t even look back as he stormed down the hallway. “Garrett, please wait a second,” you tried again, but he kept walking away past the random people staring at you both. “Garrett Graham!” you yelled out loud so he could actually hear you over the loud fans. He finally stopped walking before he turned around to face you with a completely pissed expression. “What do you want from me right now?” he snapped back at you with an annoyed look. “I can’t just let you walk off like that after everything I just saw out there,” you replied right away as you tried to catch your breath. You stepped even closer to him to place your hands right on his covered arms. You looked right into his eyes while you let out a long breath through your nose.

“You have every single right to be completely furious right now,” you said while your fingers gripped his gear gently to anchor him. “But you can’t let him ruin your performance out on the ice,” you added because you needed him to snap out of it. “Are you really going to let his sudden drama control how you play your game?” you asked while you watched his expression carefully. “I don’t want him to win by messing with your head,” you explained as you rubbed your palms against his sleeves. “I came all the way out here for you,” you reminded him while your voice dropped to a softer tone. “I didn’t come to force you to come to the wedding,” you said to make sure he understood your loyalty. Garrett leaned forward immediately to rest his forehead against your shoulder as if he was searching for any kind of comfort from your presence.

He let out a long and shaky breath against your neck while his body weight leaned into you completely. “I thought you took his side,” he mumbled while his shoulder pads bumped against your chest. “I’m always on your side,” you promised back as you held him tight. He pressed a quick kiss against your neck before he leaned back slightly. “I know,” he muttered while his hands slid down to your sides. “I just got completely pissed off seeing you sitting right next to him,” he admitted because the sight had blindsided him completely. “I’m sorry you had to look at that,” you replied while you shook your head. “Stop apologizing to me,” he told you right away. He slid his large hands straight down to your waist before he squeezed the skin tightly through your top.

“I missed you so much,” he whispered as he tilted his head closer. “Well, you really need to get back out to the rink right now,” you reminded him while you patted his bulky chest protector. “Not even time for a quick make-out session?” he asked with a small smirk on his face. “I might forgive you for keeping secrets if you give me that,” he joked, because he wanted to lighten the mood between you both. “You don’t have anything to forgive me for,” you countered while you smiled back at him. He trailed his lips along your jawline before he brushed his mouth against your own. “Don’t you miss me just as much?” he whispered against your skin while he looked for a reaction. “Oh, please, you get enough attention from women every single day,” you said while you rolled your eyes at his question.

“Are you actually jealous of them?” he asked while he grinned to tease you. You decided to shut him up by grabbing his face to pull him into a deep kiss. You bit down on his lower lip while he sucked on your tongue to deepen the contact. Your mouths moved against each other as he swiped his tongue over your teeth while you gripped his jersey. He moaned into your mouth as he sucked your bottom lip between his own lips. You kept licking into his mouth while he pushed his tongue against yours to taste you. “Mmmh-” he groaned against your skin before he broke the kiss to breathe. He went to press another kiss to your lips, but you caught his shoulders and shoved him back. “Stop it, you have to get back out there,” you said while you nudged him toward the door.

“We really need to end this before it turns into something else,” you added because you knew you would not be able to stop once you started. “This is not like you at all,” you remarked while you adjusted his jersey. “You know you are the only one who makes me lose my mind,” he told you while he stared at you. He let out a long breath, but he finally gave a nod of his head. He leaned in one last time to press his mouth against yours for a quick kiss. “Promise me that you will spend time with me later tonight?” he asked while he brushed his thumb against your cheek. “I promise,” you said as you watched him step toward the doorway. He turned around to give you a last look before he headed back toward the rink. You waited in the storage room until his footsteps faded away so you could catch your breath again.

You walked back out toward the arena, but you refused to head back to the seats next to Phil. You instead found a spot in the tunnel entrance where you could see the rink without anyone spotting you in the crowd. You occupied the side as the players returned for the final period of the game. It surprised you to see Garrett skate back onto the ice, since the coach had clearly decided to keep him in the lineup despite his earlier meltdown. He kept his eyes forward as he skated past the bench. You waited back in the dark tunnel so you could watch him the whole time. “Don’t mess this up, Garrett,” you whispered to yourself while you watched him take his position. He didn’t see you standing there in the entryway, but he seemed to have his head back in the game.

You leaned against the side as the buzzer sounded to start the last period, and you needed to see how he would finish this. Garrett took over the game. Tucker zipped up the wing while Dean and Logan guarded the zone and stopped the other team from getting close to the net. They kept the puck moving and made easy passes to each other. Garrett battled for the puck in the corner and dodged a defender to face the goal. He found a gap and fired a shot that went past the goalie. The game ended, and the buzzer sounded to signal their win. Garrett threw his stick to the side as his teammates mobbed him on the ice. They slapped backs and hooted while the fans went wild. He caught your eye for a second and gave a quick nod before he skated toward the bench to join the line.

You walked away from the tunnel to head toward the exit and meet him once he finished with your arms wrapped around him. He gripped you tight right back, and he tucked his face into your shoulder. You squeezed him and said how great he played out there before you mentioned that Phil walked out halfway through the match. He stiffened up against you before he could even reply. “I don’t care about him today,” Garrett muttered into your skin while his breathing warmed your neck. You patted his back, and you feel the sweat from his jersey and his gear. “Okay, okay,” you teased him as the sound of distant chatter from the arena faded down the corridor. “You’re a sweaty mess. Go wash up,” you told him, and you tried to nudge him toward the direction of the locker room.

“I will,” Garrett murmured, and he squeezed your waist one last time to keep you close. “Give me a second, I just want to hold you,” he admitted as he leaned his full weight against you. He kept his arms around you for another moment before he stepped back and grabbed your hand to pull you along with him. You walked together down the corridor while he guided you right toward the locker room area. “Wait out here,” Garrett said as he stopped you right by the door to keep you away from the naked players inside. He disappeared through the entrance without another word to grab something. You stood by the wall for only a few seconds, and you could hear the muffled noise of the team from inside the room. Garrett pushed the door open again and stepped back into the hallway with his keychain in hand.

“Take these,” Garrett murmured as he dropped the car key into your palm. “Go wait by the car,” he added while his thumb brushed over your knuckles. “Give me fifteen minutes,” he promised before he turned back around. You nodded, and he finally went inside to change after you headed out to the parking lot. You waited for Garrett in the parking lot until he finished changing, and then he drove the two of you back to the off-campus rental house. The driveway was empty because Logan, Dean, and Tucker hadn’t made it back from the rink yet. Garrett unlocked the front door and walked you inside the quiet house without stopping in the living room. “Let’s go upstairs,” Garrett murmured while he guided you toward the steps.

You followed him up the staircase because you knew the other boys would be home soon. He pushed his bedroom door open and led you inside before he closed it behind you. The rest of the house was completely silent while he dropped his duffel bag on the floor. “We have the place to ourselves for a bit,” you reminded him as you leaned back against his desk. Garrett walked over to you and wrapped his arms around your waist. “Good, I don’t want any interruptions,” Garrett muttered while he pressed his face into the side of your neck. “Are you feeling needy?” you teased him while you tilted your head to give him more space. He let out a rough grunt against your skin before he kissed your neck.

“Yeah,” Garrett muttered while his arms tightened around your waist. “I really need you right now,” he admitted as he breathed out against your skin. You slid your hands right under his shirt while he held you close. You felt his hard muscles before you lifted the fabric up to check his body because you knew he always had a few bruises after his games. Several fresh darkening marks covered his body because he had taken a hard beating from playing and training. “You got beat up out there,” you murmured as you looked down at the marks. “It’s nothing,” Garrett grunted while he looked down at your fingers.

“I’ve had worse,” he told you as he guided your hands higher under his clothes. You let him cover your fingers and guide them over his skin while you let out a small chuckle. “Really?” you asked him as you looked up at his face. “You can’t even let me do it on my own?” You teased him because he wanted control. Garrett just rolled his eyes, but he didn’t let go right away. “Can’t I just hold your hands for a few seconds?” he questioned you while he gripped your fingers a little tighter. He let go of you after a moment and grabbed the hem of his top to pull it over his head. He tossed the shirt somewhere across the bedroom floor and stepped closer to you.

You leaned forward and started pressing kisses against his shoulder before you moved your lips down to his chest. You dropped lower to press more kisses onto his flat stomach while Garrett tangled his fingers into your hair to play with the strands. You dropped down onto your knees in front of him and reached out to grasp the waistband of his pants. Garrett looked down at you while his hands gripped your shoulders to handle his balance. “I can get those, baby,” Garrett murmured while he tried to nudge your fingers away from the button. You ignored his hand and continued working on the zipper because you wanted to take care of him.

“Let me do it,” you insisted as you looked up to meet his eyes. “I want to make it up to you for earlier,” you told him while you unfastened the button. Garrett let out a sigh and let his hands slide down to your neck. “You don’t have to make up for anything,” Garrett told you while his thumbs stroked your jawline. You pull the zipper down and open the fabric to reveal his underwear. “I know I don’t,” you replied as you reached inside to tug the material out of your way. “But I want to,” you whispered before you pulled his pants down past his hips. “You know I’d rather focus on you first,” Garrett reminded you while his fingers twitched against your neck. You looked up at him from your knees and gripped the fabric of his pants that already pulled down to anchor yourself.

“Fine,” you murmured as you tilted your head back to study his expression. “Just a taste then?” you asked him while you offered a small smirk to challenge his resolve. Garrett let out a quick laugh because the idea of you stopping early seemed entirely impossible to him. “Yeah, right,” Garrett scoffed while he shook his head at your suggestion. “Like you’re actually going to stop at just a taste,” he teased you while he looked down at your hands. You rolled your eyes at his comment and hooked your fingers into the waistband of his boxers without waiting for permission. You tugged the material down past his hips and watched his hard cock spring free instantly in the space between you.

You wrapped your fingers around the shaft and stroked him slowly while you stared right up into his eyes to gauge his reaction. Garrett let out a small grunt and tangled his fingers into your hair again. “Seriously,” Garrett said, and his grip tightened on your head while he tried to control his breathing. “I really wanted to take care of you right now,” he muttered as he watched your hand move on his length. You leaned forward before you gave the tip of his cock a few light licks, and you cleaned off the wet drop of pre-cum waiting there. “You’re already leaking for me,” you murmured against his length as you looked up to catch his expression. Garrett let out a quiet groan and gently gripped his fingers through your hair to show his approval.

“Yeah, well,” Garrett admitted while his breathing hitched slightly. “You’re the one down on your knees,” he pointed out to justify his reaction. You wrapped your lips around the head after those first few licks and swirled your tongue over the sensitive tip. You slowly slid your mouth further down the shaft to take him halfway while your hand took over to stroke the rest of his length. “What the- yes…” Garrett gasped out while his cock twitched against your lips. He didn’t force your head down or push his hips forward because he wanted to let you guide the movement. “That feels so good,” Garrett whispered while his hand felt gentle on your head. Giving head wasn’t always an enjoyable experience for everyone, because some guys were careless, but you tolerated it for Garrett.

He was always perfectly clean and gentle about it, while constantly showering you with sweet praise. His latest comment made you feel a bit cocky, so you took more of his thick length into your mouth until the tip touched the back of your throat. Garrett noticed it immediately because he knew your limits by heart, and he gave a firm tug on your hair to lift your face before you could gag. “Whoa, slow down,” Garrett murmured while his thumb wiped a wet line from the corner of your lips. “You don’t need to swallow all of me at once,” he added as he gave you a small smile. You just gave him a playful look before you slid your mouth right back over his wet cock to continue. You started bobbing your head up and down the shaft to find a pace while your hand kept rubbing the base.

“Mmf-” Garrett breathed out as the other hand caressed along your cheek. He kept his grip on your hair softly to guide your movements without forcing himself against your face. “You’re doing so good for me,” Garrett whispered, and his hips jerk when you swirl your tongue around his cock. You continued bobbing your head to take his wet shaft into your mouth, but Garrett firmly nudged your forehead away to remind you of what you two had talked about. “That’s enough,” Garrett muttered while he stepped back to slip his cock out of your lips completely. “You said just a taste,” he says with a smirk to keep your promise. You let out a stubborn grunt and slapped his thigh because you wanted to keep going.

Garrett laughed and kicked his pooled clothes away to strip down completely before you stood up to meet him. He reached out and grabbed the hem of your top to pull it up over your head. “You know I don’t want to wait any longer,” Garrett whispered while he tossed your clothes somewhere onto the floor. The sound of the front door slamming downstairs can be heard throughout the room, and it shows that the other guys have arrived. “Oh, they’re probably fucking by now!” Dean shouted near the stairs to tease the two of you. You feel your neck heating up the blunt comment, but you’re glad the bedroom door is locked. “That’s embarrassing,” you murmured as you looked toward the doorway.

“Do you think they’re going to try and listen?” you asked him while you crossed your arms over your chest. Garrett shook his head and gripped your waist to get your attention back. “No,” Garrett told you while he leaned down to kiss your shoulder. “Well, I hope not,” he amended as he guided you toward the mattress. You stopped him before he could guide you onto the mattress, and you grabbed the waistband of your bottoms to slide them down to the floor. Garrett let out a sound of approval while he walked over to his drawer to grab a condom. You let out a small chuckle at the sight, and your hands were already reaching behind your back to unclasp your bra. “I’m literally clean and on birth control,” you reminded him as you slipped the straps off your shoulders.

Garrett turned back around with the plastic wrapper in his hand while he looked over your bare body. “So you just go without protection with other guys?” Garrett questioned you while he raised an eyebrow. “Of course not. What the fuck,” you replied instantly because the idea annoyed you for few second. Garrett took a step closer while he watched you hook your fingers into your panties. “Then why do you want to do it without one with me?” Garrett asked you while he kept his eyes on your face. “Because we always do it without,” you pointed out as you tugged the fabric down. Garrett let out a laugh and reached out to grasp your waist. “Smartass,” Garrett muttered while he stepped right into your space. “I just want to make sure you’re safe,” he explained to justify his caution.

You stepped out of your underwear and gave him a playful look to keep teasing him. “So are you saying you’re not safe?” you challenged him while you slid your hands onto his chest. “Of course I am,” Garrett countered before he leaned his head closer to yours to capture your lips. “You know what?” Garrett murmured while he tossed the unopened condom wrapper back into his drawer. “You want me to cum inside your cunt?” Garrett asked you as he guided you down onto the mattress. “Is that what you want?” he questioned while he helped you settle right into the middle of the bed until you felt completely comfortable. You lay back against his pillows while he crawled over your legs to hover over your body.

“So no one is going to interrupt us?” you asked him because you wanted to be entirely sure before things went any further. “They’re all downstairs,” Garrett promised you while he leaned down to look into your eyes. “Dean and Logan are probably playing video games on the couch,” he added to reassure you. “Tucker is probably cooking dinner in the kitchen,” he finished while his hands slid to your hips. “No party tonight?” you questioned him with an arched eyebrow in disbelief. “Since you guys won the game?” you asked because it seemed impossible for the team to be quiet after a victory. “Nah,” Garrett replied while he shook his head with a small smirk. “Tomorrow,” he told you as he leaned down closer to your face.

“The guys are just too tired tonight,” he claimed to explain the lack of noise. You knew that was highly unlikely because the team never passed up a chance to celebrate a big win. You suspected Garrett had made a secret deal with his roommates to keep them downstairs for the evening. “What exactly did you do?” you asked him while you looked up at his face to get the truth. Garrett just smirked because he wanted to keep his secret. “Open wider, baby,” Garrett murmured while he tapped the inside of your thigh to guide you. You moved your legs further apart because you couldn’t help but obey his request. He guided the thick head of his cock right against your wet folds and started rubbing it back and forth to distract you from asking any more questions.

You tried to start another question because you wanted a real answer. “But Garrett-” you began before your words cut off. He responded by grinding his length directly between your slick folds until the tip swiped over your sensitive clit. You let out a frustrated whine because the brief contact left you desperate for more. “I swear,” Garrett promised while he looked down at your reaction. “They won’t come upstairs until we go downstairs,” he added to reassure you. He slapped his hard cock directly against your wet cunt right after he finished speaking and gripped your hip with a tight hand to hold you against the bed. You let out a frustrated whine because he kept rubbing his tip against your clit instead of sliding inside your wet cunt.

“Are you sure they’re going downstairs?” you asked him while you tried to tilt your head up to hear anything from the hallway. “Garrett, I can’t do this if they’re going to walk up here,” you insisted because the thoughts wouldn’t leave your mind. Garrett let out a sigh and ground his length between your folds to pull you away from your thoughts. “They’re not coming up, baby,” Garrett murmured while his breathy voice sounded a little distracted by the sight of your body. “Stop worrying about them,” he told you as he swiped his thumb over your jaw. “But what if Dean tries to-” you started to ask before his body pressed closer. Garrett cut you off by sliding the head of his cock into your aching hole before he pulled it to rub it into your clit again.

“Fu-fuck- please,” you moaned out while your hips rolled up against him in desperation. “Please, what?” Garrett asked you while he watched your body squirm beneath him. You bucked your hips against him to show him your desperate need because speaking felt too difficult right now. “Mhm… Shit,” Garrett cursed quietly while his throat bobbed after swallowing. “You like that?” he questioned you as he kept his length nestled right at the entrance of your cunt. “I do,” you whimpered while your eyelashes fluttered from the heat between your legs. “Can you just-” you tried to finish your sentence, but you couldn’t find the right words because your brain is slowly stopping from functioning. Garrett let out a laugh and leaned down to press a kiss against your cheek.

“Focus on me,” Garrett said while his fingers tightened on your hip. “Come on,” he coaxed as he popped the tip in and out of your wet entrance, which made a wet sound every time he did it. “Feels good, doesn’t it?” he whispered while he gave you another torturous grind right up against your sensitive clit to make your cunt ache even more. You nodded to answer that it felt amazing, and he finally positioned the tip directly at your entrance. “They won’t hear a single thing,” Garrett assured you while he leaned down closer to your ear. “But let’s try to be quiet anyway, okay?” he whispered to ensure you two kept things private. You nodded again and bit your lower lip while he began sliding slowly inside your cunt. You let out a muffled whimper as he pushed deeper until his full length filled you completely.

“Nghh-” you breathed out while you adjusted to his thick size. Garrett caught your lips in a deep kiss and slid one hand down to squeeze your chest. He flicked your nipple with his thumb to distract you from his size before he pulled away from the kiss to start moving his hips. “You’re so tight, baby,” Garrett grunted while he began to thrust slowly. You wrapped your hands into his curls to hold onto him while he continued thrusting into you. Garrett planted his palms flat on the mattress beside your head to support his weight. “You’re taking me so beautifully, baby,” Garrett murmured while he stared straight down into your face. He watched your reactions closely to see how each movement affected your body.

Your eyes rolled back slightly because the pleasure made it difficult to keep them open. Your teeth bit into your lower lip to suppress your voice while you took his length. “N-nffh-” you whined through your closed mouth, but a few desperate sounds escaped despite your best efforts to keep quiet. Garrett let out a deep groan and picked up his pace just a little. “Look at me,” Garrett whispered, and he leaned down closer to your face. You forced your eyes open to meet his gaze because you wanted to look at him. “You feel so perfect,” Garrett muttered as he kept thrusting deep into your cunt. Your hand gripped his hair tighter to handle the feeling, and you swallowed another loud moan. You kept one hand tangled in his curls while your other hand slid down his nape to trace the dark letters of the tattoo across his upper back.

Your fingertips brushed over his skin before they moved up to play with the thin gold chain of his necklace. “Your back looks so hot like this,” you whispered while his hips kept up the slow pace inside your pussy. “Will never get enough touching it,” you added because you remembered when he asked for your advice before getting it done. Garrett let out an exhale and thrust his length deeper. “Mmh, you really think so?” Garrett asked you while a small grin tugged at his lips. He looked cocky after hearing the praise you gave him, but a little shyness quickly took it back. Garrett leaned down further to hide his face and nuzzled his nose directly into the crook of your shoulder. “You know how much this chain means to me,” Garrett murmured against your skin while his chest pressed against yours.

“A-aah- uh-uh…” You whined out, and he shoved his length deeper until the tip touches your sweet spot. Garrett gripped your hip firmer to support himself while he kept his face hidden against your neck. “I like it when you touch it,” he confessed before he dragged his cock entirely out just to push right back inside. Garrett gave your neck a bite before he pulled his face away to look down at you. The gold chain dangled close to your lips, so you opened your mouth to tease him by biting the necklace. You let out a small chuckle against the chain, but it turned into a whine when Garrett suddenly pulled his cock almost all the way out of your cunt. He left just the tip inside your entrance to torture you, and he refused to thrust back in.

You ground your hips upward in a desperate attempt to force him deeper because you needed him deeper. Garrett responded by pinning your hip against the mattress to stop you from doing that before he thrust all the way in. “D-don’t do that,” you whine out while you shake your head against the pillow. “When- when I’m... I feel like I’m close,” you gasped out to finish your complaint. Garrett looked at your face while his chest heaved a little. “Yeah?” Garrett murmured while he gave you a small smirk to tease you. “You’re getting that close for me?” he asked before his hand traveled down to the back of your leg. He slowly lifted your knee to rest it over his shoulder to adjust the position. Garrett started thrusting faster and deeper into you without teasing you this time.

He used his free hand to reach down between your bodies so he could rub your clit while he buried himself inside you. You wrapped your hand around his neck not to choke him, but you did it just to feel his necklace against your palm. “Oh god, G-Garrett,” you gasped out as his tip kept finding your spot with every thrust. “Just like that, baby,” Garrett murmured while he never looked away from your face to watch your reactions. The feeling of his cock stretching you out and the way his fingers were rubbing your clit made you clench around him. Your clit pulsed against his fingers while your walls continued to squeeze him to the point you felt his cock throb inside you. “M-mmph- I can’t,” you whimpered, and you rolled your hips into his hand to get more pleasure.

“You’re doing so good for me,” Garrett whispered as he kept up the fast pace. You pulled him closer by his shoulders until his forehead was pressing against yours. You kept your eyes closed while you told him how you felt. “Mmn, I’m close…” You whispered while his cock slid deep into your cunt. “R-right there-” you gasped as he kept up the pace. Garrett groaned against your lips before he gave you a peck. “I know, baby,” Garrett murmured before he moved faster. He rubbed your clit with his fingers while he kept fucking you. Garrett gives your lips another kiss before he whispers praises against your mouth. “You’re so perfect for me,” Garrett murmured as his hips touch against your thighs the moment he thrusts back in.

He talked you through it while keeping up the pace. “I missed you so much,” Garrett confessed when he pushed his cock all the way inside your cunt. “I- I know…” You gasped against his lips before you squeezed his length. It only takes a few thrusts until you finally cum around his thick cock while Garrett doesn’t stop his movements to chase his own orgasm. The tightness of your walls made him grunt out loud, but it’s easier to thrust now after you finish around his cock. “Fu-fuh- fuck,” Garrett groaned while he kept going, and he watched the way your body bounced against the mattress with every thrust. He was now raised on his knees, with your leg hooked over his shoulder. Garrett looked down between your bodies to watch the way his cock disappeared inside you and the way it looked coated with your cum.

“I’m right behind you, baby,” Garrett panted out as he sped up his movements. “Do you want it inside you?” he asked you, but it’s obvious that his focus is on watching your cunt squeeze his shaft. “M-mmf, yes, please,” you whimpered, and you wanted him to fill you up completely. Garrett let out a breath and buried himself all the way to the base to give you everything. Garrett reached his free hand up to pinch your nipple while he kept thrusting to chase his orgasm. He played with the peak between his fingers as his pace slowed down for a few moments. “Never done this without a condom with anyone else,” Garrett panted out while he stared down at you. “I only want to fill you up,” he whispered before he pushed deeper into your cunt.

His confession made you bite your lip and smirk while you reached up to grab his waist to hold him against you. “Sh-shit, fill me up then,” you whimpered while you squeezed your pussy around his shaft. Garrett let out a grunt and gave you a few more thrusts to finish. His hips stop moving against yours as his cum fills your cunt completely. “God- g-god, you’re perfect,” Garrett breathed out while his cock twitched inside you. He gave you a few more thrusts to get his cum deeper inside before he pulled out and put your leg down. He watched the fluid leak out of your cunt while you felt heat bloom across your cheeks. You tried to close your thighs together to hide it, but he blocked your movement with his hand.

“Look at how pretty you look right now,” he murmured while he kept your legs parted. “Don’t look, Garrett,” you whispered as you avoided eye contact. Garrett sat down beside you on the mattress and caressed your cheek with his thumb. “I can’t help it when you’re this beautiful,” He said before he leaned down to kiss your forehead. Garrett kept his mouth against your forehead while he breathed out. “Some of your clothes from your last visit are in my closet,” he whispered as his fingers brushed through your hair. You tilted your head back to see his face. “Even the customized jersey with your last name and number?” you asked because he had gifted that specific shirt to you for your visits to Briar U.

Garrett nodded while his thumb stroked your jaw. “It’s there, and it’s already washed since you used it the last time we did this in my room,” Garrett replied with a grin. He nudged your nose with his own to tease you. “Even those tight little cotton shorts you paired it with are in the drawer,” Garrett added while your face grew warm. He leaned down to press a kiss to your lips. “You look so hot with Graham on your back,” Garrett murmured against your mouth before he smiled. “I’ll get them for you,” he said before he stood up from the mattress. He walked over to the dresser while being completely naked to grab the clothes. You chuckled while you watched him search the drawers. “No underwear?” you asked after he tossed the shirt and the shorts over.

Garrett looked back with a smirk on his face. “Don’t wear one,” he replied, and you rolled your eyes. You sat up on the bed and with the blanket covering your body. “So we’re not going to shower?” you added to annoy him. Garrett grabbed a fresh pair of boxers for himself along with a box of tissues from the nightstand. “Later, before bed,” Garrett answered as he slipped his boxers on. “Yeah?” you teased while he walked back to your side. Garrett climbed onto the mattress to get closer to you. “Later, baby. Aren’t you hungry?” Garrett asked while he set the tissues down to clean you up. You adjusted the blanket against your chest. “I am,” you admitted as your stomach rumbled. Garrett nodded his head toward the door.

“I feel like Tucker cooked something,” Garrett said before he reached out to tend to you. Garrett reached out to take the blanket away from your body before he opened your legs wider. He looked down at the mess dripping from your cunt while he pulled a few tissues out of the box. “I could just eat you clean instead,” Garrett murmured with a grin. You let out a scoff because you knew exactly what he wanted. “You wouldn’t stop there. You’d just want to make me cum again,” you pointed out as you grabbed your own handful of tissues. You used them to wipe the sweat away from your chest before you slid the jersey over your head. Garrett chuckled at your comment before he started wiping the cum from your inner thighs and your ass.

He focused on cleaning your cunt gently while you finished pulling the top over your stomach. “You know me too well, baby,” Garrett said as he threw the dirty tissues away. You stood up from the bed right after and pulled on the tiny cotton shorts. You walked back over to where Garrett sat so you could put your hands on his shoulders to reach his upper back. Your fingertips traced the letters of the tattoo inked across his skin while your other hand played with the curls at his nape. “You look amazing in that jersey,” Garrett murmured while his hands slid down to touch your waist and hips. He stood up from the mattress and took your hand to lead you to the door before he unlocked it to walk out into the hallway.

You only took a few steps toward the stairs before Dean looked up from the couch downstairs. “Finally, we can actually go upstairs now,” Dean called out to tease you both. Tucker laughed while Logan shook his head right beside him. “We thought you two were never going to come out of there,” Tucker added, and Garrett squeezed your fingers to ignore them. “There’s some pesto on the stove if you guys want it,” Tucker called out from the couch. Garrett led you toward the kitchen while he kept his fingers locked with yours. “Thanks, man,” Garrett answered, and you also mouthed a thank-you to Tucker. Garrett guided you straight to the counter and reached into the cabinet for a single bowl for the two of you to share.

He poured some pasta inside before he grabbed a fork to twirl a few noodles together. “Taste this,” Garrett murmured as he held the food up to your lips. You bit into the noodles, and the savory flavor filled your mouth. “Look at them, having pasta after sex,” Dean shouted from the living room while Logan snorted at the joke. Garrett raised his middle finger to the guys without looking back. “Ignore them,” Garrett muttered as he watched you chew on it. You took the fork from his hand right after you swallowed it. Garrett leaned his hip against the counter, and he never looked away from you. You twirled another bite of noodles and pressed it against his lips to make him eat before you leaned close to his ear to whisper, “Pasta after sex.”

⠀⠀⠀

⠀⠀⠀ twenty-twenty-six © addie / musingsofheaven.

⠀⠀⠀

[lioncourtz]

JACOB ANDERSON as Louis de Pointe du Lac

An Inside Look at 'The Vampire Lestat' x

[lioncourtz]

"This is a version of Armand who's a bit more desperate, maybe a bit more bitter, a bit less in control. " x

[diamondsinterlude]

Armand looks yummy here not gonna lie

[castlevolkihar]

alternatively: when your circle small but none of yall can communicate with eachother

[drexmwomxn]

[explodesallovertheplace]

"The Weight Of Your Gaze" pt 7

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

Summary:

Annie is a Queen.

A good one at that. But theres one issue...

She remains unmarried. With a list of betrothals broken off due to her being a "difficult" woman to deal with by past suitors, her council, desperate to find her a husband hatch a plan to host a tournament for men across the land to fight for her hand in marriage. Two Mercenary twin brother's, down on their luck, see it as their moment to strike big. The biggest they've ever went to bat for.

Content: enemies to lovers, marriage of convenience, violence, peer pressure, manipulation, misogyny, sexual tension, slow burn, political intrigue

Cw: explicit language, heavy sexual tension, sexual situations.

A/n: Its been a minute, so If it feels a little jumpy, sorry in advance. This chapter was giving me a hard time🥲

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For once, it wasnt blisteringly hot.

It was a nice tepid weather, a cool breeze acting as a balm against the risidual heat of the sun.

Annie, Pearline, and Mary were outside seated next to the estate fountains. It had been a while since all three if them had the chance to spend some recreational time together. Servants flitted about handing out refreshments to the ladies.

The women shared a companionable silence, listening to the calm rush of the water fountain, watching the butterflies and bees fluttering about, too busy collecting nectar from the lush flower beds surrounding the garden.

Pearline was first to break the calm, asking Mary and Annie how things have been as she had been gone for a little while to visit family with her husband.

"Well 'lil Ms. Mary here has been quiet busy since you been gone." Annie quipped cheekily. A sly smile spread across her face.

Mary almost choked on her drink, leading her into a coughing fit. Pearline leaned over to her, patting the woman's back to help clear her airways. A slight giggle shaking her shoulders as she did.

Mary whirled on the queen, cheeks a light pink from both her exertion and to what Annie was implying at the same time. "Anisa! You cant just be goin' on saying those things in front of mixed company." She breathed, looking around at the few servants that were around, flustered.

"Oh girl hush, aint no one mentioned anything inappropriate." Annie rolled her eyes dramatically, though her light smirk still lingered from her subtle teasing.

You done told on yourself with that reaction... She thought to herself.

Pearline watched the interaction, eyes heavy with intrigue. "Oh? Now girl you gotta tell me whats been goin' on, on your side of the pond." She leaned back, eyeing Mary with an expectant look.

"Pearl, it wasnt much that was goin' on, Annie just bein' dramatic." She waved her off, "but if you must know, me an' Stack have a 'lil thing goin' right now."

Pearlines eyes bugged in suprise. "The twin to Annie's husband?"

"Yep that's the one" she nodded in assent.

"Wow... I dont know Mary, seems like a lot happened while I was gone. Couldnt have been only a few weeks so far. Now how'd that go about?"

Mary breathed a reflective sigh... "Didnt take much, we just seem to really connect is all. Then all of a sudden, were a thing."

"You gon' marry 'im?"

"I dont know... In my mind, and in a perfect world I'd like to. I dont know how possible it would be you know? With my status an' all... Anisa's circumstances is a 'lil different than mine" Her mood shifting into a quiet melancholy.

"I wouldnt worry 'bout all that. You aint married and you know you have freedom behind these walls. If marriage aint in the cards for ya'll then I say enjoy the relationship you got while you have it." Annie soothed.

Pealine leaned over and wrapped her hand in Mary's with a reassuring squeeze," Trust me. Its better to have experienced a relationship and a love like that, than to not experience it at all.... besides, you dont know what the future holds."

"I know... -but enough about me, why dont you ask Annie how things have been going with her husband." Mary added mischievously, while also no longer interested in talking about whag was going on between her and Stack.

Pearline brightened, "Ooo- yes girl, I was gonna get to that. How've things been Annie? I know last time when I left things were a 'lil tense between you two."

Annie rolled her eyes, " Well it aint much, mostly been busy. Tryna adjust to the new dynamic an' all now that he's assuming a new position."

"Are yall cool then?" Both Pearline and Mary looked at her, anticipating their friends response.

"We cool..."

After a few moments of silence they realized that she wasnt going to add anymore information than that.

Mary huffed out a snort, "Really? Thats it? "We cool" is all you gotta say?"

"Yes, thats all I gotta say an' thats all you gon' get from me too." Annie replied in a playful manner, but an undeniable air of defensiveness that said dont push too much now.

Pearline grasped Annie's hand, "Thats good to hear. Way better than the way yall were squabbling last time I saw you two." A small smile formed across her face.

"-Dont get me wrong now, he still a fussy man to deal with but we gettin' used to eachother. He aint useless or nothin' like that." Annie added.

Pearline let out a light chuckle before it ended in a knowing hum. "Alright..."

Mary piped in again, "So you tellin' me you sleeping next to a man like that an' yall aint tried nothin'?" An air of suprise in her tone as she tried to wrap her head around the nature of the queen and her husband.

"Mary- Girl, you an' I had this conversation before, and my answer is still the same. Aint nothin happenin' 'tween me an' him. We husband an' wife on paper only." She let out a derisive snort at that.

Pearline piped in, " I aint gon' lie Annie, you my girl an' all but he aint a bad lookin' man... from what it sounds like from you is that he seems decent enough. You know lives like ours were lucky to end up with a partner that aint half bad to look at. Im over here stuck with some ancient dinosaur of a husband who cant do shit for me." Pearline sighed dramatically at the mention of her husband.

"Damn he still aint made you a widow yet? That bastard must be immortal or somethin'. Would've thought he'd croak during your family visit." Mary groused.

"Lord, I wish he would've", Pearline let out another long suffering sigh. "The way his wrinkled ass kept tryin' to get a 'lil piece of me like his dick work still or somethin'." She shuddered at the memory.

"Ugh- sorry Pearl." Annie tried to comfort her after involuntarily letting out a noise of disgust.

"Tell me about it, the minute I felt his shriveled up hand tryna touch my thigh, I was drier than desert sand. Mind you I wasn't wet to begin with, I damn near gave myself carpet burn." Pearline nose wrinkled in disgust at the memory.

Mary gave the woman a pat on her back, "Nuh-uh Pearl we cant have you goin' out like this. You aint get your itch scratched at them clubs you go to in town?"

The woman shook her head, "I really only go there to sing an' dance. Let loose for a while, remind myself that there's more to life than all this stuffy courtly business." She waved her hand around the area for emphasis.

"No girl. I cant let you go on in this life without finding you someone to properly scratch that itch for you. I wont allow it. Imma find you someone." Mary said resolute in her decision to find somebody for Pearline.

"Mary you cant be serious-"

"Serious as a heart attack Pearl. We gone find you a man... or woman, you know I dont judge."

Annie shook her head at her friends shenanigans.

Not too far off the women heard distant chatter. It was the very twins they were talking about, seemingly deep in conversation.

"Well speak of the devil..." Mary muttered, her cheeks turning a light pink.

"Looks like my headache is makin' his way towards me." Annie breathed.

Despite her words Pearline noticed an inexplicable fluttering of Annie's eyes as he saw her husband make his way near her.

Is Annie...? Hm...

"Whats goin' on ladies? See ya'll enjoyin' this nice weather we havin' out here." Stack greeted, arms wide and open. The older twin remained silent, nodding in acknowledgment to the other ladies, turning to Annie.

"Anisa" is all he said in greeting.

"Smoke" is all she responded with, nodding in a small curtsy towards her husband. For some reason she noticed his eye twitch st the name she used.

What the- now he gotta problem with Smoke? Like he wasnt arguin' me down the first week of our marriage about that? This man cant be serious...

Her lips pursed, eyebrows slightly furrowed as she burned a hole into his face. Her look saying what the hell is your problem?.

He slightly kissed his teeth at their silent exchange.

The rest of the group continued on, unaware of the silent argument the couple were having with their eyes.

"Hi Stack, we out here enjoyin' the weather an all. Its been a minute since we last had it calm enough to be outside without roasting."

"Aint that the truth- oh Im sorry Lady Mary, I dont think Ive probably been introduced to your other friend here?" Stack's eyes landed on Pearline.

Elijah cut his eyes to the side of the younger twins head. Stack could feel heat of his intense gaze, but didnt look at the other brother.

"Oh this here is my one of my closest friends Pearline." She chirped enthusiastically.

"Oh is that right? Well its lovely to meet you Ms. Pearline. Pleasure to meet your aquaintence." He lightly grasped her hand, planting a whisper of a kiss onto her lifted hand.

Annie watched the exchange with an increasing interest. She noted Mary's face slightly twitch. A twinge of barely contained irritation seeming to leak out of her, at the friendly exchange between Stack and Pearline.

Annie's mind thought of the loaded look Elijah had gave his brother. Her eyes squinted.

Oh... Theres something here, and he aint said nothing to me about it.

In all honesty Annie knew part of it was because they spent a good portion of their relationship arguing, but now that they were at a tentative truce at the moment she was curious to know what that was about. She'll bring it up to him later. For now she was in no mood to open up what would no doubt be a can of worms while the day has been so nice and relaxing so far.

"Welp-" Annie interrupted the current introductions, "dont let us keep yall, seems like yall were deep in conversation."

"Oh it aint know issue my Queen, me an' Smoke weren't talkin' bout anything all that important."

Annie stiffled a frustrated huff, that was ready to escape her nose, I know they weren't talkin' 'bout nothin that important. What I want is for him to move on from here since he clearly stirring up foreseeable trouble. Mary breathin' through her nose so hard, puffing like she an angry bull.

She eyed Stacks very comfortable actions he was displaying against the very married Pearline. She fixed her lips towards him, " careful now, Lady Pearline a married woman. Don't want to let people get the wrong idea's 'round here in court..." her eyes unwavering as she stared at the mischievous twin.

Stack let her hand go, "Oh sorry, that wasnt my intentions at all- dont want to cause problems 'round here." He lifted his hands in a surrender.

"Me an' Stack were just passin' by. Aint mean to cause nothin'." Elijah gritted out. He grabbed Stacks shoulder firmly physically moving the younger twin away from the women.

The ladies resumed their conversation, a little less animated than before, a quiet, unspoken tension had settled over them.

Annie didnt like it.

There were too many questions swirling her thoughts, fighting for dominance over which took residence over the others.

What kind of debt drove a man like Elijah to agree to this in the first place?

What exactly was the nature of Mary and the younger twins relationship? From all that Mary went on about, you'd think they would be infatuated with eachother. After seeing that interaction, its looking a little one sided if Annie was being honest.

-And what exactly was the younger twins deal? She didnt like how easy his presence titled the peaceful balance they had just minutes prior.

She wouldnt lie and say it didnt make her side eye her husband a little. Sure, they were... she actually wasnt sure where exactly they were at- but again he's done things for her she's never asked.

Even getting rid of her childhood friend because he made her upset. However if the company he brought with him were causing any issue's, then that would reflect on him as well. They're kin, known eachother their whole lives, and even with the things he had said to her despite the somewhat short time of knowing eachother, blood was still thicker than water.

She didnt acknowledged the small twinge in her heart at that thought.

Then there was matters of the council... Too many things have been happening, she hasnt had the chance to work on revamping her team with new advisors. Not even had the time to look around and evaluate other elders around here or neighboring kingdom's to build a new council instead.

Annie brought her manicured fingers towards her forhead, attempting to rub away the oncoming headache forming. Her brows creased.

"You good Anne?"

The Queen turned her head towards Pearline. Her friends eyes full on quiet concern.

"Y-yeah Pearl. Im fine. Just a 'lil tired is all, I didnt get much sleep."

"Oh is that right?" Pearlines brows lifted suggestively, a humorous smirk on her face.

"Girl- stop it-" she giggled, "you know I got alot on my plate" she playfully patted her arm, both their shoulders shaking from restrained laughter.

Annie noticed that Mary became a little disconnected from their little hangout, no longer joining the conversation that much.

Annie took a sip of her drink...

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"Now, just what was that?"

"What was what?"

"Dont act like you dont know what Im talkin' 'bout fool. Whatchu doin' stirrin' some shit up between Anisa's girls now?"

"Whatchu mean "stirrin' up trouble"? Im just greetin' a pretty lady."

"Stack... I know you may be deaf, but you sure as hell aint blind. You seen how Mary was lookin' when you did that."

"Sounds like that's her problem, I aint said shit to her about bein' official 'bout nothin'. 'Sides she sure as hell aint one to talk bein' jealous over shit like that. Dont matter what what I do Smoke, that girl addicted to me." Stack shook his head with a smile, borderline one of disbelief. "Give a girl a lil lip service 'tween the legs and they wont come up off ya' I swear."

Stack looked to his brother, "So how 'bout you huh? Give the queen any relief?... -heh, prolly not, she move stiff- she's wound up tighter than bow string."

Smoke completely skipped over what Stack was implying, refusing to grace that comment with an answer, "I dont give a fuck what you an' that 'lil hussy of yours got goin' on together, I just dont want none of that shit yall be doin' affecting Anisa, which affects me too. She already got a lot of shit goin' on with her Stack."

"Man, didnt I already tell you not worry 'bout nothin' you know little brother got this."

"Do you? Really? Cause I see another fuck up in the makin' looking nice an ready to blow up in our faces again."

The younger twins face tightened, his jovial attitued seemed to vanish in an instant.

Before he could say anything back, a woman, no doubt one of Stacks many flings in the manor had called him over.

Like a switch, his devil-may-care attitude came right on back, "Well, looks like I got some other things need attendin', see ya' later Smoke" he gave the older twin a hearty clap on his shoulder, before heading towards the unidentified woman.

"Ms. Lady, you lookin' mighty fine today- I see you wearing all that red. Now you know that's my favorite color right?"

Smoke continued on, walking the grounds. Things around here were so quiet, he had no other space than to just think.

Aside from Stack sowing seeds of chaos like he seemed incapable of *not doing, his mind drifted back to his wife again. Something he found himself doing more and more often these days.

He couldnt help the distaste and irritation that seemed to bubble up when Anisa referred to him as Smoke infront of company.

Shit dont even sound right comin' out her mouth anymore.

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Smoke found himself walking across the fields outside the estate again. Something he found himself beginning to do habitually as he would patrol the outskirts of the estate. Old habits die hard.

He came out here whenever things got too loud within the walls, and he needed to decompress a little.

There were no council meetings today so he had the chance to enjoy the the weather, the lukewarm sun and the wind of a distant ocean breeze made the long grass undulate against the shine of the sun like waves of green.

After a certain amount of distance, Elijah sat on a flattened patch of earth. He paused, listening to the distant chirps of songbirds in the distance, the buzzing chatter of distant cicadas, and the rustling of trees, their leaves gently rubbing against eachother.

He closed his eyes, inhaling the earth and air around him for a few moments, before he dug in his pocket, fishing out his pack of cigs.

He pulled one out and placed it against his lips before igniting a match-

"Smoke"

His hand froze in midair, the small flame shimmering in the wind.

"You know that aint my name woman" he gruffed, finally lighting his cigarette before taking a deep inhale.

"Oh really? Last I remember you was adamant that, that's what your name was to me. Or am I forgettin' somethin'?" Her rich tone dripping with sarcasm.

The fuck?

"Whats your problem? You was just pushin' all up on me last night, now you all irate an' shit the very next day."

"You must got some amnesia like you aint just kiss yo' teeth at me not too long ago. What was that between you and your brother?"

Elijah turned around to look at her, her deep purple gown billowing in the wind, its rich iridescent fabrics glinted a rich shimmery almost gold-like shimmer in the sun.

He was irritated plenty. How Stack was moving, stirring up trouble, Obidiahs annoying bald headed self, his wife following him out to his place of peace to disturb it, and above all, how fine she was looking to him right now. Made all that other shit that was annoying him dissappear.

"You want a answer?"

"Yes."

"C'mere", he motioned her over to where he was seated.

"This is close enough"

"No it aint"

She puffed out an exasperated breath, already over him and his demands. "Your impossible", but she still made her way next to him regardless.

"Just as much as you are baby", he reached for her hand as she got near and pulled her down next to him gently.

She seated herself next to him, a few inches of space between them. "Well?" She prompted, a curious brow raised.

"My brother..." he trailed off, trying to compose his thoughts on exactly what it is he wanted to say. "Stack seem to have a knack for stirrin' up trouble without meanin' to sometimes." Elijah kept his eyes forward, looking out towards the field, taking another deep inhale.

".... Is this gon' be a problem?" Annie's eyes were lazer focused on the side of his face. Hunting for any micro expression to say what his mouth might not.

He was quiet for a few seconds, but it felt like hours, waiting for the verdict.

"Elijah" she pushed a bit more.

"No. Imma handle it 'fore it even becomes one." He turned his face towards hers, his heavy eyes wanting to implore her that this wasnt something he wanted her to worry about.

"Okay..."

Elijah didnt like the way she dragged the last syllable, but he didnt blame her. She was perceptive. Already trying to calculate all the outcomes a budding dynamic between Mary and Stack could become a problem.

With that little stint he did with that other woman, Pearline, and the blurred lines of what exactly the relationship status between those two, he'd hope it wouldnt become and issue. Smoke wasnt worried about Stack, for all the nonsense he gets up to he somehow always manage to weasle his way out with limited to no repercussions.

Hell I dont even know how he does it.

It was Mary that he was worried about.

He hasnt interacted with her much, if at all, but as troublesome as Stack is, he was always strategic with it. But this girl was a wild card...

He wasnt sure how aware Anisa was of her friend and her little "rendezvous" that shes had with her past suitors, but he didnt want to broach the subject... at least not yet.

They had a tentative understanding of sorts, but they still havent known eachother that long, and Marys been her friend since she was a child. He knew Anisa probably still trusted him as far as she could throw him and adding on to the new found suspicion that she is developing for his twin, bringing something like that up anytime soon would just end in disaster.

He decided to change the subject, "That council of yours... you ever thought 'bout changing them out?"

Anisa was quiet for awhile, in the corner of her eyeline she caught the glimpse of blue butterfly wings. She zeroed in on it as it perched on one of the purple wild flowers in the long grass, watching as it was extracting nectar, its wings batting furiously to keep its balance on its petals long enough to get its fill.

After a while she let out a long exhale before she finally spoke...

"Why you ask?"

"I know you aint too fond of 'em, cant say I blame you either. If Im bein' honest, I dont think they got your best interest at heart."

"And you do?"

"Yes..."

"How so?"

"Oh- uh, well..." He went quiet, at a loss for words, "You my wife aintchya?" His hands waved around to the open field, gesturing at nothing.

"An' whats that s'possed to mean?" She was looking at him now, her head titled to the side while her hand cradeled her face, a speculative brow raised.

"Well its what Im s'possed to do as your husband. I thought we went over this already." He was beginning to get a little flustered. He never questioned why he did what he did. He just did what felt right, and what felt right to him was to make sure she was good.

"Looks like you startin' to take this husband business seriously..." she trailed off, a teasing smirk graced her lips while she looked at him with mischievous eyes. " Who woulda thought, you aint even like me callin' you by a name you were so adamant at having me call you huh? I seen that attitude you gave me when I called you Smoke in front of my ladies."

"Well- I told you, that my name is only for you-" He cut himself off taking another deep inhale of his cigarrette. It must of been too deep 'cause it landed him right into a coughing fit.

Annie's shoulders started to shake, a quiet but warm giggle bubbled out from her at Elijah's floundering. She lifted her hand to pat it repeatedly against his wide back, to help him clear out his airways.

A deep frown formed on his lips, "whats so funny?"

"You, you a mess."

"No I aint."

"Yes you are."

"I aint" he groused, but there was no real heat behind his words.

At some point her pats became a soothing circles against the middle of his back. He was always keenly aware of her touch, it felt like a searing brand against his skin despite the layers of clothing between them. Its been a little over a month and they rarely ever did.

Almost like she could read where his thoughts were going she removed her hand. The loss of her heat emphasized by the cool breeze.

It brought a shiver to his spine.

"To answer your question, yes I have thought about it. Plenty of times- getting rid of 'em. Replacin' them with some actual competence. -Its just-" she paused, "Ive been so busy, I havent had the time to go an' make preparations for it. I mean it would be complete turn around. A change as big as that cant be made so rash."

"Mmm..." he hummed, "I can help if you want."

"No. I wouldnt ask you to do that."

"Good thing you didnt, I offered-"

"Smoke-"

"What I tell you 'bout callin' me that."

"I aint gotta listen to a thing you tell me to say, just like you aint listenin' to me when I tell you to leave somethin' well enough alone."

"I dont have to leave shit alone, you say you been too busy to deal with it, then the fuck am I doin' sittin' around here for? I might as well make myself useful."

"But I just said-"

"I already heard what the fuck you just said an' it sound like nonsense."

The intensity of the glare Annie was throwing his way, would've incinerated any man on the spot, but Elijah was anything but an ordinary man.

"I dont know what kind of men you used to dealin' with, prolly the type that let 'chu run all over them, tuck tail when things get a lil hard, but I aint one of them ones."

"...."

Elijah half expected her to leave, something she seem to develope a fondness for when it came to him. But instead, she stayed.

She stubbornly faced away from him, he could tell she was very unhappy, but the fact that she stayed felt like progress in a way.

"Anisa..."

No response.

"Annie"

She turned slightly, she was looking at him from the corner of her eyebrows. She was listening.

"I dont mean to be rough with you. I wanna help... Like I said before, we in this together... This is just as much for me as it is for you. 'Cause you already know I dont like none of them muthafuckas- If it were up to me..."

Annie let out a wry chuckle, "what? You'd get rid of 'em?"

"Shit, If I have to. Either way they'd be no more, dead or alive- only if you were okay with it though"

"Ha- well atleast you considerin' how I'd feel about it."

" 'Course, I remember what you told me last night."

Annie felt heat bloom across her cheeks as memories of their conversation last night. How she blatantly teased and rubbed up against him, something would've never thought in a thousand years she would do to a man that constantly makes her want to choke him... And do other things too

She would never say it out loud, but he sets a fire in her, a heat she never felt before with another man. It drove her insane, she didnt know whether she wanted to kill him or kiss at times.

Sometimes both.

"Good to know you can listen when your ready" she rolled her eyes.

"So whats it gon' be?"

".... okay. You can help me."

"Dont worry, Its all on your time I aint gon' overstep. This here still your domain, I just wanna be useful." He reassured.

"Useful?" She fully turned towards him, here expressive doe eyes wide and open.

"Mhm"

"Huh..." Is all she said before she got up ready to leave. A reflective look across her face.

"You leavin' me already?"

"Oh boy hush, Im right next door I couldnt escape you if I tried."

"You got that right."

This man-

And with that she left him to his own devices.

She didnt know what it was, why she never hung around him for too long. The air always felt suffocating, thick with things said and unsaid. Taut like a bow string ready to snap at any point.

Aint one of them ones he say?

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__________________

Elijah didnt know what happened, but another shift between him and his wife happened.

He didnt know what to do with himself with this new change. Somehow it was worse... for his psyche at least.

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It started small.

They had wrapped up on another council meeting where they essentially talked in circles for an hour. Everyone was getting up to leave before the Queen had stopped Elijah from leaving, grasping one of the sleeves of his robes.

Everyone exiting the room momentarily paused, they had been curious about the status of the newlyweds. They weren't sure if much progress had been made between those two so to see the queen initiate contact with the king was something of note.

Anisa got up from her chair, Elijah assisting her ascent, then she leaned on to him, placing her face right into the crook of his neck. Her other hand planted over his chest, directly over his heart.

He stiffened, not expecting her to do something like that. Be so forward im initiating any type physical contact between the two infront of an audience. Something she rarely did even when it was just the two of them.

She whispered in a low hush, quiet enough for only him to be able to hear her, the ghost of her breath caressed his ear. He supressed an oncoming shiver crawling up his spine. "Im almost ready, I'll let you know when the times right."

He could've sworn she lightly blew in his ear as she said it.

What did she even mea- oh? She must mean replacing the council...

There was almost a double meaning to what she said but he kept it to himself for once.

Just as he was about to make a move to touch her, she stepped away and walked out the door with the rest of the council. She moved so quickly it was like she flowed between his fingertips like he was trying to grasp at smoke. The irony wasnt lost on him.

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.

He'd be lazing about on the balcony just before it was time for bed, occasionally joined by her.

It was becoming a sort of ritual by this point, he would take his little smoke break to decompress from the days activities, and it seemed Anisa used that period to decompress as well.

Though Elijah knew of better ways to decompress than staring at trees and bickering all the damn time.

As predicted, Anisa came out to sit in the chair not too far from his own, this time with a few knitting supplies. There was no greeting, because there was no need to, a small exchange of glances was all the acknowledgment needed in their shared space. All that could be heard was the quiet rustle of shifting threads as Annie went about knitting them together. Into what exactly? Smoke didnt know, but he'd eventually find out as she progressed.

He watched her hands dexterously move in quick, fine tuned movements, quietly, intrigued.

"What you knittin'?"

"Huh? Oh- this? Im making a light sweater for Ruth."

"Ah... She a 'lil ball of nerves aint she."

Annie let out an amused breath, "Yeah she is. Always shiverin' an' shakin' good lord- poor thing. She been here for over half a year now. You'd think she'd be used to it by now, but no."

"She still young, maybe this typa life just aint for her. Shit- I get it. Dont know if Ill ever get used to all this. Dont know how you do it"

"You only been here a few weeks Elijah..."

"I know... Im just sayin' I get it."

Annie hummed, "I figured I'd go ahead and make a 'lil sweater for her. She such a small thing, all that shiverin' she be doing. I know its part nerves but I wouldnt be suprised if she cold. She needs some iron in her diet."

Smoke saw a small crease of worry at her brow for the young girl. "What about you? I know you been here all your life, an' you know what your doin' thats for damn sure but- If you had a choice... would you still be here?"

"I...-In some ways I think I'd be doin' the same thing Im doin' now, just on a smaller scale. I sure as hell wouldnt be runnin' no kingdom thats for certain... Maybe a shop? Some place where I could help people. The community one on one."

Elijah nodded quietly, a thoughful hum leaving his lips.

"- I will say... even with all the extra hoops an' regulations that come with bein' queen... Its fulfillin' in a similar way. Only difference is scale is all." The clicks of her knitting needles slowed to a stop. She looked off into the distance. Like she was quietly deliberating over the next words that were she would say.

"I know we talked on it briefly but... I seen how capable you are, no doubt your twin as well, so I wanna know... just what kinda debt was it that had ya'll going through with all this?"

Annie had never seen Elijah shift so uncomfortably. His hands started that same tremoring it was doing on their wedding day. "I- Im not gonna lie to you Anne. I dont know if Im ready to speak on the why. Just know aint nothin' gon' come of it."

She left it alone. Inexplicably she felt he would eventually tell her when he was ready. But that did leave a question:

"You dont have to tell me how much you owe. I just wanna know if its steep enough that the crowns funds would would be deeply affected."

"No. Not at all- I aint touchin' none of that money to pay somethin' like that off ya hear me?"

"Then how you gon' pay it off? With your own money? If thats the case you wouldnt be here right now." She reasoned.

"I been toyin' with some Idea's..."

That made her perk up, "Like what?"

"Me an' Stack always thought about startin' up a 'lil Juke Joint. A place for people to come an' forget their worries. Music. Dance. Drinks an' all the like. As long as the crowns name is attached to it, revenue'll come pourin' in. It would be a good way to check the temperature of the kingdoms subjects, interact with them, keep up morale and build deeper relationships if used wisely. I'll use those funds to pay off our debt in no time."

"Huh."

"What?"

"Its not a bad idea, I just wouldnt have thought you'd wanna do somethin' like that."

"You wouldnt be wrong. Its more of somethin' Stack would want to do. I do like a slower pace."

That had Annie's mind moving. Since knowing her husband, she hasnt seen him explicitly express anything that would be of interest for him and himself only. Not counting his overt interest in her, just the thought had her flustered all over again. It pissed her off -nows not the time to be thinking of those things Annie- think...

Then a moment came to her. A very small one but one that felt significant to her. The first council meeting, the mention of a recreational center of sorts for troubled youth had caught 'Lijah's attention like a fly stuck in a spiders web. I thought took root. A thought that she would never in a millions years she would think to share or do in any capacity, but with how adamant he has been in wanting to share some responsibilities-

I think the man just loves work,

She was hesitant but willing to take a risk.

Only one way to prove if he was a man that could handle this kind of pressure, of course she knew he could handle pressure, but this required a different kind of pressure, diplomacy and patience, however it goes will determine if she'll really welcome his help in searching for new members.

"Elijah?"

"Mhm."

"How you feel about overseein' the creation of that recreational center for troubled youth we've been talkin' about in these meetings on an' off for over the month. I doubt those incompetent people that I call a council will truly go through with it... Is this somethin' you can handle?" She watched his face carefully.

He was quiet for a beat. Fully taking in not only what she asked, but the inquiry buried underneath it. You wanna share some of the burden? Let me see if this is something you can handle. Not only was he up to the task, it was something he'd been quietly wanting to get involved with in the background. He was planning to ask her about it the day that sorry ass "man" called Brandon got him sidetracked.

"Yes... I would like to be involved in that. Dont worry 'bout adding on to my plate. Im built sturdy, I can handle the pressure an' then some."

Annie couldnt help but let her eyes wander over his relaxed posture when he said that. He aint lyin' 'bout that. She felt just how sturdy that man was when she pushed up on him. She currently took a particular interest in the way his lips wrapped around that cigarrette he seem to always have in his mouth. A thought. A particularly dangerous thought, that through sheer determination she refused to let cross her mind, widdled its way to the surface.

What would it be like to really feel those lips against her own? Not like the chaste kiss they shared a month ago on their wedding day, but one that lingers long enough to for her to taste him upon her lips.

Elijah was not a subtle man at all when he was ready. Very much the opposite. He had no issues in voicing his attraction to her, as audacious and rocky his approach was it lit her up. Simultaneously turning her off by his uncouth behavior, having never dealt with a man so forward, and undeniably turned on. He caused a whirlwind in both her mind and body.

The way his featherlight touch caressed and toyed with her earring led her treacherous mind into wondering what it would be like if he touched other parts of herself with the same level of attention.

She felt a light, fluttering of a pulse between her legs at the thought. She covertly crossed her legs to one side, distractedly clearing her throat.

"-ehm, that's good to know. In the next meeting we'll make sure Cyrus gives you the blue prints, you can make it your own. Lord knows he aint doin' shit with 'em 'cept talkin' out his ass." She let out a nervous chuckle

He eyed her with a curious glance, "Thanks Annie. 'Preciate it." He responded gruffly, but with an underlying tenderness and appreciation for her letting him get involved.

He knew how difficult it probly was for her to relinquish some control. Especially on the backs of people constantly letting her down as it seems lately. Given how big of a move this is for her...

He refuses to disappoint her.

Due to the cooler weather from this afternoon, the night air was brisk, making Annie and Elijah wear thicker night clothing. In Annie's case she wore a thicker loose robe over her usual night gowns, so it wasnt the usual feast for the eyes that he'd get almost every night, and his eyes were always greedy when it came to her. It didnt matter though, that woman could wear a trash bag and still look as radiant as the sun. It looked like she just absorbed the moonlight with how luminous her skin looked. No doubt doused in expensive body oils and butters.

She shifted, resuming back to her knitting, leaned to one side of the chairs. Almost unconsciously leaning into the space closest to where he was currently seated. The movement made the neckline of the robe open slightly, a sliver of cleavage almost peaking out. The fine tuned movements from her knitting making her chest slightly jigg-

Lord- this woman got me thinking like some green teenager. If Id known better I wouldve thought she was doin' this on purpose-

Smoke thought about how she teased him a few days ago on this very balcony. How close she got to the point where her lips almost brushed his as she whispered her displeasure at him "taking care" of Brandon with out her knowledge.

Nah- she know the affect she have on me. Im startin' to think her ass is doin' this on purpose...

She can play the hot an cold game all she wants. One of these days he gon' call her bluff. Again, and again, and again, 'til she gives in eventually to him.

Smoke is a patient man. Observant too. He knows when to release, be hands off, give space whenever needed and when to apply pressure. With the kind of woman Anisa was, he'd probably have his work cut out for him. Shoot- the kind of man he was? She aint even know whats coming her way.

'Cause once theres something Smoke wants? He stops at nothing to get it, and fortunately or unfortunately he was dead set on Annie.

Their conversation fizzled into a comfortable silence. Despite the whirlwind that was going through both of their minds. His cig long forgotten, as the cherry end of it fizzled out with a thin trail of smoke in its wake.

Elijah let out a long, low yawn. The day decided to catch up to him. He stretched out his arms in emphasis, "Im goin' to sleep."

"Alright. Go on an' get yourself a good night's sleep." She didnt look up from her knitting.

"You aint goin' to bed?"

"No... got some things on my mind."

"Hm.." Im sure you do.

As he got up to take his leave he could feel her eyes on him like the fleeting brush of fingers up the back of his neck. He shook his head once he closed his balcony door behind him.

This woman's somethin' else

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.

When time came for another meeting Cyrus only was happy to give away the blue prints for a center. Annie had an inkling he had no intentions of actually doing anything with it. Elijah had no outward reaction, but she could see a restless energy in his posture. He almost looks excited...

Once the meeting adjourned and everyone was leaving, Annie paused at the doorway as she was almost the last one to leave the room. Elijah hadnt moved from his seat. He was looking over the build plans with intense focus.

"'Lijah?"

"Mm?"

"You comin'?"

"Uh- yeah, give me a minute. I'll make sure to lock up 'fore I leave. Just wanna take a 'lil look at some of these plans..."

"Okay. Dont take too long."

"Why? You'll miss me?"

Annie rolled her eyes so hard, she could sworn she saw the back of her brain, "No fool just dont leave the room unlocked too long, we got invaluable info and plans in this here room you know?" Even still there was a telltale warmth she felt across her cheeks at the implication.

"How that gon' happen when Im in here?"

"I- well. It dont matter- just make sure to lock up or somethin'." She said in a rush.

"Alright Mrs. Annie. I'll do what you say."

The husky way he said those words, in that low rasp of his-

Annie- get yourself together girl. Gettin' worked up over some damn words, like Im not a grown ass woman.

She left the room, leaving him to his own devices, as he definitely seems very serious about the new venture... She was curious. What exactly was it about this particular project had him so drawn to it? From what she saw of him, she knew for a fact that he had a soft spot for children like her.

But there has to be something more to it...he'll tell me when hes ready, or not at all.

Either way she had to admit she could already feel a bit of alleviation from him taking charge of those plans already. Like she had just a bit more extra room to breathe.

Guess I'll use my free time to check in on 'lil Mary. Last time I seen her, she looked 'bout ready to explode with that trouble maker of hers.

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_______________

It took a minute for the Queen to find her. She had to ask one of the staff where to find her.

Mary was standing by on of the open. Corridors in one of the furthest corners of the compound. A location that didnt have as much traffic of people walking through there. Whatever the reason (Annie had an obvious idea of why) she chose this area to be left alone. Too bad for her, Annie was gonna disrupt all that moping.

She was looking out towards the tree line.

"How you doin' lil Mary?"

Mary didnt turn around to aknowledge her presence.

"Still upset with Stack?"

Mary let out a derisive snort, "Hmf! You could say somethin' like that."

"This 'bout that stint he pulled on Pearl?"

"You could say something like that." She groused.

"Well what is it then?" Annie found herself getting irritated with that crytpic shit she was doing.

Mary let out an annoyed huff, turning around to face her friend. "I think... Im sure Stacks been cheatin' on me."

"C'mon Mary, just from that lil interaction between Pearline an 'Stack you think hes cheating all a sudden?"

"Iono, didnt see Pearline pull back fast enough when he was slobbin' all over her hand. You seen it."

"Girl- are you even hearin' yourself right now? She was just tryin' to be polite. If you feel that way you need to take that up with twin, not with Pearl."

Mary deflated a little bit. I know your right. He's been damn near MIA since that day. I only see snippets of him throughout the day. He aint never in one place long enough for us to address anything."

Annie placed a hand on her shoulder, "Iono what to tell you girl, but you gon' have to figure it out."

Mary brought her hands to her eyes, but no tears came. When she pulled them back her eyes remained dry, but an undeniable tiredness was visible. Annie could now see the vague bags under them. She no doubt was losing sleep over this.

No longer interested in where the conversation was headed, Mary quickly changed the subject. "Enough about me an' my situation, how you an' Smoke been?"

For once, Annie didnt feel so defensive about the status of where their relationship is at. As clunky as its been at times, it seems that they're starting to find even footing with eachother, however clumsy this little dance if theirs has been.

And it looked like Mary could use a little distraction, so she divulged a little.

"If im bein' honest girl. Its been fine. He still aint gotta a lick of manners in his bones, but hes proven himself to be a man of his words so far. Already better than most of those bums that were courtin' me in the past."

"Mm I can imagine."

"Yeah, I have half the mind to believe his ass just love work. He's helped around in my garden when I let 'im, so he can stop pesterin' me. But I wont lie an' say its not appreciated."

"Wow. Shoot, I almost wish we switched twins. You want to? 'Cause mines stressin' me the hell out." She chuckled.

It gave Annie's pause.

She knew it was a light joke but... She didn't find it all that funny. She still remembered how Mary was at the tournament, gushing over Elijah. Annie had half the mind to think that Mary went after Stack, cause they almost look the same. Not to Annie though. She could tell wether which twin was 'Lijah with her back turned. As soon as the thought came she waved it away, doubtful.

She hummed in response. "Nah, Im good. Ill stick to his annoyin' ass. Its what Im familiar with", she shrugged with a small huff of laughter. "I hope you an' Stack figure it out. If you need anything, just know you have a listening ear in me." She rubbed her friends back one final time, before leaving her to her own world.

"Bye... Annie"

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Annie made it to her room before she realized. She didnt hear any noise coming from the room next door. Elijahs room.

Curious, she went and knocked on his door.

No answer.

Aint no way- Is he still in the meeting room?

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.

There he was. In the same spot she left him, looking no less ready to leave than when she previously saw him. It had been well over an hour. Hell, probly even two and he hadnt moved. This time he had a pencil hanging halfway off his ear, looking just about ready to drop onto his work.

Clearly he had been reworking the plans, his scribbled handwriting all over the papers. She slowly walked over to him, leaning over his shoulder to look at some of his plans.

"This look nothin' like you gettin' ready to leave now does it?"

He paused. Always distracted by her presence. Even worse with her proximity with her looming over his shoulder. Her breasts were damn near pressed across the wide expanse of his back. Her floral perfume invaded his senses, while she stood bent over his shoulder.

"I was just gettin' ready to head on out."

"Aint look like it."

"Dont gotta look like it to be any less true."

"Hm..." She hummed while absent mindedly grabbing at the pencil that looked 'bout ready to drop out the crook of his ear. Her nails lightly grazing the shell of his ear while she lifted the pencil back in place a little further back to prevent it from falling off.

His whole body tensed at the contact. He let out a long, quiet exhale attempting to relax his shoulders that were looking very close to giving his ears a high five with how much he was attempting to not shrug them up. His ears were always a particularly sensitive area for him.

She 'bout to be the death of me. I swear...

He got up suddenly, effectively making her back up off him, to give more room. When he looked at her, her doe eyes looked at him seemingly clueless as to what she was doing to him.

"You think you so slick huh?"

"The hell I need to be slick about? Only thing you need to be slick with is slidin' your ass up outta this here room so we can lock it up. C'mon."

He watched the sway of her hips as she walked in front of him, leading him out the door.

"Mhm..." is all he hummed in response.

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____________________

A tension that lingered in the background between them, remained on the brink of... something. Like blowing into a balloon thats one more breath away from popping.

This hot and cold shit the Queen was doing was starting to drive Elijah up the wall.

Next time she try some shit, like I dont know what she doin', Imma call her out on her bluff. Cant have her out here thinkin' she could do anything with me like I aint gon' do shit about it.

"She stay testin' me..." His lone raspy voice echoed across the empty room he was currently occupying.

He rubbed his eyes. Quietly groaning to himself at the thought. The diffused low light of the library he found himself in made his eyes lower with a heaviness thay was bordering on the side of sleepiness. It was late night and he had been using it as a place to flesh out his plans for the recreational center. He even looked into some architectural books for some inspiration. Maybe it could become something made sustainably.

His earlier musings came back with a vengeance. He got irritated all over again. Just walking around pent up.

"An here her ass come along to come an tease me" he kissed his teeth. "I aint never dealt with no shit like this." He groused to himself.

A knock on the door interrupted his disgruntled thoughts. He got up and lumbered his way over, fatigue starting to drag his body.

And there at the door was the object of his distress.

"Whatchu doin' in here so late?" She accused, her eyes squinting in suspicion.

"Woman- dont tell me you walked all the way cross the estate to come find me to nag at me." He bit.

She instantly picked up on his sharper tone that he took with her. Something he hadnt done in a minute as they've almost fully settled into their roles.

"The hell is your problem? An' if I did? That aint no ones problem but mine- let me through." She pushed right on past him, further into the library and directly to the table with all his books and blue prints scattered all over. The dim lights of the room illuminated the baby blue silk night robe she had wrapped around her body, making it almost appear gold in this light.

Each thought entering his mind at that very moment was more sinful then the next of things he wanted to do to her, do with her. Instead of going to her, he went to the aisle's on the other side of the room stacked with books from the floor to the ceiling. He needed some distance.

"Im doin' some research." He finally answered.

"Is that right?"

"Thats right... Now whatchu doin' in here aside from lookin' for me."

"I wasnt lookin' for you... I came to look for a book."

"A book." He deadpanned

"Yes. Is that a problem for you?"

"No... go on' head." He said distractedly leafing through the different hard backs, looking for a book that didnt exist. Anything to distract himself from her proximity to him in the room.

He heard her rustling about through the room, ever drawing nearer. He decided to pick a random book, lean on the opposite shelves that his back was facing. Flipping through pages blindly. Not reading a thing.

She drew nearer, looking through the different titles on the spines of the books, apparently struggling to find what she was looking for. "Whatchu lookin' for?"

"Wouldnt you like to know." She quipped sharply, not looking away from the shelves he himself was just looking through.

He tensed, but didnt move. His body pulled tight, like a fully drawn bow string. She paused right in front of him, her body still facing the opposite, her back to his front. The aisles between the book shelves were narrow. With her just in front of him, her backside almost grazed his front.

Time stood still for him, his eyes narrowed. Every move she made slowed. His book already forgotten. After seemingly not finding what she wanted in the upper shelves, she slightly bent over to look at the lower ones. Her ass lightly pressed up against him, before she quickly shifted away.

He grabbed a hold of her hips, before she got too far. She stilled.

Elijah didnt know if he was going a little crazy 'cause for a split second he felt like he could feel her lean into it, pressing her hips to his-

She whipped around, moving so quick that he felt the residual wind she caused from it.

"What the fuck you think you doin'?" She hissed, positively affronted.

Elijahs face remained unchanged, face as calm as ever, "Nah baby, what the fuck you think your doin'?", he set the book he wasnt reading down on one of the shelves, his eyes never leaving her's.

"Last I checked passing by didnt require all that you just did." She quipped bluntly.

"It does when you steady throwin' ass at me. You think I aint gon' do nothin' about it? C'mon Annie, you know the kinda man I am"

"Throwin' ass? Boy I aint throwin' you a damn thing."

"Woman, you throwin' a whole lot at me, now you mad when Im tryna catch somethin'?"

"The hell you talkin' bout me like Im a ball or somethin? What's wrong with you?"

"You is whats wrong with me."

"Me?"

"Dont act like you confused, you been known what Ive been on witchu, I aint never hid."

"Huh...and what have you been on with you?"

"You wanna know what I been on?"

"Mhm".

She let out a small gasp as he spun her back around, facing the opposite shelves away from him. He leaned over her shoulder, his arms wrapped around the soft skin of her waist, his mouth by her neck, without touching it. He was so close, he could see the goosebumps raise to the surface of her skin in real time. He let out a slow exhale, calming himself, before he spoke again.

"You think I wouldnt notice whatchu doin?" He quietly rasped. He could feel the slightest of a tremble emanate from her body against his.

"I-I aint done shit. Watchu on about? You actin' crazy." But there was no real bite behind her words. She was winded, her voice breathless.

"No crazier than how you been actin'."

"..."

"Walkin' around in that 'lil scrap you call a night gown havin' all them curves out for me on display."

"Maybe they just comfortable to wear." She said back, so quiet, it was almost a whisper.

"Woman, you an' I both know it gets chilly at night. Aint no way to all that comfortable with them titties all out an' about. Not like Im complaining." He felt her shift in his hold. Her body restless.

"Out here blowin' in my ears whisperin' an' shit, like you aint know whatchu do to me." He felt more than heard her take a quiet inhale of breath, her rib cage gently expanding, before contracting.

"Then you stay toyin with me like I aint gone do shit huh?..."

She didnt respond.

"I keep tellin' you the kinda man I am Annie, why you stay testin' me?" She turned her head to the side, her wide, brown- doe eyes looking directly into his. Her face unreadable, except the barest hint of a twinkle in her eye. He gently grabbed her chin, lifting her face just a little closer to his. So close that when he spoke, his lips almost brushed her own, slightly parted ones.

"And now, you find yourself on the opposite side of the building from where your bedroom at. Where you s'possed to be at sleepin'- but instead you out here tryna fuss at me about some other shit we know damn well you dont care about. You know Im out here workin' on that project you gave me."

"Out here fake lookin' for books." He gruffed.

"I wasnt- there's somethin' I am lookin' for..." her voice was starting to sound dangerously close to a whine.

"Hmm..." he was unconvinced, he pulled back and spun her forward, having her facing him. He eyed her down, kissing his teeth as he did, when he grabbed her up a few moments ago, it skewed her robe, she almost had her whole chest out.

She made a move to adjust herself, but Elijah grabbed her hand before she could. He brought his hand up to her skewed neckline, lightly grazing the fabric, just barely touching the half exposed skin of her breast.

He let out a sound that was teetering on a groan, "woman... the things I'd do to you if you let me...", he went to shift the neckline of her robe closer together to help her completely cover up her chest.

She stopped him. Her hand wrapped around his wrist. When he looked in her eyes, all that brown from earlier was swallowed by the dark of her pupils. She opened her mouth, then closed it. Her eyes never left his.

Then she opened her mouth again. This time words escaped as a hushed whisper,

"What would you do to me?... If I'd let you... What would you have done to me?" Her eyes grew heavy.

He cocked his head to the side. "If youd let me?..." I'd gone down on you, where I know you want me, where your bodies begging for me, weeping for me. I would've ate you 'till you cried, all while you still fussin' at me." He saw her fidget, her legs shifting and crossing where they stood.

"I wanna do things to you that aint at all befittin' of a queen. I wanna hear you screamin' my name across these halls to the point where everybody know just how good Im takin' care of you. I wanna stress you out and be the reason you get stress relief ya hear me?"

Her eyes started to flutter a bit, she was completely silent, her eyes zeroed in on his lips.

"I want you to let me take care of you..." he firmed the hold on ber chin, gently pulling her a little closer, close enough to kiss. "...but only if you let me..." He rasped against her lips.

He pulled away suddenly. In that same instance Annie felt like she could breathe again, think more clearly.

"You have yourself a good night Annie. Imma head to bed."

Wha-?

"What."

"Whatchu mean "what?" I said Im goin' to bed."

Annie started to sputter, "I- wait a minute. You-" The sudden shift felt like whiplash to her, knocked her off balance. Then she felt herself get more irritated than she was when she first entered the room.

She let out a sharp exhale, straightening herself before she shifted her posture. Her back ramrod straight gathering herself together. Looking as if the past few minutes never happened, aside from that mean glare she was casting Smoke's way.

"Whats that look on your face for?"

"-You think you can just do somethin' like that an-"

"-an' what? Hm?" He challenged. "Walk away?"

She stubbornly remained quiet for a beat, before she opened her mouth again "Go 'head then, 'cause if you think Im 'bout to let you do somethin' like that to me again you got another thing coming." She spat before she promptly left the bookshelf aisle, and back to the study area where Elijah's blue prints and plans for the recreational center remained scattered all over.

He took his time, slowly following her out the same way. "Its gon' happen again an' again Anisa, 'cause you gon' let it happen again an' again, and Im gon' keep doin' it again an' again. 'Til I hear it straight from your mouth how much you want me too."

Annie let out a laugh, shaking her head in disbelief, "You really are crazy"

"Only as crazy as you let me."

"Good night Smoke." She said sternly, leaving the room in a rush, leaving him the only one in the room again.

.

.

.

Elijah paused for a little while, letting out a long exhale before he went about gathering his things. He almost regretted not not pressing further, taking them both out of this misery. No matter how she refused to fully give voice to her attraction to him, he knew she felt what was between them just as much as he did, but he wouldnt press any further until he heard her desires straight from her lips.

Stack wouldve clowned his ass for it and he'd probably be right to. He knew if he pressed any further she wouldve let him.

Now he's here, pent up as hell in a space between agitated and satisfied in seeing a glimpse how much she actually wanted him. She could probly feel him through all them clothes, just how much she was affecting him. He didnt give a damn either.

Actin' like she aint know what the fuck she was doin'

He's lucky she didnt directly ask him to do those things he said he wanted to to her, cause in his heart of hearts he knew he wouldnt tell her no. With those sultry eyes of her's and her luscious, plump lips. He wouldn't deny her a thing.

.

.

.

__________________

Cant believe some of things I wrote, Im a lil nervous.🥲😭

A/n: theyre kind of at a transitional period in the progression of their relationship so if things seem a little chaotic going back an forth from being cool then quarreling, thats why😭 (doesnt help that theyre pent up asf)

K bye 👋🏾

__________________

Taglist:

@lizbehave @myheartsaysyes @blue4everrsworld @brownskincheyenne @kkbeauty86 @imperoyalblue @hdfen2474 @shamansha @margepimpson @bigjh @blackgirlsrock444 @bananajoeclone @rolemodelshit @underated345-blog @imqueenmelanin @adrieljoy @horrid-corvid @shereeluvssinners @moth2flamewriting @xeebop @blackchickinthedesert @ehniki

[diamondsinterlude]

Their hot and cold is so tasty!

"Its gon' happen again an' again Anisa, 'cause you gon' let it happen again an' again, and Im gon' keep doin' it again an' again. 'Til I hear it straight from your mouth how much you want me too." Oh he ate that!!!!

I’m a little nervous about Mary cause I ain’t like that comment just like Annie.

I love how he’s showing her how he wants to help and take care of her. I need them to kiss PLEASEEEE😭🙏🏽

[luna-azzurra]

Ways to write someone leaving without writing "she left"!!

☽ the absence of a coat that was always on the hook

☽ a mug washed and put away instead of left on the side

☽ the door that takes a second longer to close than usual

☽ saying goodbye to the dog but not to you

☽ the careful folding of something that didn't need folding

☽ checking every room once before going

☽ the last look that pretends to be a normal look

☽ a key placed on the counter with too much precision

☽ footsteps that slow down at the end of the hall

☽ the particular quiet of a space that still has someone's shape in it

[nearsightedbaddie]

reading the sexual tension be better than when you get to the actual sex lowkey

[sintizc]

Lowkeyyy

[wakandas-vibranium]

The Parent Trap (Ch. 5)

Summary: Modern AU — Elijah and Elias were separated as toddlers following their parents' traumatic divorce and conditioned to believe they were the only child. Decades later, they've established successful lives on opposite ends of the country, without ever knowing the truth. When Stack travels south for work, a bizarre encounter at a local grocery store disrupts all they thought they knew. As buried lies emerge and family secrets come to light, the twins are forced to confront the past that was stolen from them.

Pairings: Elias “Stack” Moore x Black Fem!reader and Elijah “Smoke” Moore x Annie

Warnings: 18+, explicit language, use of the n-word, family dynamics, uncovered secrets, angst, hurt/comfort, family trauma, parental lies, emotional distress, sibling separation

Word count: 6.8k

(ch. 1), (ch. 2), (ch. 3), (ch. 4)

The first thing that Stack noticed was that Smoke didn’t rush the tour. He didn’t move like a man trying to impress him. Instead, he moved like a man who already knew what he built was solid.

“C’mon,” Smoke said, pushing the office door open.

Stack followed him back onto the gym floor, and this time it felt different. He felt less out of place and more in sync. 

“That’s cardio." Smoke nodded toward a row of ellipticals and treadmills. “Don’t nobody like it, but everybody need it.”

Stack huffed. “Figures.”

A woman with a braided bun jogging glanced between them twice and then did a full double take.

“Hold up,” she said, slowing her pace. “Am I trippin’ or—”

Smoke didn’t even look at her. “You trippin’. Keep runnin’.”

She squinted harder. “Nah…cause why y’all—”

Stack smiled politely. “We get that a lot.”

She blinked. “A lot of what??”

Smoke kept walking. "Don't you got 10,000 steps to hit? I know you barely halfway there now. Get to it.” 

Stack had to bite back a laugh as he followed.

They moved past the weight section, where a group of middle-aged guys paused mid-set.

One of them—Lamar—lowered his dumbbells slowly, eyes bouncing between them.

“Aight nah,” he said. “What the hell is goin’ on?”

Smoke finally stopped, turned to look at the longtime members of his gym, and jerked his chin toward Stack. “This Stack. My brother.”

The floor was suddenly filled with dead silence. Somehow, within a matter of seconds, the harsh pants and clinking weights vanished. 

“OH SHIT.”

“Like…fraternal?”

"Nigga, they literally have the same goddamn face, so it’s identical, not fraternal!”

“You ain’t gotta talk shit, Willie. You know the only twins I’ve ever seen is Tia and Tamara!”

The entire section lit up.

Stack blinked before uttering, “Well, that’s one way to announce it.”

Smoke shrugged. “They was gon’ figure it out anyway.”

Lamar walked closer, circling Stack like he was inspecting a doppelgänger.

“Y’all dead serious?" he asked. “Like…twin twin?”

Stack nodded. “Apparently.”

Lamar pointed between them. "Nah, this is crazy. You just been hidin’ this nigga??”

Smoke’s jaw ticked. “I ain’t know about him either.”

That sobered the room quick as hell.

Stack noticed that. The way everyone seemed to respect his brother. Now that he got to know him a little bit better, he understood why.

They didn’t press or make any more snide comments. They just nodded and picked their weights back up.

“Damn,” Lamar sighed deeply before nodding at the younger twin. “Well…welcome, bro.”

Stack nodded back. “Appreciate it.”

Smoke kept walking once the men resumed their strength training. 

“Locker rooms back there,” he said. “Office you seen. Smith machines over here.”

Stack followed, hands in his pockets now, more relaxed.

“You built all this yourself?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“No partners?”

“Hell nah.”

Stack nodded slowly as understanding crossed his face. “Same.” 

Smoke glanced at him.

That was the first real moment of mutual recognition again. Not just blood but mindset and work ethic.

“You know what’s crazy?” Stack said after a beat.

“What?”

“We did the same thing.”

Smoke raised a brow. “How?”

“Built something from nothing,” Stack explained. “Different industries. Same drive.”

Smoke considered what Stack was saying for a second and then nodded in agreement. “Yeah, I see that.”

They walked back to the lobby, Smoke a stride or two in front of Stack. 

Stack smirked as a thought crossed his mind. “You still should’ve gotten a better logo though.”

Smoke stopped mid-step and then turned slowly. “…You got jokes?”

Stack shrugged. “I run branding too.”

Smoke stepped closer. “You saying my shit ugly?”

“I’m saying it could use a little refinement.”

Smoke stared at him, then a slow grin spread across his face. “Yeah, you my brother for real.”

By the time Stack left Sunrise Athletics, the Mississippi sun had started melting gold across the streets. His chest felt lighter. Not even close to being completely healed but lighter in the way a locked room felt once somebody finally cracked a window open.

He drove back to the Airbnb with one hand on the wheel and the other resting against his mouth, replaying everything Smoke had said.

You got me now.

The words wouldn’t leave him alone, and neither would the image of Smoke laughing. It had changed his whole face. He wondered why Smoke didn’t smile often. 

Stack pulled into the driveway slower than necessary, staring at the house for a second before killing the engine. The front porch light was already on. You always left a light on for him no matter where you were. Something about that tiny detail always pulled at his heartstrings. 

He grabbed the grocery bag before stepping out of the car and climbed the steps two at a time before unlocking the door.

The smell of garlic and butter hit him first. Then something sweet underneath it he couldn’t place. 

Ricotta? Mascarpone?

Your voice floated from the kitchen, interrupting his thoughts. “Baby, if you didn’t bring me a sweet tea, don’t even come in here.”

Stack chuckled instantly, and before he could respond, you appeared around the corner wearing one of his hoodies and fuzzy socks, stopping short the second you saw his amused face.

“Oh,” you murmured as your expression softened immediately. “You look…refreshed.”

Stack shut the door behind him quietly. “I think I am.”

That alone told you everything. You crossed the room quickly and wrapped your arms around his waist. Stack folded around you on instinct, burying his face into your neck for one long second like he needed to recalibrate.

“How’d it go?” you asked softly as you cupped the back of his neck and hugged him tighter. 

Stack exhaled sharply against your skin. “I got a brother,” he whispered, like he still couldn’t believe he was saying it out loud.

Your chest tightened. “You guys have a good talk?”

“Mhm.”

“And?”

Stack pulled back slowly, looking at you with eyes that still carried traces of earlier tears.

“He’s…” Stack laughed softly to himself. “He’s real as hell.”

You smiled faintly. “That’s your type of person.”

“Nah,” Stack corrected immediately. “That’s my big brother.”

The pride in his voice almost made you emotional.

You guided him toward the couch, sitting beside him while he talked, and for the next twenty minutes, Stack unraveled.

He told you about the gym first. How solid the facility was and how people respected Smoke without him having to demand it. How swiftly Smoke moved through the building like he’d bled for every square foot of it.

“He built all that himself,” Stack said quietly. “No partners. No handouts. Just…him.”

“Just like you, huh?” You noted as you watched the admiration spread across his face.

"You're proud of him already,” you observed gently.

Stack looked down at his hands. “Yeah,” he admitted. “I really am.”

Then he told you about the office they had in Smoke’s office. The lies and timelines. The realization that both parents had made separate choices to erase half of their children’s lives.

You held his hand tighter through that part, and when he mentioned a picture from it, he squeezed your hand tighter and stopped talking. 

Your thumb brushed over his knuckles. “What picture frame?”

Stack swallowed hard before announcing, “He has a kid.”

Your breath caught. “What?”

“Little girl named Elisa.” Stack nodded slowly, eyes distant now. He chuckled weakly before continuing. “Pretty kid too. Missing teeth. Smoke said she runs the whole house.”

You smiled despite yourself, but Stack didn’t. His brown eyes filled with more unshed tears.

“That shit broke me, baby,” he admitted quietly as tears finally fell down his cheeks.

Your heart cracked a little at the honesty in his voice.

“I realized…” He paused, jaw tightening. “I realized I’m somebody’s uncle, and I missed her whole life.”

You moved closer immediately, pressing against his side. “Elias…”

“I know it sounds dramatic—”

“It doesn’t.”

Stack looked away quickly, embarrassed by the emotion threatening to crawl back up his throat.

“I just kept thinking…” he sniffled. “What else did we lose?”

You rested your head against his shoulder carefully. “I know it’s a lot to adjust to, baby,” you said softly. “You still have the future. Make every day count.”

Stack closed his eyes. “Smoke pretty much said the same thing.”

You smiled faintly. “See? Big brother already making sense.”

That finally got a laugh out of him.

“There’s more,” he said.

You lifted a brow. “More than surprise siblings?”

“He asked why we came down here.”

“You tell him about the kid Sammie?”

Stack looked at you like he still couldn’t believe the sentence he was about to say.

“Sammie Moore is our cousin.”

You slapped his chest. “Get the fuck out.”

“I’m dead serious!”

You blinked at him in disbelief. “The singer??”

“Yes!”

“The one you’ve been stalking on social media for three weeks?”

“I was scouting talent,” Stack countered immediately.

“You had post notifications on that young man.”

“He can sing!”

You laughed so hard you almost slid off the couch.

Stack laughed with you this time, head falling back against the cushions. The sound filled the room and your heart warmly because for the first time since Mississippi, he didn’t sound defeated. He sounded alive and ready to navigate this new relationship with his twin. 

When the laughter settled, you studied him carefully. “You like him.”

Stack’s smile softened instantly because he already knew who you meant.

“Yeah,” he admitted. “I really do.”

“Was it awkward?”

“At first.”

“And now?”

Stack thought about the hug and the way Smoke had looked at him like he mattered already.

“…No,” he said honestly. “Not anymore.”

You squeezed his thigh gently. “I’m so happy for you, honey.”

Stack looked at you for a long moment before leaning over and pressing his lips to yours in a slow, grateful kiss. 

When he pulled back, his forehead rested against yours.

“I don’t know how you always know what to say.”

You smiled. “Contract lawyer. Expensive skill set.”

He huffed softly, then his expression shifted again—more thoughtful this time. “He wants you to come tomorrow night.”

Your brows lifted. “Me?”

“Mmhmm. We’re meeting Sammie at this place called Club Juke.” Stack paused. “And confronting our Dad there too.”

You blinked once. “What kind of Tyler Perry multiverse is this?”

Stack groaned loudly. “That’s exactly what I said.”

You laughed again, but then your expression softened. “You nervous?”

“A little.”

“About meeting Sammie?”

Stack shook his head. “About confronting Dad.”

That sobered the room immediately.

You reached for his face gently. “Just remember you’re not alone. You got me and Smoke now.”

His eyes searched yours. “Smoke said something like that too.”

“See?” you teased softly. “Your brother and I are already sharing dialogue.”

Stack grinned despite himself, then his phone buzzed with a new message. 

Smoke: Annie said y’all should come by for dinner before Club Juke tomorrow. Don’t wear nun fancy. Elisa gon’ probably spill juice on you.

Stack stared at the message for a second, then smiled so wide it almost looked boyish.

“What is it?” you questioned.

He turned the phone toward you, and your heart melted as you read the text from Smoke. Because somehow, less than forty-eight hours after learning each other existed…they were already trying to become family.

— 

The next evening, Stack spent entirely too long deciding what to wear. Which was objectively ridiculous because he owned a modeling agency. He styled editorial campaigns for a living. He had personally sat front row at Fashion Week while people twice his age begged for his approval.

“You’ve changed shirts four times,” you called from the bathroom doorway, already dressed and glowing with amusement.

Stack glanced up from fastening his watch.

“Three.”

“Four.”

“Three and a half.”

You snorted.

The Airbnb bedroom smelled faintly like your perfume and his cologne, the warm Mississippi evening drifting through the cracked balcony door. Outside, cicadas buzzed loud enough to sound electrical.

Stack checked himself in the mirror again. Dark jeans, fresh sneakers, and a black fitted tee under a lightweight jacket. An effortless casual look. 

“You look fine, honey,” you told him.

“That’s not the issue.”

“Then what’s the issue?”

Stack adjusted the sleeve of his jacket unnecessarily. “I don’t know what the protocol is.”

You blinked. “For what?”

“For…” He gestured vaguely. “Brother—uh, family stuff.”

That almost took you out. You laughed so suddenly Stack frowned at you.

“Don’t laugh, Y/N. I’m serious.”

“No, baby, I know,” you giggled, walking over to smooth your hands down the front of his shirt. “It’s just cute.”

“I don’t want to be cute.”

“Well, unfortunately for you, that’s the only reason why I’m marrying you and trying to give you a kid.”

Stack rolled his eyes, but the corner of his mouth twitched.

You fixed the collar of his jacket gently. “There’s no protocol. Just be yourself.”

“That sounds fake.”

“It’s not fake,” you said. “Your brother already likes you.”

The word still visibly affected him.

Brother.

Every time somebody said it, Stack looked like part of him still couldn’t believe he’d earned the title. Before he could answer, his phone buzzed.

A text from Smoke.

Stack opened it immediately.

Smoke: Y’all better not be dressed like y’all going to the Grammys. Sammie performing at a juke joint not the BET Awards.

You burst out laughing after reading over his shoulder.

“Oh my God, he knows you already.”

Stack typed back quickly.

Stack: I naturally have range and elegance. That’s not my fault.

Three dots appeared instantly.

Smoke: You sound irritating as hell.

Stack grinned.

Stack: And yet you texted me first.

This time, the reply took longer.

Smoke: Shut up and hurry up. Annie already made too much food.

Something warm spread across Stack’s chest again. Not in an overwhelming way but in a sense of grounding. Like roots finally growing where there had been nothing but empty space before.

—

Smoke’s house sat in a quiet neighborhood lined with broad trees and deep porches, the kind of street where people still waved from driveways and kids rode bikes without anybody panicking every five minutes.

Warm light glowed from the windows. It was a beautiful home. Pastel blue with eggshell trimmings. A real home. 

Stack slowed as he parked along the curb. His stomach flipped relentlessly as his fingers fidgeted with the keys.

“Hey,” you said softly, touching his arm. “You sure you okay?”

Stack stared at the house.

“Yeah,” he exhaled sharply. “I just…” His throat tightened unexpectedly.

This was the first time in his life he’d ever walked into a sibling’s home. The first time he’d be meeting his niece and sister-in-law. A family he didn’t know he already had. 

You squeezed his hand. “C’mon, Uncle Stack.”

He looked at you sharply and then groaned. “Don’t start.”

You laughed and climbed out first.

By the time Stack made it to the porch, the front door swung open, and here stood Smoke. He was wearing a black tee, grey sweats, and glasses low on his nose this time, which immediately caught you and Stack off guard because something about it felt weirdly intimate and domestic.

Smoke looked between the two of you, then his eyes zeroed in on Stack’s outfit.

“…Nigga.”

Stack blinked. “What?”

Smoke pointed at him. “Why you dressed like you about to accept an NAACP award?”

You burst into laughter instantly.

Stack looked offended. "Man, this is casual.”

"No, it ain’t,” Smoke deadpanned. “You look way too moisturized and expensive.”

“You say that like it’s a crime.”

Smoke stared at him for another long second. Eventually he stepped aside with a muttered, “Man, come on in here.”

Stack walked in smiling and immediately got hit with the smell of cornbread, seasoned meat, and something sweet baking in the oven.

His chest tightened again because the house sounded lived in. Gracie’s corner was playing somewhere in the distance, with tiny footsteps upstairs. Pots and pans clanging in the kitchen.

A family.

Real, warm and alive. 

“Annie!” Smoke called toward the kitchen. “Your new brother-in-law here dressed like he sellin’ luxury watches.”

“Leave him alone!” Annie called back immediately. “At least somebody in this house got style.”

Smoke looked betrayed.

“See?” Stack said smugly.

Smoke sucked his teeth loudly and shut the door behind him.

Suddenly, tiny footsteps thundered down the stairs.

“Daddy?!”

Stack barely had time to turn before a little blur launched down the staircase at dangerous speed.

“Elisa, slow down—”

Too late.

The little girl skidded around the corner, beaded braids bouncing wildly before she stopped dead in front of Stack.

Big brown eyes blinked up at him, and Stack couldn’t help but stare right back.

Because Jesus Christ. She really did have his face. Not completely but enough. More than enough to knock the air clean out his lungs.

Elisa tilted her head slowly and then pointed. “You look like my daddy.”

The room went quiet.

Smoke leaned against the wall, watching carefully.

Stack crouched slowly to her level, heart pounding so hard he could almost hear it.

“…Yeah,” he said, nodding gently . “I know.”

Elisa squinted harder before gasping dramatically. “WAIT.”

Smoke rubbed a hand over his face immediately like he already knew chaos was coming.

"Your daddy's brother?” Elisa asked as she poked Stack’s nose.

Stack blinked. “Uh…”

“She’s been asking questions all day,” Annie announced, appearing from the kitchen, drying her hands with a towel.

Stack nearly forgot how to speak again because Annie was beautiful. Smile warm and eyes soft but sharp at the same time. The kind of woman that immediately explained why Smoke had built his whole life around protecting his peace.

Annie smiled at Stack gently.

“Hi,” she said. “I’m Annie.”

Stack stood quickly. “Hi. I’m Elias—uh, Stack.”

“I know." Annie laughed softly. “I’ve heard about you for twenty-four hours straight.”

Smoke groaned. “Baby—”

“You too,” Annie said sweetly as she extended her hand to you. “Y/N, right?”

You nodded and grabbed her hand. “Yes, I’m Elias’s fiancé. Very nice to finally meet you.” 

Elisa tugged Stack’s sleeve suddenly. “So you my uncle?”

Stack looked down at her, and hot tears welled up in his eyes again. That grief resurfaced and made his heart ache. His eyes flicked briefly toward Smoke, almost uncertain.

Smoke held his gaze for a second and then nodded once in certainty. 

Stack looked back at Elisa slowly.

“…Yes, Elisa,” he whispered. “I’m your uncle Stack.”

Elisa grinned so wide it nearly killed him. “COOL.”

Then, before Stack could even process the emotional damage of being claimed by a four-year-old, she grabbed his hand.

“C’mere,” she ordered.

Stack blinked. “Where we going?"

“To my room.”

Smoke immediately snorted. “Yeah, good luck.”

Annie pointed toward Smoke without even looking at him. “Don’t start.”

"Elisa, don’t show rooms,” Smoke muttered. “She likes to interrogate people.”

“I do not!”

“You absolutely do.”

Elisa ignored both of them and tugged Stack harder. “Uncle Stack!”

The title hit him right in the chest again.

Not Elias or mister. 

Uncle.

It was as if she had made the decision in under thirty seconds, and that was that.

Stack let her drag him halfway toward the stairs before glancing back at you helplessly.

You were trying so hard not to laugh and failed miserably. 

“Save yourself,” you mouthed.

“Coward,” he mouthed back.

Smoke folded his arms, watching the whole thing with poorly hidden amusement. “Go ahead. She gon’ ask you your favorite color, your blood type, and your credit score.”

Elisa gasped loudly. “Daddy!”

“What?” Smoke defended. “I’m warning him.”

“She only asked for my credit score once,” Annie recalled casually before disappearing back toward the kitchen.

Stack barked out a laugh.

Then Elisa tugged again. “C’mon!”

Stack finally surrendered. “Alright, alright.”

The staircase creaked softly beneath them as Elisa pulled him upstairs with the urgency of somebody unveiling a museum exhibit.

Halfway up, Stack glanced down. Smoke was still standing near the front door. Watching with curiosity and something else he couldn’t define. 

Like he was witnessing something he never thought he’d get to see.

Their eyes met briefly, and Stack realized something that almost unraveled him all over again. Smoke wanted this. Not just the uncovered truth but this family folding together naturally.

Smoke gave him one small nod.

Go ahead.

Stack swallowed and followed Elisa upstairs to her room, and it looked exactly how Stack imagined it would.

Neon pink and chaotic. Tiny sneakers kicked beneath a pink beanbag chair. Stuffed animals lined up against the wall like they paid rent. Crayon drawings taped everywhere. One crooked picture frame held a photo of Smoke asleep on the couch with newborn Elisa sprawled across his chest.

Stack smiled before he could stop himself.

“He drools in his sleep,” Elisa informed him seriously.

Stack coughed to hide a laugh. “Good to know.”

“He says he don’t.”

“He lying?”

“Yes.”

Stack nodded solemnly. “Damn—I mean, uh, dang. Starting the relationship off with secrets already.”

Elisa giggled, then she climbed onto her bed and patted the comforter beside her expectantly. Stack hesitated only a second before sitting carefully. The mattress dipped beneath his weight.

Elisa studied him openly for a long moment. No fear or uncertainty in her eyes, just curiosity. 

“You really Daddy’s brother?” she asked.

Stack nodded slowly. “Looks like it.”

“How come I never seen you before?”

And there it was, the million-dollar question. Simple from a child. Devastating for everyone else.

Stack’s throat tightened as he searched carefully for an answer a four-year-old could carry.

“Sometimes grown-ups make mistakes,” he explained. “Big ones.”

Elisa considered that deeply before she said, “Daddy says 'sorry' a lot when he make mistakes.”

Stack let out a surprised chuckle that helped ease the ache in his chest. “Yeah?”

“Mhm.” She leaned closer confidentially. “Mommy too.”

“That sounds healthy.”

“What’s healthy?”

“Your house. Your family.” 

Elisa beamed proudly like she personally paid the mortgage.

Downstairs, laughter drifted faintly from the kitchen. Warm and inviting. Stack listened to it for a second too long because suddenly he could picture their family dynamic.

Smoke carrying Elisa through the house after bath time. Annie scolding because somebody tracked mud through the kitchen. Movie nights, birthday parties, and Christmas mornings.

Years of memories Stack hadn’t even known existed. Grief brushed against him again quietly this time—not sharp enough to cut, but enough to still sting.

Elisa noticed immediately. She was such an observant kid. 

“You okay, Uncle Stack?” she asked softly.

Stack blinked quickly and smiled.

“Yeah, Peanut.”

That nickname slipped out naturally.

Elisa smiled so wide it revealed the little gap in her teeth again. “You talk like Daddy.”

Stack looked down for a second, laughing under his breath. “Yeah, I guess I do.”

A knock sounded softly against the doorframe. Smoke entered and leaned against the door, arms folded across his chest.

For a second, nobody spoke. Smoke’s eyes moved between Stack and Elisa sitting together on the bed. Something unreadable flickered across his face. It wasn’t sadness or anger, something deeper. Wonder, maybe. Like he was staring at a piece of his life he thought was nonexistent.

“Elisa,” Smoke said gently, “let your uncle breathe.”

“I am letting him breathe.”

“You been interrogating that man for ten minutes.”

“She asked for my credit score,” Stack deadpanned.

Smoke pointed immediately. “See?”

Elisa dissolved into giggles.

Smoke shook his head, but Stack caught the smile pulling at his mouth before he hid it. Then Smoke’s expression softened again.

“Dinner ready,” he said.

Elisa hopped off the bed instantly and sprinted past him. Smoke stepped aside just in time.

“Don’t run, Elisa Moore!” Annie yelled from downstairs automatically.

Tiny footsteps somehow sped up even more.

The brothers were left alone in the doorway for a moment.

Smoke looked at Stack carefully. “You good?”

“No,” he admitted as he sighed deeply. “But…I think I will be.”

Smoke nodded like he understood exactly what that meant. Then his gaze drifted briefly toward Elisa’s room. Toward the life they were standing inside.

“You already got her attached,” Smoke muttered.

Stack huffed softly. “Think she attached herself.”

“Yeah,” Smoke agreed. “She do that.”

A comfortable moment of silence passed, then Smoke clapped a heavy hand against Stack’s shoulder.

“C’mon, lil bro,” he said. “Before Annie start yellin’ at both of us.”

This time when Smoke called him "lil bro," Stack smiled without any sadness attached to it at all.

The dining room felt expensive in the kind of way that couldn’t be bought. Not curated but lived in. 

The table was already set by the time Stack and Smoke came downstairs—plates stacked neatly, glasses sweating with sweet tea, cornbread still steaming beneath a towel-lined basket. Music played softly somewhere in the background, something old-school and smooth humming through the house while Annie moved around the kitchen with practiced ease.

Stack noticed immediately that Smoke stayed close to her without even realizing it. A hand brushing her lower back as he passed. Annie stealing roasted potatoes off his plate while he pretended not to notice. Years of domestic choreography. 

“You gon’ keep standing there staring or sit down?” Annie teased, pulling Stack from his thoughts.

Stack blinked. “Sorry.”

“She does that to people,” Smoke mentioned. 

Annie pointed a spoon at him immediately. “Don’t start.”

Smoke held his hands up. “See what I deal with?”

“You love what you deal with,” Annie corrected.

Smoke’s mouth twitched. “Unfortunately.”

“Daddy!” Elisa gasped dramatically from her booster seat. “That’s rude!”

Smoke walked over and kissed the top of her head. “You right, Peanut. My bad.”

Stack watched the interaction quietly, chest aching again—but softer this time. Not so much as grief but a healthy kind of longing. The kind that made him want more of this new life instead of mourning the old one.

By the time everyone sat down, the atmosphere had shifted fully into something easy and comfortable. It was almost as if the house itself had decided Stack belonged there.

“You better eat before Elisa start stealing,” Smoke warned as Stack reached for his fork.

“I do not steal,” Elisa argued.

Annie took a sip of tea calmly. “You stole three of my fries at lunch.”

“That was sharing.”

Smoke looked at Stack. “See what I’m saying?”

Stack chuckled around a mouthful of pot roast. “She definitely yours.”

“Elijah swears she only acts like me,” Annie said.

“She do.”

“Liar.”

“Baby, she just argued semantics over french fries.”

You snorted into your drink.

Elisa pointed at you suddenly. “What your job do?”

The table quieted slightly.

You blinked. “My job?”

Elisa nodded seriously while chewing cornbread. “Daddy said Uncle Stack got a model business. You one of his models? You not that tall.” 

Smoke nearly choked on his sweet tea.

Stack covered his face instantly. “Oh my God.”

Annie burst out laughing.

“Elisa!” Smoke coughed. “That is not what I said.”

"Yes, it is,” Elisa argued confidently.

“No, baby, I said she’s a contract lawyer.”

“Oh.” Elisa thought about it. “That sounds boring.”

You barely contained a snort. “Sometimes it is.”

Elisa gasped. “Do you get sleepy at work?!”

Stack looked deeply amused now. “She interrogating everybody tonight.”

“Told you,” Smoke muttered.

You smiled at Elisa warmly. “I help people understand really important paperwork before they sign things.”

Elisa blinked. “Like homework?”

“Honestly? Kinda.”

“Ew,” Elisa said immediately.

The entire table laughed.

“But it’s important,” you added dramatically. “Because if people don’t read contracts carefully, they can lose money.”

That caught her attention. “Daddy likes money.”

You nodded. “So does your uncle.”

“How much money do people lose?” She pressed. 

Stack leaned back in his chair. “Enough that your daddy would start raising hell.”

Smoke nodded immediately. “Facts.”

“Elijah Moore,” Annie reprimanded.

“What, woman? I ain’t curse.”

Yet somehow that made everyone laugh harder.

Elisa pointed at Stack next now. “So you the model boss?”

Stack sat up straighter. “I am.”

“What that mean?” She questioned as she picked at the vegetables on her plate. 

“It means I help talented people become stars.”

Smoke glanced over. “That was smooth.”

“Thank you.”

Smoke rolled his eyes. “You definitely from Chicago.”

“You say that like Mississippi ain’t produced greatness.”

“Name five things.”

Stack pointed around the table instantly. “You, Elisa, Annie’s cornbread, Sammie apparently, and…” He paused dramatically before adding, “This sweet tea.”

Annie laughed so hard she nearly dropped her fork.

Smoke looked offended. “Oh, so you flirtin’ with my wife through beverages?”

“She made the tea!”

“Still.”

“You sound jealous.”

“I am.”

Annie shook her head fondly while Stack grinned into his drink.

Then Elisa asked you a question so simple and direct. Childlike in the most dangerous way.

“So…” she started, swinging her legs beneath the chair. “Are you Uncle Stack’s wife?”

The table quieted for half a second.

You nearly inhaled your sweet tea wrong. Stack blinked once before looking over at you instinctively, and the second his eyes landed on you, his whole face softened.

“Not yet,” he said warmly. “But she will be.”

Heat bloomed instantly in your chest.

Across the table, Annie smiled so wide she had to hide it behind her glass.

Smoke leaned back slowly, eyebrows raised. “Oh, so we being serious tonight.”

Stack pointed his fork at him immediately. “Don’t start.”

“I ain’t say nothing.”

“You was about to.”

“I absolutely was.”

“Elijah,” Annie warned, laughing now.

Elisa gasped dramatically. “You getting married?!”

“Yes,” you answered this time, smiling despite yourself. “Next spring.”

Elisa’s eyes widened like you’d announced a Disney parade, and her fork clanked against the table when she dropped it to clap her hands. 

“Can I come?!”

Smoke snorted. “Baby, you can’t invite yourself to people's weddings."

“Why not?”

“…Actually,” Stack interrupted thoughtfully, “she kinda can.”

Elisa beamed triumphantly.

“I want pink cake,” she declared.

Annie laughed. “See? She already planning the reception.”

Smoke shook his head. “This family moves fast as hell.”

The word settled warmly around the table.

Family.

Not heavy this time. Easy. Like it was second nature. 

Annie’s expression softened as she looked toward you. "How's wedding planning going, Y/N?”

You exchanged a quick glance with Stack before answering.

“It’s been really good,” you gushed. “Stressful sometimes.”

“And expensive,” Stack added.

Smoke pointed across the table. “There go the honesty.”

“You paid for doves to be released?” Stack asked.

“Nah,” Smoke replied. “We courthouse people.”

Annie looked at him sharply. “We are not courthouse people. You are courthouse people.”

Smoke grinned into his drink.

Annie rolled her eyes before looking back at you warmly. “Don’t let him fool you. He cried during our first dance.”

Smoke almost choked. “BABY.”

“It’s true!”

Stack immediately burst into laughter.

“Oh nah,” he said. “Big bro emotional?”

Smoke pointed his fork aggressively. “Watch yourself.”

“You cried?” you asked your soon-to-be brother-in-law.

“Daddy a crybaby!” Elisa blurted in between giggles.

Smoke looked deeply betrayed now. “Why everybody attacking me in my own house?”

“Because it’s funny,” Annie teased.

Smoke muttered something under his breath about being “surrounded by enemies,” but Stack noticed the way his brother looked around the table afterward.

At Annie.

At Elisa.

At you.

At him.

His brother was content. Like despite all the pain of the last four days…something beautifully inevitable had started growing anyway.

Elisa tilted her head at you again. “Mommy says babies come after weddings sometimes.”

You and Stack went still for exactly one second too long. Just enough for Smoke and Annie to sense the shift. Your hand instinctively found Stack’s beneath the table.

Smoke’s expression softened immediately. Annie glanced between the two of you carefully, warmth replacing curiosity.

Stack handled it beautifully.

“We’re hoping for that someday,” he said gently.

Elisa nodded seriously like that made perfect sense.

“Well,” she declared confidently before taking another bite of cornbread, “I think I want a cousin.” 

A softer yet more tender silence hit the table this time. Because none of the adults were prepared for how hard that sentence would land. Especially not Stack after everything they’d lost already.

Dinner stretched longer than any of you intended. Not because the conversation was extraordinary but because nobody wanted it to end.

You were hoping for a child soon. You didn’t care if it was a boy or girl; you just wanted a healthy child. 

At some point, plates became empty while nobody noticed. Elisa migrated from her booster seat into Stack’s lap halfway through dessert like she’d known him her whole life instead of less than two hours. Annie disappeared briefly to pack leftovers “because men never feed themselves properly,” while Smoke argued weakly from the sink that he literally owned a grill. 

The house settled around everyone naturally, and Stack kept catching himself drifting. He was soaking in every single interaction. 

Smoke carrying Elisa upside down over one shoulder while she squealed dramatically. Annie threatening both of them with bedtime. Elisa teaching you the steps to the Veggie Dance. The framed family photos lining the hallway. All the little things. The things he should’ve had the chance to experience years ago.

By the time the night started winding down, Elisa was fully asleep against your shoulder on the couch, tiny fist curled into your blouse.

Annie smiled softly from the doorway. “She likes you.”

You looked down at the sleeping child fondly. “I noticed.”

“Usually she terrorizes people first.”

“She did interrogate me.”

“That just means she trusts you.”

Smoke emerged from the kitchen as he was drying his hands on a dish towel. His eyes immediately landed on Elisa sprawled across you, and something in his face softened instantly.

“She knocked out?” he asked quietly.

“Apollo Creed style,” you whispered.

Smoke snorted softly as he walked over carefully and scooped Elisa into his arms with practiced ease. The little girl barely stirred, immediately tucking her face into his neck.

Stack watched the whole thing silently. His chest started to ache again. Smoke glanced at him over Elisa’s sleepy head and immediately understood.

No words needed to be exchanged because he just understood. 

“Imma put her down,” Smoke announced quietly.

Annie nodded. “I’ll be up in a second.”

The house felt quieter after they disappeared upstairs.

Annie started gathering dishes while you followed her automatically toward the kitchen.

“Oh no,” Annie said immediately. “Guests don’t clean.”

“Good thing we family now,” you shot back.

Annie grinned. “Okay, I like you.”

Stack watched you disappear into the kitchen with Annie, your laughter blending together almost instantly.

Then suddenly it was just him. He took advantage of the short window and took some deep breaths. Dinner was great, but he was still overwhelmed with this feeling of impending doom. He was about to meet his father. All his life he was told his father died. He was so angry but mostly terrified. What if his father wasn’t who he imagined? What if his father didn’t like him? Maybe Mom kept him away from Dad for a reason? But that still wasn’t fair to him and Smoke. 

Smoke reappeared a minute later, calmer somehow after putting Elisa to bed. Tired in a good way. The older twin leaned against the doorway, arms folded loosely.

“She still sleep?” Stack asked.

“Out cold.”

A quiet beat passed, then Smoke jerked his chin toward the front door. “Walk with me.”

The Mississippi night air wrapped warm around them as they stepped onto the porch.

Crickets buzzed loud in the dark. Somewhere down the street, music drifted faintly through an open window.

Smoke sat down on the top porch step first.

Stack followed. He didn’t realize how close he sat next to his big brother until their shoulders brushed, but Smoke didn’t move, so Stack didn’t either.

For a while, neither of them spoke. The silence wasn’t awkward, just heavy. 

Smoke rubbed his hands together once and looked over. “You really love her, huh?”

Stack smiled immediately like he always did whenever you were the subject. Like his body answered before his mouth could.

“Hell yes,” he admitted quietly. “More than anything.”

Smoke nodded slowly like he’d expected that answer. “I could tell.”

Stack glanced over. “How?”

“The way you look at her,” Smoke said simply. “Like she keeps you steady.”

That hit embarrassingly close, so Stack chuckled softly under his breath. “She do.”

Smoke leaned back against the railing behind him.

“You was really out here wild before her?”

Stack groaned loudly. “Oh my God. You really know me, huh?”

Smoke snorted because he had a feeling Stack had his fair share of women. “Nah, nigga. Answer the question.”

“I was not wild.”

“You was what then?” 

“I was…exploring adulthood.”

Smoke looked unconvinced. “That sound like community service dick.”

Stack nearly choked laughing. “Damn, you ain’t gonna even pretend to cut me some slack?” 

“Hell nah.”

Stack scrubbed a hand over his face, grinning despite himself.

“I just…” He exhaled slowly. “I didn’t think relationships lasted. Not real ones anyway.”

Smoke’s expression shifted slightly at that.

Stack stared out into the dark neighborhood.

“Mom loved me,” he said quietly. “But it always felt like she was surviving something she never talked about.”

Smoke stayed silent as he listened. 

“So I dated,” Stack continued. “A lot. Nobody serious. Nobody permanent. Then I met Y/N.”

A small smile pulled at his mouth again.

“And your slutting was over?”

“Immediately.”

Smoke huffed softly. “Damn.”

“She’s…” Stack shook his head like words weren’t enough. “She makes my loud-ass life quieter.”

“I didn’t even know life didn’t have to be so goddamn chaotic until she walked in my life, man.” 

That landed because Smoke understood exactly what that meant. He could write poetry about all the ways he loved Annie and still run out of pages. 

“She knows every version of me,” Stack sighed deeply. “The polished one. The arrogant one. The insecure one. All of it.”

Smoke nodded slowly. “That’s your person.”

“Yeah,” Stack whispered. “That’s my person.”

The porch fell quiet again, and then Stack’s voice got softer.

"We've been trying to have a baby.”

Smoke looked over immediately.

Stack swallowed hard. “For almost a year now.”

The night suddenly felt heavier.

“She’s been taking all these fertility medications,” Stack groaned in frustration. “Shots. Hormones. Doctor appointments. The whole thing.”

Smoke’s face tightened slightly. “And still nothing?”

Stack shook his head once. The grief in that movement almost hurt to witness.

“I think…” Stack paused. “I think sometimes she blames herself.”

Smoke frowned immediately. “That ain’t fair.”

“I know.”

“And you don’t let her talk like that, right?”

“Never.”

Smoke nodded once, approving.

Stack looked down at his hands.

“I just want that life with her,” he expressed. “A family. Kids running through the house. Her yelling at me for teaching them nonsense.”

Smoke smirked faintly. “You definitely would teach them nonsense.”

“Absolutely.”

“But you want it bad.”

Stack’s eyes drifted toward the upstairs window where Elisa slept.

“Yeah,” he said honestly. “I really do.”

Smoke was quiet for a long moment after that. Eventually he broke the silence and said, “It’ll happen.”

Stack glanced over.

Smoke shrugged slightly. “Might not happen how or when you planned. But if it’s meant for y’all? It’ll happen.”

Something about the certainty in his tone settled deep into Stack’s chest.

“Thanks.”

Smoke nodded once, and then his expression darkened slightly.

“Aight,” he muttered. “Now we gotta talk about the hard part.”

Stack’s stomach tightened instantly.

Their father.

Smoke leaned forward, forearms braced against his knees. “You need to prepare yourself before we confront Daddy.”

Stack’s jaw flexed. “That bad?”

Smoke let out a humorless laugh. “Worse.”

The night air suddenly felt colder.

“He ain’t loud all the time,” Smoke warned carefully. “That’s what make it tricky. He knows how to cut people up calm.”

Stack listened closely.

"He's proud,” Smoke continued. “Real mean when he wanna be and he's damn good at making you feel guilty for questioning him.”

That sounded familiar in ways Stack hated.

Smoke glanced over slowly. “If he thinks he's losing control of a conversation, he gon’ attack.”

“Verbally?”

“Any way he can.”

All Stack could do was let out a nervous laugh as he wiped a hand over his face. 

Smoke’s jaw tightened.

“I ain’t tellin’ you this to scare you,” he assured. “I’m tellin’ you so you don’t walk in there thinkin’ he all soft just cause he older.”

Stack nodded slowly, and after a beat he asked, “You scared?”

Smoke looked out into the dark for a long moment.

“…Yeah,” he admitted quietly. “I just got a bad feeling.”

The honesty surprised both of them.

Smoke exhaled heavily. “Cause if he could lie about this…” He shook his head once. “What else is he capable of?”

Neither of them had an answer for that.

The porch settled into silence again as the two brothers sat side by side beneath a Mississippi sky. Trying to figure out how to walk back into the wreckage of the people who brought them into this world. 

[diamondsinterlude]

I been waiting for this!!!! I’m nervous on how their dad is gonna act like

[glossiercheek]

walk with me but imagine him teaching you all about what the buttons and sliders on the workstation mean whilst you’re sitting in his lap while sharing a cigarette in a dimly lit studio omg… this may be the most embarrassing shit i’ve ever written down, but this man is so delish i can’t act normal

from tiktok by the.italianfrenchrooms

[darkseidex]

ೃKEEPER ᝰ Odessa Nichols and Jaafar Jackson were supposed to be over. At least, that’s what Odessa keeps telling herself. They co-parent. They do family dinners three times a week. They laugh, argue, raise their four-year-old son, Jalen, and pretend the space between them is nothing more than history and habit. But when Odessa makes plans with another man on one of their usual dinner nights, Jaafar decides he’s done playing polite. Because some loves don’t end cleanly. Some loves linger in house keys, shared plates, bedtime routines, and hands brushing over warm dishwater. And Jaafar Jackson has finally decided he wants his woman back.

Odessa Nichols and Jaafar Jackson — Jaafar and Odessa — had once moved through the world like two halves of the same myth, two peas in a pod if peas had been carved by some bored Greek god with too much time and a wicked sense of irony, bound together with the kind of familiarity that made separation feel less like a breakup and more like someone had tried to split a constellation down the middle and expected the stars not to remember where they belonged; and even after the relationship ended, after the titles changed and the lines were supposedly redrawn in clean, respectable ink, they had remained close, still best friends, still each other’s first call, still lingering in that dangerous, undefined space between what was over and what had never really learned how to die, a little too tender to be casual and a little too intimate to be innocent.

Odessa told herself it was because of Jalen.

That was the sensible explanation, the grown-woman explanation, the one she could say out loud without sounding like Penelope still weaving and unweaving the same lonely cloth while pretending she was not waiting for the same man to come home; because Jalen was their son, their beautiful baby boy, their bright-eyed, dimpled, impossible little miracle, and co-parenting required closeness, required communication, required her to answer Jaafar’s calls without letting her heart behave like some foolish girl standing at the edge of the sea, listening for Orpheus to start singing her name back from the underworld.

But the truth, the irritating truth, the truth that sat in her chest like a prophecy she had no interest in fulfilling, was that Jalen looked so much like his father it almost offended her.

After all those hours of labour, after all the sweat, the tears, the pain that had made her feel like some mortal woman cursed by Hera herself, after carrying that boy beneath her ribs and surrendering her body to the brutal, sacred work of bringing him earthside, Jalen had arrived with Jaafar’s face stamped all over him like Zeus had personally signed off on the resemblance — the same soft brown eyes that already knew how to get away with things, the same mouth that curved before trouble, the same lashes that had no business belonging to a baby boy, the same expression Jaafar wore whenever he was pretending not to be pleased with himself — and it pissed Odessa off in a way that was almost funny, because she had done all the labour only for their son to come out looking like someone had copied and pasted his damn daddy and handed her the receipt.

“Mama, when’s Daddy gon’ be here?” Jalen whined from where he stood in the kitchen doorway, four years old and already carrying the dramatic impatience of a boy who knew he was loved too well to ever be truly ignored, his head full of dark curls springing wild around his face like some little cherub stolen from a Renaissance painting and dropped into Odessa Nichols’ house to test every ounce of patience she had left in her body.

Odessa sighed as she glanced at the clock on the stove, watching the minutes glow back at her in green numbers that somehow felt accusatory, as if time itself had decided to sit at her table and remind her that Jaafar was late, not horribly late, not irresponsibly late, just late enough for Jalen to notice, late enough for Odessa to feel that familiar tug in her chest, that ridiculous, ancient thing in her that still responded to his absence the way the earth might have responded to Persephone being gone too long, unsettled and quiet and pretending it was simply weather.

“He’ll be here soon, baby,” she said, smoothing a hand over Jalen’s curls as he dragged his socked feet into the kitchen, his little mouth pushed into a pout that looked so much like Jaafar’s it made her want to point at him and accuse him of emotional theft, because that boy had her stubbornness, yes, maybe her attitude, maybe even her tendency to make a situation larger than it needed to be, but his face, his expressions, the way his eyes softened when he wanted something — all of that belonged to his father, copied and pasted with divine disrespect.

Their family thing had always been dinner.

Not every night, because Odessa wasn’t foolish enough to confuse routine with reconciliation, and not so rarely that Jalen would ever have to wonder whether his parents could sit in the same room without the air changing shape around them, but three times a week, without fail, they gathered around the table like a tiny, stubborn kingdom refusing collapse, Odessa on one side, Jaafar on the other, Jalen between them like some golden-threaded offering from the Fates themselves, rambling through stories from nursery, half-remembered songs, the politics of who took whose crayon, and whatever grand injustice had happened on the playground that day.

Odessa had built that ritual with both hands, carefully and deliberately, because she wanted her son to grow up stable, as stable as possible, wanted him to know warmth without having to beg for it, wanted him to understand that love did not always look like two people living in the same house or sharing the same bed or wearing the same title, sometimes love looked like showing up on time with clean hands and patience, sitting at a dinner table even when the history between you was loud enough to rattle the silverware, and letting a little boy talk himself sleepy while the two adults who made him pretended not to notice how much they still knew about each other.

Usually, by the time Jalen’s stories began to slow and his eyelids started drooping over eyes that were entirely too much like his father’s, Jaafar would rise from the table with that quiet grace of his, rolling his sleeves up like some modern Apollo pretending he had not just walked in carrying sunlight and trouble in equal measure, and he would help with the dishes without needing to be asked, standing shoulder to shoulder with Odessa at the sink while the kitchen light warmed the side of his face and turned the steam from the water into something almost holy.

He washed, she rinsed.

That was their rhythm.

It should have been nothing, just water running, plates clinking, the soft domestic music of a family trying to be something steady despite everything that had fractured beneath them, but every now and then their hands would brush beneath the warm stream, his fingers grazing hers for barely half a second, so quick and ghostlike that Odessa might have convinced herself she had imagined it, might have tucked the moment away with all the other foolish things she refused to name, if not for the way Jaafar would be watching her when she looked up, his gaze low and heavy beneath those hooded lashes, as if he had felt it too, as if he had known exactly what he was doing, as if the whole kitchen had become the mouth of the underworld and he was standing there like Orpheus, daring her to turn around.

Right on time, as if the clock had been waiting on him the way the rest of the house always seemed to, the front door unlocked with the familiar turn of Jaafar’s key, that small metallic sound slipping through the hallway with the intimacy of something that had no business still belonging to him and yet did, because Odessa had never asked for it back and he had never offered to return it, and then he stepped inside with a bottle of wine in one hand and a packet of Starbursts in the other, because that was the maddening duality of him, the man capable of arriving with something grown and smooth and red enough to stain your mouth like a secret, while also remembering that their four-year-old had decided, with the conviction of a tiny king declaring law, that pink Starbursts were superior to every sweet ever made.

Jaafar’s eyes found Odessa’s almost immediately, as if she were the altar and he had entered the temple knowing exactly where worship belonged, and a grin pulled slow across his mouth as he lifted the packet in Jalen’s direction before placing the wine carefully on the cooler, his body moving with that easy, unhurried grace that made every ordinary thing look rehearsed by gods with too much vanity and too much time; but the grin did not last, not once his gaze truly settled on her, not once he took in the dress skimming her body like liquid midnight, the deliberate fall of her hair over one shoulder, the soft gleam on her skin, the sharp little click of her heels as she rose from the dining chair with the kind of elegance that could have made Helen’s face look like a footnote.

His brows furrowed.

Not dramatically, not enough for Jalen to notice, but enough for Odessa to feel the shift in him, the way his whole attention narrowed and sharpened like Artemis drawing back her bow, because Jaafar knew the difference between Odessa dressing beautifully and Odessa dressing for someone, and tonight she had the audacity to look like she had been carved out of temptation and then sent downstairs to ruin his evening.

“We’re going out for dinner?” he asked, shutting the door behind him with a carefulness that did not match the look beginning to settle over his face.

Odessa reached for her clutch from the counter and tried not to let the sound of his voice crawl beneath her skin like prophecy.

“No,” she said, and her tone was calm, almost too calm, the kind of calm women used when they had already rehearsed a conversation in the mirror and decided not to give a man too much of the truth at once. “I have plans… I was hoping I could skip tonight.”

The silence that followed was not loud, exactly, but it was heavy, a thick, invisible thing that slipped between them and pulled the warmth out of the kitchen, and Jaafar looked at her for one long moment, his hand still resting on the back of the chair, his expression caught somewhere between confusion and something darker, something possessive enough that Odessa felt her stomach turn traitorous.

“Plans?” he repeated, and there it was, that slight change in his voice, the soft scrape beneath the velvet, the warning tucked under the question. “Plans with who?”

“With Mr. Greyson!” Jalen chimed in before Odessa could so much as part her lips, his little face bright and pure and entirely too pleased with himself as he bounced on his toes, holding the packet of Starbursts Jaafar had handed him like he had just been entrusted with ambrosia from Olympus itself. “Teegan’s dad!”

Odessa closed her eyes for half a second.

Not because she was ashamed.

Not even because she was embarrassed.

But because children, sweet and beloved as they were, had the terrifying innocence of tiny prophets, always blurting out the one thing you would have paid good money to have swallowed by the earth, and Jalen, who could not yet tie his shoes properly without sitting on the floor and fighting for his life, had somehow managed to deliver the name with the theatrical clarity of Hermes carrying a message directly from the gods.

When she opened her eyes again, Jaafar was no longer looking at Jalen.

He was looking at her.

And if Odessa had been a weaker woman, if she had been the kind of woman easily undone by a man’s silence, she might have stepped back beneath the weight of it, because Jaafar did not yell, did not perform jealousy in the cheap, ordinary way some men did, did not puff up and beat his chest like some foolish mortal trying to prove himself to the gods; instead, he grew still, terrifyingly still, his gaze dragging over her in one slow, controlled sweep before returning to her face, and somehow that was worse, somehow that made the kitchen feel too small, like she had stepped into a myth and forgotten which god she had angered.

“Mr. Greyson,” he said, tasting the name like it had offended him personally.

Odessa lifted her chin. “His name is Malcolm.”

Jaafar’s mouth twitched, but there was no humour in it.

“Of course it is.”

“Don’t start.”

“I ain’t started nothing.”

“You’re about to.”

That made him look at her fully, and the old familiarity between them flared so hot and sudden that it could have been Hephaestus striking metal in a forge, because they knew each other too well, knew the rhythm of each other’s irritation, knew the exact angle of every almost-argument, every swallowed accusation, every sentence that meant more than the words it carried, and Odessa hated how quickly her body remembered the language of him, hated that even now, standing dressed for another man, she could feel Jaafar’s attention like hands she had no business missing.

Jalen, blissfully unaware that he had just walked barefoot through the ruins of Troy with a juice box in his hand, tore into the Starbursts and climbed onto his chair at the table.

“Mr. Greyson has a big car,” he announced proudly, as if contributing useful evidence to a trial.

Jaafar’s eyes flickered, briefly, dangerously.

“Does he?”

Odessa shot Jalen a look, gentle but pleading. “Baby, why don’t you go wash your hands before you eat?”

“But I washed them already.”

“Wash them again.”

“But—”

“Jalen.”

The boy sighed with the exhaustion of a man who had seen too much war for his age, sliding down from the chair with his sweets clutched to his chest, and as he wandered toward the bathroom, muttering something about everybody always making him wash his hands, Odessa heard Jaafar exhale through his nose, low and controlled, like a man trying to keep Cerberus leashed at the gates.

The moment Jalen was out of earshot, Jaafar leaned his hip against the counter and folded his arms across his chest.

“So you were just gone leave me here with our son and go on a date.”

Odessa blinked at him slowly. “It’s not a date.”

“It’s dinner.”

“Yes.”

“With Teegan’s dad.”

“Teegan’s dad has a name.”

“I heard it.”

“Then use it.”

Jaafar tilted his head, his eyes hooded now, that same look he got at the sink when their hands brushed and he pretended not to know he was making the air thin around her.

“I’m good.”

Odessa let out a humourless laugh as she turned away from him, checking inside her clutch for the third time because it gave her something to do with her hands that did not involve pointing at him or, worse, touching him. “You are unbelievable.”

“And you’re dressed like that for a man named Malcolm.”

She snapped her head up. “I’m dressed like this for me.”

Jaafar’s gaze moved over her again, slower this time, not disrespectful, never that, but too knowing, too intimate, too full of memory for a man who was supposed to be only her best friend and her child’s father, and when his eyes returned to hers, there was something in them that made her pulse stumble.

“You sure about that?”

Odessa’s lips parted, but nothing came out quickly enough, and she hated him for noticing, hated the way one corner of his mouth lifted as if he had caught her before she could hide, as if she were Eurydice glancing back and discovering Orpheus had been watching all along.

“I don’t need your permission to go out,” she said finally.

“I didn’t say you did.”

“You’re acting like it.”

“I’m acting like I came here for family dinner and found out from my four-year-old that his mama got plans with some man from school.”

“Some man from school is another parent.”

“Mm.”

“Do not ‘mm’ me.”

“I ain’t say nothing.”

“You said plenty.”

Jaafar pushed off the counter then, not quickly, not aggressively, but with that quiet, inevitable movement that made Odessa’s nerves spark before he even got close, and the space between them began to shrink until she could smell him, clean and warm and faintly expensive, the scent of him slipping past all her defences like a thief who still remembered where she kept the key.

He stopped just close enough to make a point.

Not close enough to touch.

Close enough to remind her that he could.

“Odessa,” he said, and her name in his mouth had always been a problem, had always sounded less like a name and more like something ancient being summoned from the sea, like Poseidon calling waves to heel.

She looked up at him despite herself.

“Jaafar.”

His eyes dropped to her mouth for one fraction of a second, so fast another woman might have missed it, but Odessa had spent years learning him, years cataloguing the small betrayals of his face, the way his restraint always cracked at the edges before the rest of him admitted anything.

“You like him?” he asked.

The question was quiet.

Too quiet.

Odessa’s fingers tightened around her clutch. “That’s none of your business.”

His jaw flexed.

There it was.

Not anger, not exactly, but something close enough to make the room tilt, something dark and male and wounded, something that did not belong to an ex-boyfriend who claimed he was fine with the way things were, something that made Odessa think of Ares standing at the edge of a battlefield, not yet swinging the sword, but already tasting blood in the air.

“You made it my business when you asked me to come sit in this house with our son while you go see him.”

“I asked you to have dinner with Jalen.”

“You asked me to take your place.”

“That is not fair.”

“No,” he said, voice dropping, “what’s not fair is you standing here looking like that and telling me it’s nothing.”

Odessa swallowed.

Outside the kitchen, the bathroom tap turned on, water splashing unevenly while Jalen sang to himself, some nursery rhyme broken into nonsense, and the sound should have softened the moment, should have reminded both of them of the delicate life they had built around their wreckage, but instead it made everything ache worse, because this was exactly why Odessa had rules, exactly why she kept pretending the boundaries were stronger than they were, exactly why she told herself three dinners a week did not mean anything except stability, except routine, except love shaped safely around their son.

But Jaafar was standing in her kitchen with wine on the cooler and jealousy in his eyes, and Odessa was dressed for another man while feeling her body respond to the one she had never truly stopped orbiting, and suddenly all her careful explanations felt as thin as paper offered to a flame.

“It is nothing,” she said, though her voice was softer now.

Jaafar studied her.

“Then why didn’t you tell me?”

That landed.

Not loudly, not cruelly, but directly, like an arrow from Apollo’s bow, clean and golden and impossible to dodge.

Odessa looked away first, and she hated that too.

Because the truth was simple and ugly and human: she had not told him because some foolish part of her had known he would look at her exactly like this, had known his face would change, had known the air would turn hot and old and familiar between them, and she had not trusted herself to stand in the middle of it without remembering what it felt like to belong to him.

Before she could answer, Jalen came running back into the kitchen with wet hands, leaving tiny droplets behind him on the floor.

“All clean!” he announced, holding both palms up like a victorious soldier returning from war.

Jaafar stepped back first.

Of course he did.

He always knew when to put the mask back on for their son, always knew how to tuck the storm behind his teeth and become Daddy again, warm and steady and safe, and Odessa watched the transformation with an ache so deep she almost resented him for it.

“Lemme see,” Jaafar said, crouching slightly as Jalen shoved his hands toward him. “You call that clean?”

Jalen gasped, offended. “Yes!”

“These hands look like they fought Medusa and lost.”

“What’s Medoosa?”

“A lady with snakes for hair,” Jaafar said, glancing up at Odessa for one brief second, his mouth curving faintly. “And a real bad attitude.”

Odessa narrowed her eyes.

Jalen turned to his mother with deep concern. “Mama, you got snakes?”

“Not yet,” she said sweetly, looking right at Jaafar. “But your daddy’s working very hard to make sure I grow some.”

Jalen gasped as if Jaafar had just informed him that his mother was one bad mood away from becoming an actual monster out of a storybook, his little eyes going wide before narrowing with grave, scientific suspicion, and Odessa had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing as her son tilted his head and studied the heavy fall of her hair over her shoulder, clearly searching for any sign of serpents beginning to sprout from her scalp like Medusa herself had decided to take residence in their kitchen between dinner and bedtime.

He looked at Odessa.

Then he looked at Jaafar.

Then he looked back at Odessa’s hair again, squinting harder, his face twisting with the seriousness of a tiny mythologist who had not yet learned how to pronounce “Gorgon” but had already decided he would defend himself if necessary.

“Mama,” he said carefully, “you don’t got snakes, right?”

Odessa lifted one brow and leaned down just enough for her curls to slide forward like dark silk.

“Not yet, baby.”

Jalen took one dramatic step back.

Jaafar laughed under his breath, warm and low, the sound slipping through the tension in the kitchen like sunlight catching on a blade, and for one treacherous second Odessa remembered exactly why she used to love making him laugh, why she used to collect those small sounds like offerings at an altar, why she once thought being loved by Jaafar Jackson felt like being chosen by Apollo and cursed by Aphrodite at the same time, all golden warmth and terrible consequence.

“Jalen, baby,” Jaafar said, bending slightly so he could kiss the top of their son’s curls, his hand lingering there with the easy tenderness that always managed to make Odessa’s chest soften no matter how badly she wanted to stay irritated, “why don’t you go set the table for us, yeah? You, me, and Mama.”

Jalen’s suspicion vanished in an instant, replaced by the bright importance of being given a task, and he nodded with the solemn pride of a little prince entrusted with preparing a banquet for gods and kings, clutching his Starbursts in one hand before scampering toward the dining room with the kind of thunderous footsteps only a four-year-old could create while weighing almost nothing.

Odessa watched him go, already opening her mouth before Jaafar had even turned back around, because she knew what he had done, knew he had shifted their son out of the room with the smoothness of Hermes slipping between worlds, knew he had cleared the air not because he wanted peace, but because he wanted privacy, and privacy with Jaafar had always been dangerous.

“I said I—”

“I heard you,” Jaafar cut in, his voice still quiet, still controlled, and somehow that made it worse than if he had raised it, because there was no carelessness in him now, no messy flare of temper, only that deep, deliberate certainty that made the room feel smaller around him. “And I’m telling you it ain’t happening. Sit your ass down, Odessa.”

For one breath, everything stopped.

The clock on the stove glowed.

The sink dripped once.

Somewhere in the dining room, Jalen dragged a chair with a terrible screech across the floor and began singing to himself as if his parents were not standing in the kitchen turning the air into something thick enough to drown in.

Odessa stared at Jaafar, her clutch still tucked beneath her fingers, her lips parted around a breath that had forgotten where it was supposed to go, because the audacity of him was almost impressive, almost mythic, almost worthy of its own damn tragedy, like Zeus himself had come down from Olympus in a black jacket and decided that because he still knew the shape of her heart, he had the right to command the rest of her too.

Then her eyes narrowed.

“Excuse me?”

Jaafar did not move.

That was the thing about him, the infuriating thing, the beautiful thing, the thing that had ruined her for ordinary men long before she was willing to admit it: he never crowded unless he meant to, never barked unless he had already decided he could stand behind the bite, and right now he stood in her kitchen with his shoulders relaxed, his jaw set, and his eyes dark beneath those hooded lashes, looking at her like he had drawn a line in the marble and dared her to cross it.

“You heard me.”

Odessa laughed once, but there was nothing light in it, nothing playful, nothing that could be mistaken for surrender.

“Oh, you must’ve lost your mind on the drive over here.”

“Maybe.”

“No, not maybe,” she said, taking one step closer, her heel clicking against the floor with sharp little judgment. “Definitely. Because I know you didn’t just walk into my house, with a key you still have because I am apparently too kind and too forgiving for my own good, and tell me to sit my ass down like I’m one of your little backup dancers waiting for instructions.”

Jaafar’s mouth twitched.

Wrong move.

Odessa saw it and lifted her chin, because the smile, small as it was, felt like a match being struck near dry grass.

“You think this is funny?”

“No,” he said, though his eyes said he was enjoying her fire too much, the same way ancient men in old stories loved to admire the flame right before it burned their palace down. “I think you’re pretty when you’re mad.”

Her stomach betrayed her before her pride could stop it, doing one stupid, humiliating little turn, and she hated him for it so completely she almost forgot how to speak.

“That is not going to work on me.”

“It already did.”

“Jaafar.”

“Odessa.”

Her name came out of him softer than the rest, but somehow heavier, like he had not said it so much as placed it between them, and it landed with the weight of every late-night call, every hospital room whisper when Jalen had been born, every family dinner where their hands brushed over dishes and neither of them admitted that the contact had lit them both up like Prometheus had stolen fire all over again.

She looked away first, furious with herself for it.

“I have plans.”

“I know.”

“With Malcolm.”

“I heard Jalen.”

“And you are going to stay here and have dinner with your son like we agreed.”

“Our son,” Jaafar corrected, and there was no gentleness in it now, only the low, immovable reminder that whatever had ended between them, whatever titles had been stripped from their relationship and buried in the ruins, Jalen still stood between them like a living vow neither of them could ever break. “And no, I’m not staying here so you can walk out dressed like Aphrodite on revenge day and sit across from some school dad who probably been waiting months for you to give him the time.”

Odessa blinked at him.

“Aphrodite on revenge day?”

“Don’t act like you don’t know what you’re doing.”

“I know exactly what I’m doing.”

“So do I.”

The words were simple, but his tone made them feel like a warning carved into stone, the kind some doomed hero might ignore right before the sea swallowed him whole, and Odessa could feel herself standing at the edge of something she had been avoiding for months, maybe years, the edge of the truth that their breakup had never fully taken, that whatever lived between them had not died so much as gone underground like Hades with a stolen bride and waited for the right season to rise again.

She gripped her clutch tighter.

“You do not get to be jealous.”

Jaafar’s jaw flexed.

There it was.

A crack.

Small, but real.

“I don’t?”

“No,” she said, and now her voice had lowered too, because Jalen was in the next room and because the truth between them always sounded more dangerous when spoken softly. “You do not. You don’t get to stand here looking at me like that because another man wants to take me to dinner. You don’t get to act like you have some claim because we had a baby, because we had history, because we still know each other’s favourite foods and old passwords and the side of the bed we like. You don’t get to come here three times a week, wash dishes with me, brush your hand against mine like you don’t know exactly what you’re doing, then turn around and decide you have authority over my life because you don’t like what I’m wearing.”

Jaafar’s eyes moved over her face slowly, and for once, he did not have an answer waiting on his tongue.

Good, she thought.

Good.

Let him stand there with it.

Let him feel what she had been carrying, let him feel the absurdity of trying to be best friends with the man who still looked at her like he remembered the map of her body and the weather of her moods and the shape of every dream they once made together before life, pride, and pain turned them into two people sharing custody of a love neither of them had buried properly.

But then Jaafar exhaled, slow and measured, and when he spoke, his voice had changed again.

“I’m not jealous because we had a baby.”

Odessa went still.

He stepped closer, and though he still did not touch her, the nearness of him pressed against her senses until the whole kitchen felt like it had been built around this exact moment, around Jaafar standing in front of her with his voice low and his eyes fixed on hers as though she were the only mortal thing left on earth.

“I’m jealous because you’re mine.”

Her breath caught before she could stop it.

Jaafar saw.

Of course he saw.

He had always seen too much.

Odessa recovered quickly, but not quickly enough.

“I’m not yours.”

His gaze dropped to her mouth again, slower this time, not hidden, not accidental, and when he looked back up, the heat in his eyes was almost enough to make her forget the name Malcolm entirely.

“You keep saying that.”

“Because it’s true.”

“No,” he said, soft and certain. “Because you want it to be.”

The words struck something in her, something tender and stubborn and still bleeding beneath all the years of pretending she was fine, and Odessa hated how badly she wanted to argue, hated how badly she wanted to prove him wrong, hated that some part of her felt seen instead of cornered.

From the dining room, Jalen called out, “Mama! Daddy! I put forks!”

Odessa closed her eyes for one second, grateful for the interruption and devastated by it at the same time.

Jaafar did not look away from her.

“Good job, baby,” he called back, his voice warming instantly for their son, even though his eyes stayed locked on Odessa’s like the rest of him belonged to her and always had.

Jalen yelled, “Can I have two Starbursts before dinner?”

“No,” Odessa and Jaafar said at the same time.

Silence.

Then Jalen sighed, long and offended. “Y’all always say no together.”

The absurdity of it almost broke her.

Almost.

Jaafar’s mouth softened at the corner, and Odessa felt the ghost of a laugh press against the back of her throat, but she swallowed it down because laughing with him was too easy, because falling back into rhythm was always too easy, because that was the problem, really, the problem had never been that they did not fit, it was that they fit so well they kept mistaking the burn for warmth.

She looked back at him, calmer now, though her pulse had not slowed.

“You can’t just tell me not to go.”

“I know.”

That surprised her.

Her brows drew together. “Then why did you?”

Jaafar looked at her for a long moment, and the arrogance slipped just enough for something rawer to show beneath it, something tired and honest and painfully young, the same boy she had once loved before the world made them careful.

“Because I didn’t know how else to say don’t.”

Odessa’s throat tightened.

She hated that.

She hated him for saying it that way.

She hated the softness it dragged out of her, hated that one honest sentence from him could undo more than all his confidence ever could, hated that the man had the nerve to stand there looking like a god who had finally remembered he was capable of bleeding.

“Jaafar…”

“No, let me say it,” he said, voice still low, but not hard now, not commanding, and somehow the gentleness was more dangerous than the jealousy had been. “I know I don’t have the right to tell you what to do. I know that. I know we not together, and I know you can go to dinner with whoever you want, wear whatever you want, smile at whoever you want. I know all of that, Odessa.”

She held his gaze.

“But?”

His eyes dropped for the briefest second, then returned to hers.

“But I’m standing here looking at you, and I’m thinking about another man sitting across from you, watching you laugh, watching you touch your hair, watching you do that thing where you pretend you’re not enjoying the attention even though you know exactly what you’re doing, and I can’t act like it doesn’t bother me.”

Odessa’s face warmed despite herself.

“I do not do a thing.”

“You do.”

“I don’t.”

“You do,” he said again, and this time there was a faint smile in his voice, but it faded just as quickly as it came. “And he doesn’t get to learn it before I say what I should’ve said a long time ago.”

The kitchen felt too warm.

Odessa’s clutch suddenly felt stupid in her hand, like a prop from a play she no longer remembered auditioning for, and she looked down at it just to avoid looking at him, because there were moments in life where a woman could feel the gods gathering above her balcony, leaning over Olympus with their wine cups in hand, waiting to see whether she would choose pride or ruin.

“What are you saying?” she asked.

Jaafar stepped closer again, and this time his fingers lifted, not to grab her, not to force her, but to touch the side of her wrist where her pulse was beating too fast beneath her skin, his thumb resting there with such careful restraint that the tenderness of it nearly hurt.

“I’m saying don’t go.”

Her lips parted.

His thumb brushed once over the inside of her wrist.

“I’m saying stay here. Have dinner with me and our son. Let him tell us the same story three times and get rice on the floor and pretend he doesn’t need a bath when he absolutely does. Let me wash the dishes after, and you rinse, and then when he falls asleep, we can stop acting like whatever this is between us isn’t still standing in the middle of the room every time we breathe too close.”

Odessa swallowed hard.

The image hit her with terrible force because it was not grand, not dramatic, not some sweeping declaration made beneath lightning or laurel trees, but ordinary, domestic, painfully possible; dinner, dishes, their son sleepy and happy upstairs, Jaafar in her kitchen with his sleeves rolled up, the old rhythm waiting for them like Penelope’s unfinished weaving, asking whether this time they would stop undoing what their own hands kept making.

“And Malcolm?” she asked, though the name already sounded distant, almost foolish, like a mortal man mentioned in the middle of a war between gods.

Jaafar’s face tightened, but he kept his voice even.

“You can call him.”

“Can I?”

His eyes darkened again, but he nodded once.

“You can do whatever you want.”

Odessa studied him, searching for the trick, the command beneath the permission, the male pride waiting to rear back up and bite, but what she found instead was worse, because it was restraint, real restraint, the kind that cost him something, the kind that made his earlier arrogance feel less like control and more like panic wearing armour.

She looked toward the dining room, where Jalen had started arranging forks in what sounded like a deeply chaotic pattern.

Then she looked back at Jaafar.

“You were out of line.”

“I know.”

“You don’t get to talk to me like that.”

“I know.”

“And if you ever tell me to sit my ass down again like I’m some child—”

“You gon’ throw something at me?”

Odessa smiled sweetly.

“I’m going to change the locks.”

Jaafar’s expression shifted, quick and wounded enough that she knew she had landed the hit exactly where she meant to.

Then, because she was not cruel, or because she was cruel in a more complicated way, she added, “Maybe.”

His eyes narrowed.

“Odessa.”

“There you go saying my name like it’s a warning.”

“It is.”

She lifted her chin.

“And there you go thinking I’m scared of you.”

Jaafar leaned in just enough for his voice to drop into the private space between them, rich and low and threaded with that old intimacy that had no respect for titles or distance.

“You were never scared of me.”

“No,” she whispered, because suddenly anything louder felt impossible. “I wasn’t.”

For one suspended second, neither of them moved, and Odessa thought of Persephone standing between spring and the underworld, one foot in sunlight and one in shadow, knowing that return did not always mean rescue and staying did not always mean surrender, and perhaps that was the trouble with love like theirs, perhaps it had always been both pomegranate seed and open door, both curse and choice.

Then Jalen shouted, “Daddy, I put a spoon for the Starbursts!”

Jaafar blinked.

Odessa blinked.

“A spoon?” Jaafar called back.

“Yes!”

“For Starbursts?”

“Yes, Daddy!”

Odessa pressed her lips together, but the laugh escaped anyway, soft at first and then fuller when Jaafar looked at her with exasperated fondness spreading across his face, and just like that the spell changed shape, not broken, not gone, only folded carefully into the warm, messy life around them.

She pulled her phone from her clutch.

Jaafar watched her but did not speak.

Odessa stared at Malcolm Greyson’s name for a moment, thumb hovering over the screen, and she told herself she was making this choice for Jalen, for dinner, for stability, for the family ritual she had built so carefully with both hands.

But when she typed out an apology and said she could not make it tonight, when she placed the phone facedown on the counter and saw Jaafar’s shoulders loosen in the smallest possible way, she knew better.

Jaafar knew better too.

The smugness tried to return to his face.

Odessa pointed one manicured finger at him before it could fully arrive.

“Do not.”

He lifted both hands, innocent as a man who had never sinned once in his life.

“I didn’t say nothing.”

“You breathed arrogant.”

His mouth curved.

“You know how I breathe now?”

“I know everything about you, unfortunately.”

Something soft passed over his face then, so quick it almost hurt to catch it.

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “You do.”

Odessa looked away before that could become too much, smoothing her dress as she turned toward the dining room.

“Come on, then. Since you ruined my plans.”

Jaafar reached for the wine on the cooler, his voice following her like warm honey poured over trouble.

“Nah, baby,” he said. “I saved dinner.”

Odessa stopped in the doorway and looked back at him over her shoulder, all silk hair, sharp eyes, and wounded pride, beautiful enough to make men start wars and foolish enough to pretend she had not already started one in him years ago.

“Keep talking,” she said, “and you’ll be eating alone.”

Jaafar’s gaze dropped over her once, slow and satisfied, before returning to her eyes.

“No I won’t.”

And Odessa hated — hated — that he was probably right.

With a sigh that carried more irritation than surrender, Odessa rolled her eyes and took her seat at the table, lowering herself into the chair beside Jalen with all the dignity of a queen returning to a throne she had not agreed to occupy, while Jaafar settled across from her with that quiet, maddening ease of his, looking entirely too comfortable for a man who had stormed into her evening like Poseidon kicking up waves because some mortal dared sail too close to his waters.

Jalen, completely unaware that his parents had just narrowly avoided turning the kitchen into the opening scene of a tragedy, launched immediately into his story about Ms. Renee and how she had cut playtime short that day, his little hands moving wildly as he described the injustice, his fork forgotten beside his plate while his curls bounced with every scandalised shake of his head.

“And then she said we had to come inside, Mama,” he said, eyes wide with betrayal, as if Ms. Renee had not merely ended playtime but stolen fire from mankind and blamed him for it. “And I wasn’t even done with my truck.”

Odessa made the correct sympathetic sound, though her attention kept slipping, traitorous and unwilling, to Jaafar.

Because Jaafar was staring at her.

Not glancing.

Not looking.

Staring.

He sat there across from her with one arm resting loosely near his plate, his eyes hooded and heavy beneath his lashes, listening to his son with half a smile while watching Odessa with the other half of himself, and the duality of it was infuriating, the way he could be fully present for Jalen’s tiny heartbreak over stolen playtime while still managing to make Odessa feel like she was the only other thing in the room worth studying.

She met his stare with her own because she refused, absolutely refused, to be the first one to look away, not when he was sitting there smug and beautiful and far too sure of himself, not when the whole evening had already tilted toward him in ways she had not authorised.

So she lifted her fork slowly.

Too slowly, maybe.

Petty enough to know exactly what she was doing.

Her eyes remained on his as she wrapped her lips around the fork, tasting the warmth of the lasagna she had made for them, the sauce rich with tomato and garlic, the cheese soft and melted, the pasta layered the way her mother had taught her years ago, and across the table Jaafar’s expression did something so subtle, so quick, that another woman might have missed it.

Odessa did not.

She saw the way his jaw shifted.

Saw the way his gaze dropped for one dangerous second.

Saw the way his fingers tightened around his glass before he lifted it to his mouth as if water, wine, or whatever mercy existed in the cup might save him from the consequences of looking too long.

Good, she thought, swallowing with a calmness she did not feel.

Let him suffer a little.

Let him sit there in the house he still walked into with a key, at the table they still shared three nights a week, across from the woman he had just told not to leave, and remember that jealousy was not the only weapon available.

Jalen huffed dramatically and stabbed at his lasagna with the seriousness of a boy avenging himself on the concept of indoor time.

“And Teegan said Ms. Renee was being mean, but Ms. Renee said no, she was being safe, but I think she was being mean-safe.”

Odessa nodded like this was a legal distinction worth respecting. “Mean-safe is very serious.”

“It is,” Jalen insisted.

Jaafar’s mouth curved, but his eyes never left Odessa’s face for long.

“And what do you think about that, Mommy?” he asked, his brow lifting, his voice smooth enough to pass as innocent if innocence had not already fled the room with its sandals in hand.

Odessa’s lashes lowered slightly.

There it was.

That little game.

That dangerous little line they both knew better than to touch in front of their son and yet somehow kept circling like two ancient enemies meeting beneath a truce flag, hands clean, knives hidden, both of them smiling because the battlefield remembered their footprints.

She set her fork down with care, leaned back a fraction, and looked him over in a slow sweep that was nowhere near as accidental as she would have claimed under oath.

“I don’t know, Daddy,” she said, her voice sweet enough to make the word sound like honey poured over a blade. “What do you think about it?”

Jaafar’s eyes darkened.

Not enough for Jalen to catch.

Enough for Odessa to feel it.

Enough for the air between them to tighten like a bowstring pulled back by Artemis herself.

“I think,” Jaafar said, dragging the word out just slightly as he cut into his lasagna, “someone’s been bad, that’s what I think.”

Jalen gasped immediately, hand flying to his chest like he had been personally accused before Olympus and all its judging gods.

“Me?”

Jaafar looked at his son then, and the shift was instant, warm and playful, his smile widening as he shook his head. “Not you, man.”

Jalen squinted, suspicious again. “Then who?”

Odessa reached for her glass, her expression smooth despite the heat crawling up her neck.

“Yes,” she said, eyes still on Jaafar. “Who?”

Jaafar leaned back in his chair, his gaze returning to her with the slow satisfaction of a man who knew exactly how close he could get to danger without calling it by name.

“Somebody who knows better.”

Odessa gave him a polite smile so sharp it could have drawn blood.

“That sounds like projection.”

“That sounds like guilt.”

“That sounds like you need to focus on your food.”

“I am.”

“You’re not.”

“I can do two things.”

“That would be a first.”

Jalen looked between them, chewing with his mouth puffed slightly, his eyes bright and curious as though he had stumbled into some adult ritual he did not understand but deeply wished to investigate.

“Daddy, what’s pro-jection?”

Jaafar’s grin widened. “It’s when Mama tries to act like I’m the problem.”

Odessa’s mouth dropped open.

“Absolutely not.”

Jalen frowned thoughtfully. “But sometimes you are the problem.”

Jaafar froze.

Odessa pressed her lips together.

For a single glorious moment, silence sat at the table like a crowned goddess.

Then Odessa laughed, unable to stop herself, the sound slipping out of her before she could tuck it away, and Jalen beamed at having won a case he did not even know he was arguing.

Jaafar looked wounded.

Genuinely wounded.

“You hear this?” he asked Odessa, pointing his fork toward their son. “You been teaching my child propaganda.”

“Our child,” Odessa corrected smoothly, lifting her chin. “And he has eyes.”

Jalen nodded with his whole body. “I got eyes.”

Jaafar looked at him. “You got a bedtime too.”

Jalen’s mouth fell open in horror. “Daddy!”

“That’s right. Keep choosing sides.”

“I’m not choosing sides,” Jalen said quickly, because even at four, he understood self-preservation when bedtime became a weapon. “I love both y’all.”

Odessa softened instantly, reaching over to wipe a dot of sauce from the corner of his mouth with her thumb. “We love you too, baby.”

Jaafar watched her do it.

And there it was again, that change in him, softer this time, less heat and more ache, as if seeing Odessa mother their son still struck some hidden place inside him that he had never found language for, as if the sight of her tenderness made him feel the weight of all the things they had built and broken and somehow kept alive anyway.

For a moment, the tension loosened.

Not gone.

Never gone.

But loosened enough for the room to breathe.

Jalen returned to his story with renewed passion, explaining that Ms. Renee had promised extra playtime tomorrow, but he was not sure he trusted her because grown-ups “be saying stuff,” which made Odessa choke softly on her water while Jaafar had to look away toward the window like he was seeking divine intervention.

“Where did you learn that?” Odessa asked.

Jalen shrugged. “I know things.”

Jaafar nodded solemnly. “He does.”

“He’s four.”

“Four-year-olds know things.”

“Not that.”

Jalen pointed at Jaafar with his fork. “Daddy says grown-ups be saying stuff.”

Odessa slowly turned her head.

Jaafar lifted both brows, innocent as Narcissus pretending he had not been staring at his own reflection for half the afternoon.

“What?”

“You are contaminating my baby.”

“Our baby.”

“Do not correct me while you’re guilty.”

“I ain’t guilty.”

“You are always guilty.”

“Now that sounds like projection.”

Odessa narrowed her eyes as Jaafar’s mouth curved again, and she hated how easily he pulled her back into this, hated how quickly the table became theirs again, how Jalen’s laughter sat between them like a small sun, how their banter moved with the old rhythm of a song they had never forgotten the words to.

It was dangerous.

That was the trouble.

Not the arguing, not the jealousy, not even the way Jaafar looked at her like he still had some claim carved into the marrow of him.

The danger was how easy happiness still felt when they stopped fighting it.

The danger was that family dinner did not feel like an act.

It felt like memory.

It felt like prophecy.

It felt like the Fates had taken one look at Odessa’s careful boundaries and laughed while spinning their golden thread around the three of them anyway.

Jaafar must have felt it too, because as Jalen bent over his plate, trying to scoop an impossible amount of lasagna onto his fork, Jaafar’s gaze softened across the table.

Not smug.

Not possessive.

Just there.

Steady.

Familiar.

A little ruined.

Odessa looked away first, because that version of him was harder to withstand than the jealous one.

The jealous one she could fight.

The arrogant one she could insult.

The one who sat across from her with quiet love in his eyes while their son got sauce on his sleeve was the one who made her feel like Eurydice at the mouth of the underworld, knowing one look back could cost her everything and wanting to look anyway.

“Mama,” Jalen said suddenly, breaking through the quiet with the urgency only children possessed. “Are you still going with Mr. Greyson?”

The fork in Jaafar’s hand paused.

Odessa felt it without looking.

That stillness.

That listening.

The whole room seemed to lean toward her answer.

She wiped her mouth with her napkin, taking her time because she would rather walk barefoot through Hades’ halls than let Jaafar know how much weight the question carried.

“No, baby,” she said at last. “Not tonight.”

Jalen brightened immediately. “So you staying?”

“I’m staying.”

“With me and Daddy?”

Odessa’s eyes lifted against her will.

Jaafar was watching her.

Again.

Always.

“With you and Daddy,” she said, and the words landed softer than she intended.

Jalen cheered like he had personally negotiated peace between Sparta and Athens, throwing both arms into the air before Jaafar caught his wrist gently and reminded him that people with sauce on their hands did not celebrate above cream walls.

Odessa smiled despite herself.

Jaafar smiled because she smiled.

And that annoyed her enough to restore balance.

“Don’t look so pleased,” she told him.

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“I’m eating.”

“You’re gloating.”

“I’m enjoying the lasagna.”

“You’re enjoying yourself.”

Jaafar tilted his head, eyes low and warm as he looked at her across the table.

“I can do two things,” he said again.

Odessa held his stare, refusing to blink, refusing to let him see that one sentence had pulled heat through her like lightning summoned by Zeus himself.

Jalen, oblivious and delighted, shoved another forkful into his mouth and mumbled, “Mama’s lasagna makes everybody happy.”

Jaafar’s gaze did not move from Odessa.

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “It does.”

And Odessa, despite every wall she had built, every boundary she had named, every excuse she had folded neatly and placed between them like shields, felt something in her chest soften with a terrible, traitorous ache.

Because this was what she had been afraid of.

Not Jaafar’s jealousy.

Not his commands.

Not the old desire that still sparked between them whenever their hands brushed over dishwater or their eyes caught too long across a table.

She was afraid of this.

The three of them.

Dinner warm on the plates, their son laughing between them, Jaafar sitting in her house like he still belonged there, and Odessa realising with a slow, painful clarity that maybe he had never fully left.

Soon enough, as if the evening had been following some quiet, sacred rhythm known only to their little family, Jalen’s eyes began to droop over his plate, his lashes lowering in slow, uneven blinks while his belly sat full of lasagna and warmth and all the safety Odessa had worked so hard to make feel ordinary, his curls falling across his forehead as he tried, with very little success, to continue telling them about Ms. Renee, Teegan, and the unfinished business of tomorrow’s extra playtime.

Jaafar saw it first.

Of course he did.

He had always been good at noticing their son’s tired signs, the softening mouth, the heavy head, the stubborn little hand still gripping his fork as if sleep itself were a rival he could defeat through sheer determination, and without making a performance of it, without asking Odessa for permission or making Jalen feel like a baby for being exhausted, Jaafar rose from his chair with that familiar quiet grace and came around the table.

“Come on, little man,” he murmured, slipping one arm behind Jalen’s back and the other beneath his knees before lifting him from the chair as easily as if the boy were still the newborn he had once held against his chest with shaking hands and wonder-struck eyes. “You fought a good fight.”

Jalen made a sleepy sound of protest, his cheek already sinking into the curve of Jaafar’s shoulder, one little hand curling weakly into the fabric of his father’s shirt.

“I’m not sleepy,” he mumbled, though the words barely survived the journey out of his mouth.

Jaafar kissed the side of his head, smiling into those soft curls that looked so much like his own it still felt, to Odessa, like some elaborate joke the gods had played on her after labour. “I know, man. You just resting your eyes aggressively.”

Odessa stood too, slower than she needed to, smoothing the front of her dress as she followed them down the hall, her heels clicking against the floor of her home in a steady, delicate rhythm that felt too loud in the hush that had settled after dinner, like the echo of Persephone walking through marble halls between seasons, half in the world she built for herself and half pulled toward the shadowed place that still knew her name.

She watched Jaafar carry their son.

That was always the part that undid her, no matter how many walls she had built, no matter how many times she reminded herself that co-parenting did not mean wanting, that stability did not mean surrender, that a man could be a good father and still not be hers.

Because Jaafar loved Jalen in a way that was impossible to resent.

He loved him without laziness, without vanity, without treating fatherhood like some occasional crown he could wear when the audience was watching; he loved him in the small, ordinary ways, in lunchbox notes and remembered Starbursts, in knowing which dinosaur pyjamas were acceptable on which days, in learning how to detangle curls with more patience than Odessa had expected from him, in carrying their sleepy boy to bed three nights a week like it was not a favour, not a duty, but an act of devotion performed at the altar of the life they had made together.

Jalen’s room glowed softly when Odessa pushed the door open, the night-light spilling a golden crescent across the floor, touching the little books stacked beside his bed, the stuffed animals arranged in a chaotic army near the pillows, the toy truck abandoned beneath the window as if it too had grown tired from the long injustice of Ms. Renee’s shortened playtime.

Jaafar lowered him onto the bed with a gentleness that made Odessa’s throat tighten.

He moved like he was handling something holy.

Like Jalen had been delivered to him by the Fates wrapped in golden thread and one wrong movement might wake every god in Olympus.

“Arms up,” Jaafar whispered.

Jalen, half-asleep and entirely boneless, obeyed just enough for his father to tug the blankets around him, and Odessa leaned against the doorway, arms folded loosely, watching the way Jaafar tucked their son in with quiet precision, pulling the comforter beneath his chin, smoothing it over his small body, then brushing the curls back from his forehead with the kind of tenderness that made the whole room feel softer.

Jalen blinked up at him, fighting sleep with the last scraps of his little strength.

“You comin’ tomorrow?” he asked, voice thick and sweet.

Jaafar’s face softened completely, the guarded man from the kitchen gone, the jealous man from dinner gone, the man who had told Odessa to sit down like he still had the right swallowed whole by the father kneeling beside his son’s bed.

“Yeah,” he said, his thumb moving once over Jalen’s temple. “I’ll be here in the morning. I’m taking you to school, remember?”

“And Starbursts?”

Odessa made a sound from the doorway.

Jaafar glanced back at her with a look that was far too amused for someone on thin ice, then returned his attention to their son. “We’ll discuss that with management.”

Jalen’s brows pulled together. “Who’s management?”

Jaafar tilted his head toward Odessa without looking away from him.

“Your mama.”

Jalen sighed, long and tragic, as if Odessa had personally robbed him of a thriving confectionery business. “Mama always says no.”

“Because Mama loves your teeth,” Odessa said from the doorway.

Jaafar smiled, and Odessa hated the warmth that flickered through her at the sight of it, hated how fatherhood sat on him like something ancient and earned, hated that even after everything, watching him with their son still made some foolish, hopeful part of her ache like Demeter waiting for spring.

Jaafar bent down and kissed Jalen’s forehead, lingering there for a second longer than usual, his hand smoothing those dark curls back one last time before he spoke in that low, steady voice their son trusted more than anything.

“I love you, little man.”

Jalen’s eyes were already closing. “Love you, Daddy.”

“Be good for Mama.”

“I am good.”

Odessa and Jaafar looked at each other.

Even half-asleep, Jalen sensed the judgement.

“I’m mostly good,” he corrected, and Jaafar’s laugh came out quiet, tucked safely into the dimness of the room.

“That’s fair.”

Odessa stepped inside then, crossing to the other side of the bed so she could press her own kiss to Jalen’s cheek, breathing in the clean, warm scent of him, baby shampoo and dinner and the sweetness of sleep, and for one moment the world narrowed down to the three of them around that little bed, Jaafar on one side, Odessa on the other, their son tucked safely between them like the living answer to a question neither of them had been brave enough to ask.

Jalen caught her fingers before she could pull away.

“Mama,” he whispered.

“Yes, baby?”

“You staying too?”

Something in her chest folded.

Jaafar looked up at her.

Odessa felt his gaze immediately, not sharp now, not smug, but quiet and waiting, and she hated how much the simple question seemed to hold, hated that children could reach into the middle of a room and pull out the truth with both hands without even knowing they had done it.

“I’m staying,” she murmured, squeezing Jalen’s little hand. “I’m always staying.”

That seemed to satisfy him, and within seconds his breathing began to deepen, his fingers loosening around hers as sleep finally claimed him, soft and total, carrying him away from grown-up tension, from unfinished dinners, from parents who still did not know how to stand close without becoming mythic about it.

Jaafar stayed kneeling for a moment after Jalen was asleep.

Odessa noticed that too.

The way he watched their son as if he were memorising him again, as if fatherhood still surprised him, as if no matter how many times he carried that boy to bed, some part of him could not believe the world had trusted him with something this precious.

Then he rose carefully, his movements soundless, and Odessa followed him out of the room, pulling the door almost closed behind them until only a narrow strip of golden night-light spilled into the hall.

For a second, neither of them spoke.

The hallway felt different now, quieter, heavier, stripped of Jalen’s chatter and the clatter of plates and the easy excuses they used to keep themselves from staring too long at what remained when their son was asleep.

Odessa’s heels made a softer sound now as she walked back toward the kitchen, and Jaafar followed a step behind her, close enough that she could feel the warmth of him at her back, close enough that every nerve in her body seemed to wake with irritating loyalty.

“He loves when you put him to bed,” she said finally, because it was safer than saying anything else.

Jaafar’s voice came from behind her, low and even. “I love putting him to bed.”

She glanced back at him over her shoulder.

There was no joke in his expression.

No smirk.

No possessive edge.

Just honesty, simple and unguarded, and somehow that was worse than everything else, because Odessa had prepared herself for Jaafar’s arrogance, for the jealousy, for the old flirtation that moved between them like a familiar storm, but she had not prepared herself for the softer blade of him, the one that slid between her ribs without making a sound.

“He asked if you were coming tomorrow,” she said.

“I am.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I know.”

“You’re busy.”

“I’ll move things around.”

“Jaafar—”

“I said I’m coming.”

The words should have annoyed her.

They almost did.

But there was no control in them this time, no command meant to pull her into place, just a father’s certainty, the immovable devotion of a man who would rearrange whatever needed rearranging because his son had asked for him before sleep and Jaafar had promised.

Odessa swallowed the softness before it could show.

“Fine.”

He hummed behind her, and she knew without looking that he was smiling.

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Sound pleased.”

“I’m not pleased.”

“You are always pleased with yourself.”

“I have reasons.”

She stood in the kitchen for a moment after they came back down the hall, the hush of the house settling around them like a veil drawn gently over something sacred, something unfinished, her fingers resting on the edge of the counter as if she needed the cool stone beneath her palm to remind herself where she was, because there was something about seeing Jaafar put Jalen to bed that always loosened her from the inside out, always left her softer than she wanted to be, more vulnerable than she liked, as though motherhood had made her heart fertile ground and Jaafar, infuriatingly, still knew exactly where to step.

The table remained cluttered with the remnants of dinner, half-empty glasses, abandoned forks, the baking dish that still smelled faintly of garlic, tomato, and melted cheese, the whole room carrying the warm aftermath of family, and Odessa exhaled as she moved toward the sink, slipping her clutch onto the counter and reaching for the first plate with the quiet instinct of habit, because somebody had to do something practical before the silence between them turned dangerous.

She had barely turned on the tap before she felt him.

Not heard him.

Felt him.

That quiet shift in the air, that unmistakable warmth at her back, that awareness of Jaafar drawing close enough for her body to register his presence before her mind had caught up, and her shoulders stiffened for the smallest second just as his hand reached around hers, long fingers brushing lightly against her own where she held the plate beneath the stream of warm water.

“I got it,” he murmured, his voice low by her ear, too close, far too close, the words gliding over her skin like dark honey.

Odessa swallowed and kept her eyes on the sink, on the water running over porcelain, on anything that was not the broad shape of him settling behind her with all the slow inevitability of a tide coming in.

“I can wash a plate, Jaafar.”

“I know you can.”

His tone carried that quiet smile she did not need to see to hear, and before she could step aside or gather herself into something firmer, something less susceptible, he moved even closer, slipping fully behind her until the length of him pressed lightly, then unmistakably, against her back.

Odessa went still.

Every inch of her.

Because there was close, and then there was this.

This was not an accident.

This was not two people reaching for the same dish at the same time.

This was Jaafar standing behind her at the sink as if the kitchen belonged to a life they had never fully put down, his chest warm against her back, the line of his body fitting against hers with a familiarity so seamless it made her stomach turn traitor, made her pulse stumble against her throat, made something ancient and stubborn inside her lift its head like a sleeping creature disturbed.

“Jaafar,” she said, and even to her own ears the word sounded thinner than she would have liked, more breath than warning.

His hands slid around hers again, one brushing her knuckles as he took the sponge from the sink, the other steadying the plate beneath the water, and though his touch was light, so light it could have been called innocent by anyone who had not known him the way she did, Odessa knew better.

Jaafar did not touch without intention.

Never had.

He lowered his head slightly, not enough to crowd her, just enough that his breath stirred the hair near her ear, and suddenly the simplest act in the world, washing a dish in a quiet kitchen after putting their son to bed, felt less like domestic routine and more like standing at the edge of some old Greek myth, one of those stories where a woman turns around only once and changes the rest of her life forever.

“You were about to start without me,” he said softly.

“I thought that was the point of you doing the dishes.”

“It is.”

“Then why are you on me like this?”

That made the barest hint of a laugh rumble through his chest, and because that chest was pressed to her back, because the sound travelled through him and into her, Odessa felt it in a way she absolutely did not appreciate.

“I’m washing dishes,” he said.

“You are not just washing dishes.”

“No?”

“No.”

His fingers grazed over hers again as he guided the sponge across the plate, slow and deliberate, his forearm brushing lightly against her waist, and Odessa hated the way her body responded, hated the instinctive little intake of breath she could not quite suppress, hated that she could still recognise the language of him even in silence, even in something as stupidly innocent as soap and warm water and his body behind hers.

“No,” she repeated, quieter this time, because repeating herself felt safer than admitting the truth, which was that she could barely think with him this close, barely remember why she had spent so much energy building rules around a man who could undo them by pressing his mouth too near her ear and pretending to be helpful.

Jaafar rinsed the plate, then set it on the rack, his movements unhurried, almost lazy, as if he had all the time in the world and no reason to fear what nearness might do to either of them.

When he reached for the next dish, he did not move away.

If anything, he settled more firmly behind her, one hand bracing briefly against the edge of the sink beside hers while the other passed her the glass, his fingers dragging over her palm with a touch so fleeting and so deliberate that Odessa’s eyes fluttered closed for half a second before she could stop herself.

That, apparently, was all the encouragement he needed.

His mouth did not touch her, but it hovered perilously near the curve of her neck, close enough that she could feel the heat of him there, close enough that the little hairs on her skin rose in response, and when he spoke again, his voice came rougher, lower, like something dragged up from the bottom of him.

“You always smell good.”

Odessa opened her eyes.

Her hand tightened around the glass.

“This is exactly why I almost went to dinner.”

He hummed, not offended, not even surprised, his hand covering hers briefly as he turned the glass beneath the water.

“No, it ain’t.”

“No?”

“No,” he said, and she could hear the smile in it, could hear the certainty, that maddening male certainty that made her want to elbow him and lean back into him at the same time. “You almost went to dinner because you were trying to prove something.”

“And what exactly would I be proving?”

His chin nearly brushed her shoulder then, not quite there, but near enough that her entire body sharpened around the absence of contact.

“That you can.”

Odessa’s throat tightened.

“And I can.”

“I know you can.”

The thing about Jaafar was that he never sounded threatened when he should have, never sounded small or insecure in the ways other men did when jealousy got hold of them; instead, he sounded calm, almost reverent, as if even his jealousy had the audacity to believe it was justified, as if the gods themselves had whispered in his ear that Odessa Nichols had always been a little bit his ruin and he was only acting in accordance with divine instruction.

He took the glass from her and set it aside, and when she reached for the next plate, his hand slid over hers again, larger and warmer, guiding rather than grabbing, but the contact lingered this time, his fingers threading loosely between hers for one suspended second beneath the running water before releasing.

Odessa’s breath caught.

She could feel his smile now, not because she saw it, but because his whole body seemed to know when she faltered, seemed to lean into that small victory with sinful patience.

“You keep doing that,” she said.

“Doing what?”

“Acting like you don’t know what you’re doing.”

He was quiet for a moment, and then he shifted just enough that she felt the solid line of him more completely at her back, chest to spine, thigh to thigh, not trapping, not forcing, just there, close enough to make denial impossible.

“Maybe I know exactly what I’m doing,” he murmured.

The plate nearly slipped from her hand.

Odessa set it down with more force than necessary and gripped the edge of the sink, because at least the sink was inanimate, at least the sink was not Jaafar Jackson with his mouth near her ear and his body fitted behind hers like some answer she had spent years refusing to write down.

“Your son is asleep down the hall,” she whispered.

“Our son,” he corrected automatically, and the tenderness in it almost made things worse, because it was one thing for a man to flirt with heat behind his teeth, but Jaafar always had the nerve to braid tenderness into desire until she could no longer tell where one ended and the other began. “And I know.”

Odessa closed her eyes briefly.

“Then behave.”

His hand slid to her waist.

Not possessive.

Not harsh.

Just a warm, steady hold through the fabric of her dress, thumb resting there as if he had remembered the exact place it belonged, and a shiver went through her so cleanly she could not hide it.

Jaafar felt it.

Of course he did.

His breath left him in something almost like a laugh, though gentler, more dangerous.

“Odessa,” he said softly, and her name sounded like an invocation in his mouth, like he was summoning not just her attention but every version of her that had ever loved him, every version that still did in secret and in spite of herself. “If I wasn’t behaving, you’d know.”

Her grip on the sink tightened until her knuckles ached.

She should have moved then.

Should have stepped away.

Should have told him to finish the dishes himself and gone upstairs to take pins from her hair and wash off the makeup she had put on for another man.

Instead, she stayed where she was, trapped less by Jaafar than by the terrifying truth of her own desire, by the fact that his hand on her waist felt less like intrusion and more like memory, by the fact that standing with him like this in the warm light of her kitchen felt so dangerously close to home.

He let the silence stretch between them, rich and taut as a drawn bowstring, while he reached around her for the final plate, his arm brushing the front of her body in a motion so simple it should not have felt intimate and yet did, because everything with Jaafar did, every glance, every passing touch, every shared task transformed by history and hunger into something larger than itself.

Then, very gently, he took the plate from her hands and set it aside.

The water kept running.

Neither of them moved.

His hand remained at her waist.

His other braced beside her on the counter.

Odessa could feel the rise and fall of his breathing against her back now, slow and deep and controlled in the way only a man already fighting himself could be controlled, and for one wild, humiliating moment she thought of Hades and Persephone, of pomegranate seeds and shadowed bargains, of women who swore they would not go back and found themselves lingering anyway at the threshold.

“You looked beautiful tonight,” he said at last, his voice quieter now, stripped of teasing, stripped of performance, leaving only truth behind.

Odessa stared at the stream of water pouring into the sink.

“I was going somewhere.”

“I know.”

“With someone else.”

“I know that too.”

“And you still stood behind me like this?”

Jaafar’s fingers flexed slightly at her waist, barely there, but enough.

“Yes.”

That single word travelled through her like a lit match.

Slowly, before she could talk herself out of it, Odessa turned her head just enough to look at him from the corner of her eye.

He was already looking at her.

Those hooded lashes.

That heavy, impossible stare.

That face her son had stolen outright.

And because she turned, because she looked, the space between them shifted again, her cheek nearly brushing his, the angle so close that one more inch would have become something else entirely.

“Why?” she asked, though the answer already lived in the pulse beating madly beneath his hand.

Jaafar did not pretend not to understand.

His gaze dropped briefly to her mouth, then rose again.

“Because I’ve had to watch you all night,” he said, low and honest and ruined, “and this is the closest I’ve been allowed to get.”

The words landed somewhere deep.

Somewhere dangerous.

Odessa’s breath left her slowly, her pride and her longing pulling at each other like rival gods fighting over one miserable mortal heart, and for a second she could not do anything but stand there in the centre of her kitchen with Jaafar behind her, his body warm against hers, his hand steady at her waist, the sink full of clean dishes and unclean thoughts.

“Jaafar,” she whispered.

“Jaafar,” she whispered, and it came out too soft to be useful, too tender to be a warning, too full of everything she had spent months dressing up as discipline and distance and “for Jalen’s sake,” when really the truth had always been standing behind her with one hand on her waist and the other braced beside her like he had never accepted the idea of leaving her alone in the first place.

His mouth curved near her ear.

Not against her skin.

Not yet.

But near enough that Odessa felt the shape of his smile like an omen.

“There she go,” he murmured, his voice low and warm and entirely too pleased with itself. “That’s the way you used to say my name when you were trying to act like you had sense.”

Odessa’s eyes opened slowly, her fingers still curled around the edge of the sink, the tap running hot enough to steam the air between them, and she hated how her body betrayed her before her mouth could defend her, hated the way her spine softened by half an inch against his chest as if some stupid, ancient part of her had heard him and answered, had lifted its face like a flower turning toward Helios in the morning.

“I still have sense,” she said, though the words were not nearly sharp enough to cut anything.

Jaafar hummed as if he was considering it, as if he was a judge on Olympus and she had just presented a very weak argument beneath marble columns and divine scrutiny.

“Mm,” he said, dragging the sound out until it became a touch all by itself. “Barely.”

Odessa turned her head a little more, not enough to give him the full satisfaction of her face, but enough to let him see the narrow look in her eyes. “You came into my house, scared off my plans, told me to sit my ass down, flirted through dinner in front of our child like you were raised by wolves, and now you’re calling me senseless?”

“I ain’t scare off nothing,” he said smoothly, his thumb still resting at her waist, slow and steady through the fabric of her dress. “That man lost fair and square.”

Odessa’s mouth fell open.

“There was no competition.”

Jaafar’s eyes dipped to her lips with such calm audacity that it made heat climb up her neck before he even spoke.

“That’s why he lost so bad.”

She stared at him.

He stared back.

And God, that was the problem with Jaafar Jackson, the ancient, impossible, unreasonable problem, the reason she had ended up with his baby in the first place and had been mad about it ever since, because the man had a mouth so slick it should have been registered as a weapon and a confidence so quiet it never looked like arrogance until it was already wrapped around your throat.

He did not chase like desperate men chased.

He did not beg like uncertain men begged.

Jaafar wanted with the patience of Hades, the certainty of Apollo, the nerve of Zeus in somebody else’s house, and the beauty of a man who had learned far too early that women noticed when he walked into a room and had somehow, cruelly, decided not to abuse it loudly.

No.

He was worse than loud.

He was calm.

He was the kind of man who could stand behind Odessa at her sink, body pressed to hers in a kitchen that still smelled like lasagna and family and bad decisions, and make seduction feel like a conversation they had been having for years.

“You’re real confident for somebody who’s supposed to be my ex,” Odessa said, though her voice had dropped, and both of them heard it.

Jaafar’s smile deepened.

“There you go using that word again.”

“Ex?”

“Mmhm.”

“That’s what you are.”

His hand left her waist only to move slowly, lazily, to the counter on the other side of her, caging her in without ever making it feel like a trap, his forearms bracketing her body while his chest stayed warm against her back, while his breath touched the side of her neck like a promise he had not yet decided to keep.

“Baby,” he said, and the word slid through her so cleanly her eyes almost closed again, “I’m Jalen’s daddy, I got a key to your house, I know where you keep the extra foil, your son sleeps better when I tuck him in, you still buy my cereal even though you don’t eat it, and you just cancelled dinner with a man whose name I already forgot because I looked at you too long.”

Odessa swallowed.

He tilted his head slightly, his cheek nearly brushing hers.

“Call it what you want.”

Her heart struck once, hard.

“You are so full of yourself.”

“Nah,” he murmured. “I’m full of memory.”

That landed so deeply she hated him for it.

Because memory was exactly what stood between them, not just the sweet kind, not just the pretty things dipped in gold and kept in the safer rooms of the mind, but the kind with teeth, the kind that remembered arguments and slammed doors and tears wiped quickly before the other person could see them, the kind that remembered the day they called it quits and still somehow ended up on the phone that same night because Jalen had a cough and Odessa knew Jaafar would want to know.

Memory had ruined the shape of goodbye.

Memory had kept his key on her ring.

Memory had bought his cereal.

Memory had made her dress up for Malcolm Greyson with the secret, wicked hope that Jaafar might suffer a little.

And Jaafar, infuriatingly, had noticed all of it.

“You think because you know me, you can just come back in here and talk your way into whatever you want?” she asked.

His voice softened, but the confidence did not leave it; if anything, it settled deeper, quieter, more dangerous.

“No,” he said. “I think because I know you, I know when you’re done running.”

Odessa’s breath caught.

Outside the kitchen, the whole house had gone still, Jalen asleep down the hall, the world beyond the windows dark and indifferent, and suddenly the room felt less like a kitchen and more like some secret chamber beneath the earth where Persephone stood with pomegranate juice on her lips, pretending she had been stolen when some part of her had reached for the fruit herself.

She turned fully then, because standing with her back to him had become impossible, because if she did not look at him she would drown in the sound of his voice, and Jaafar let her move only enough to face him, his arms still around her on either side, his body still close, his eyes dropping over her with that slow, devastating appreciation that made her remember exactly why she had once forgotten every sensible thing her mother had ever taught her.

Odessa lifted her chin.

It was self-defence.

They both knew it.

“I’m not running.”

Jaafar looked down at her with a tenderness that made the arrogance worse, because he did not look like a man trying to win an argument anymore, he looked like a man looking at something he had already chosen and had simply been waiting for the right moment to say so.

“You went and made plans with somebody else on family dinner night,” he said. “You were running in heels.”

Her eyes narrowed.

“You liked the heels.”

His gaze dipped to them and climbed back up, slow enough to be disrespectful and reverent at the same time.

“I loved the heels.”

“Jaafar.”

“I love the dress too,” he added, because apparently he had no interest in survival. “I love the way you did your hair. I love that little attitude you had when I walked in and caught you trying to leave. I love that you thought I was going to sit at that table with our son and eat your lasagna while you let some man look at you across a restaurant like he had even earned the right to know what you sound like when you laugh for real.”

Odessa’s mouth parted, but no words came out.

Jaafar leaned closer, his voice dropping into the space between them.

“And I love that you came back home before you even left.”

Her chest rose against his.

“You are impossible.”

“I’m honest.”

“You are arrogant.”

“I’m sure.”

“Of yourself?”

His smile was slow, almost sinful.

“Of you.”

That was worse.

That was so much worse than if he had said yes, because Jaafar had always known how to make confidence sound like devotion, how to take his own certainty and lay it at her feet until it felt less like ego and more like faith.

Odessa looked away, but he followed the movement with his eyes, patient, hungry, not rushing, not pouncing, because he knew, damn him, he knew the rhythm of her too well, knew that if he pushed too hard she would bite just to prove she still had teeth, knew that what undid Odessa was not pressure but inevitability.

“You don’t get to decide I’m yours again because you got jealous,” she said.

“I didn’t decide tonight.”

Her eyes flicked back to his.

Jaafar’s face had gone serious now, the playfulness still there at the edges but no longer leading, no longer shielding him.

“I been deciding,” he said. “Every family dinner. Every school run. Every time Jalen asks why I don’t stay over and you look at me like you want me to answer wrong. Every time I leave this house and sit in my car for ten minutes before I drive off because walking out feels stupid.”

Odessa went still.

The words came quietly, but they struck hard, one after the other, arrows from Apollo’s golden bow, bright and impossible to dodge.

“I been deciding when you call me because he has a fever and you try to sound calm but I can hear you scared,” Jaafar continued, his gaze searching hers now, not slick, not teasing, just open in a way that made her want to turn away and step closer at the same time. “I been deciding when you fall asleep on the couch after he goes down and I cover you with that ugly blanket you swear is cute.”

“It is cute,” she whispered automatically.

“It’s hideous.”

“It is not.”

“It looks like something Athena made while she was mad at fabric.”

Despite herself, despite the pressure in her chest and the heat still blooming between them, Odessa laughed, one soft, unwilling sound that broke from her like light through a cracked door.

Jaafar smiled immediately.

“There she is.”

The tenderness in it almost ruined her.

She pressed her lips together and looked at his chest instead of his face, because looking at his face was how women in myths got turned into statues or stars or cautionary tales, and Odessa had no interest in becoming a lesson sung by poets who did not have to deal with the consequences.

“You can’t just say things like that,” she murmured.

“I can if they’re true.”

“And what do you want me to do with it?”

Jaafar’s hand lifted slowly, giving her every chance to move away, and when she did not, his fingers brushed beneath her chin, not forcing her face up, only asking, only reminding, only touching with the kind of confidence that said he already knew her answer but respected her too much to take it without hearing it.

“Look at me.”

Odessa hated that she did.

Hated that her chin lifted into his hand like it remembered him.

Jaafar’s eyes softened.

“I want my woman back.”

The sentence sat between them, simple and devastating.

No metaphor.

No trick.

No shield.

Odessa felt it in her knees.

She felt it in the place behind her ribs where she kept the things she did not have language for.

She felt it in every version of herself that had ever loved him, from the reckless young woman who had once let him kiss her against a door like the world was ending, to the exhausted new mother who had placed Jalen in his arms and watched Jaafar cry so quietly she pretended not to notice.

“You don’t get to say that like it’s easy,” she said, but her voice trembled just enough to betray her.

Jaafar’s thumb brushed once along her chin, barely there.

“I didn’t say easy.”

“You said it like you already know you’re getting what you want.”

His mouth curved, that confidence returning in a slow, wicked flicker.

“Because I remember how I got it the first time.”

Odessa’s eyes widened.

“Jaafar.”

“What?”

“Do not.”

“I ain’t even said nothing.”

“You said enough.”

“I said I remember,” he murmured, leaning closer until his breath warmed the corner of her mouth. “You remember too.”

Odessa did.

God help her, she did.

She remembered too much.

She remembered the first time his confidence had crossed the line from charming to catastrophic, the night that had eventually become Jalen, the night she had sworn she was only going to stop by for an hour because Jaafar had asked her to listen to something he had been working on, and she had shown up in leggings and a cropped sweatshirt with her hair tied up, already suspicious because his voice on the phone had been too smooth, too pleased, too “come over when you get a chance” in that way that meant he had plans but wanted her to believe she had made them.

She remembered him opening the door before she knocked, leaning against the frame like Hermes himself had brought him bad intentions wrapped in a pretty face, his chain catching the low light, his smile slow as summer honey, his eyes dropping over her once before he said, “You came quick,” and she, foolish, doomed thing that she was, had rolled her eyes and said, “Don’t start,” as if he had not already started from the moment he picked up the phone.

She remembered the music playing low, remembered him pretending to care about her opinion on the track when really he had spent the entire time watching her mouth form words, remembered how he had sat beside her on the couch close enough that their knees touched, his arm stretched along the back cushions like it had nowhere else to go, his fingers occasionally grazing the ends of her hair until she snapped, “Are you listening or are you just looking at me?” and he answered, calm as prophecy, “Both.”

She remembered laughing because he was ridiculous.

She remembered him smiling because he knew she was weakening.

She remembered telling him he thought he was slick, and him saying, “I don’t think, baby,” in that low voice of his, “I know.”

That was how it happened.

Not all at once.

Never all at once with Jaafar.

It had been a slow siege, a Trojan horse rolled right up to the gates of her common sense, all pretty words and patient hands and that infuriating certainty that made her feel chosen before she had even surrendered, and by the time she realised the city was burning, she had already been kissing him like she had lit the match herself.

“You talked too much then too,” Odessa said, dragged back to the present by the heat of him in front of her.

Jaafar’s grin spread.

“And it worked.”

“It did not work.”

“Jalen is four.”

Odessa gasped, slapping a hand lightly against his chest before she could stop herself, and Jaafar caught her wrist against him, laughing under his breath, his eyes bright with triumph and memory.

“You are so nasty.”

“I’m factual.”

“You are not factual.”

“I am looking at living proof,” he said, nodding down the hall toward their son’s room with a smile so smug and so fond that Odessa wanted to both hit him again and kiss the arrogance off his mouth. “Little man came out with my whole face because even the universe knew I put in work.”

Her mouth dropped open.

“Jaafar Jackson.”

“What?” he asked, innocent as a god standing in the ruins of a city he absolutely destroyed. “You said show your sources. I got one asleep down the hall.”

Odessa stared at him for one long second before laughter broke from her, startled and helpless, and Jaafar’s expression changed the moment he heard it, softened with pleasure so open it made her chest ache.

That was another problem.

He loved making her laugh.

He always had.

Even when they were fighting, even when they were hurting, Jaafar had always looked at her laugh like it was something he had earned from the gods, something more valuable than gold, more dangerous than fire, more necessary than breath.

“You think you’re funny,” she said, trying to recover.

“I think you’re laughing.”

“I’m laughing because you’re insane.”

“Long as you’re laughing with me.”

There it was again.

The turn.

The way he could take a joke and make it mean something before she was ready.

Odessa’s smile faded slowly.

His hand still held her wrist against his chest, and beneath her palm she could feel the steady beat of him, warm and real and too familiar.

“You hurt me,” she said quietly.

Jaafar’s face changed at once.

No slickness.

No grin.

No defence.

“I know.”

The answer was too immediate to be rehearsed, too heavy to be easy.

Odessa looked at him, and for a moment the whole kitchen shifted, the flirtation settling into something deeper, something with roots, something that had been waiting underneath all the heat like the bones of an old temple buried beneath flowers.

“You don’t get to flirt your way past that,” she whispered.

Jaafar nodded once.

“I know.”

“And you don’t get to touch me like this and say you want me back like the hard part is over.”

“I know that too.”

“Do you?”

“Yes,” he said, and the certainty in his voice was not arrogance now, but commitment, solid and quiet as stone beneath a river. “I know I gotta earn you again.”

Her throat tightened.

Jaafar took a breath, and when he spoke again, his voice was softer.

“But I’m not about to stand here and pretend I don’t want to.”

Odessa’s eyes burned before she could stop them, and she hated that, hated that she could be standing in a dress meant for another man, in the kitchen she had built for herself and her son, with her ex pressed close enough to ruin her breathing, and still feel like the truest thing in the room was the ache in Jaafar’s voice.

“I want to take you out,” he said. “I want to pick you up from your own house like I don’t still have a key. I want to sit across from you somewhere nice and watch you pretend you don’t like when I stare. I want to bring you flowers even though you’re gonna say they’re excessive and then put them in the middle of your table anyway. I want to argue about nothing on the drive home because you think I drive too smooth when I’m showing off.”

“You do drive too smooth when you’re showing off.”

He smiled.

“I want to come back here and kiss Jalen goodnight if he’s still up, and if he’s not, I want to stand in this kitchen with you and not have to act like touching your waist is a mistake.”

Odessa’s breath shuddered.

Jaafar leaned in slightly, his forehead almost touching hers.

“I want Sundays. I want mornings. I want the ugly blanket and the cereal and your attitude when I load the dishwasher wrong on purpose just so you’ll fuss at me.”

“You load it wrong on purpose?”

“Sometimes.”

“Jaafar.”

“I like when you fuss.”

“You are sick.”

“I’m in love.”

The words knocked the breath clean out of her.

Odessa went silent.

Jaafar did not rush to fill it, did not laugh, did not soften the blow with a joke, though she could see the effort it cost him because his confidence was not gone, exactly, but it had bent its head to the truth, had taken off its crown and stood bare before her.

“I’m in love with you,” he said again, quieter this time. “Still. Been. Ain’t stopped. Tried to be mature about it, tried to tell myself being close was enough because we got Jalen and I didn’t want to mess up what was working for him, but then I walked in tonight and saw you dressed like that for somebody else, and something in me said stop playing before you watch another man take your place because you were too proud to say you wanted it.”

Odessa blinked fast, pride clawing hard at her softness.

“You don’t even know Malcolm.”

“I don’t need to.”

“He could be nice.”

“I’m sure he is.”

“He could be good for me.”

Jaafar’s eyes held hers, steady and unflinching.

“He could be good,” he said. “He can’t be me.”

Odessa’s lips parted.

There it was.

That confidence again.

Not loud.

Not cruel.

Just absolute.

The same confidence that had gotten her pregnant in the first place, not because it overwhelmed her, not because it robbed her of choice, but because it made choosing him feel inevitable, like stepping into a river she already knew would carry her, like reaching for a pomegranate seed with her eyes wide open and pretending she had not wanted the underworld to bloom.

“You are so sure,” she whispered.

Jaafar lifted her wrist and pressed a kiss to the inside of it, soft enough to be reverent, lingering enough to be dangerous.

“I’m sure of what I feel,” he said against her skin. “I’m sure of what we are when we stop lying. I’m sure of the way you look at me when you forget to be mad.”

Odessa’s eyes fluttered despite herself.

He noticed.

Of course he noticed.

His smile returned, smaller this time, smug but tender, wicked but warm.

“And I’m sure,” he added, voice dropping, “that if I kissed you right now, you’d kiss me back.”

The kitchen tilted.

Odessa’s pulse thundered beneath his mouth.

“You don’t know that.”

Jaafar lifted his head.

Those hooded eyes found hers.

“No?” he asked.

“No.”

His gaze dropped to her lips.

“Then tell me not to.”

Odessa’s breath caught.

The silence stretched.

Not empty.

Full.

Full of the water cooling in the sink, the dishes drying in the rack, their son sleeping down the hall with his father’s face and his mother’s stubbornness, the wine unopened on the counter, the packet of Starbursts abandoned near Jalen’s place at the table, the whole evening gathered around them like the gods had taken their seats and gone quiet.

Odessa should have said no.

She had every reason to.

Pride.

Fear.

Memory.

Hurt.

Malcolm Greyson, poor man, somewhere in the world thinking he had merely been rescheduled, unaware that he had briefly been cast as a mortal obstacle in a myth that had begun long before him and would not remember his name by morning.

Odessa should have said no.

Instead, she whispered, “You are so annoying.”

Jaafar smiled like victory had just entered the room wearing her voice.

“That ain’t no.”

“Don’t be smug.”

“I’m trying.”

“You’re failing.”

“I know.”

And then he kissed her.

Not rushed, not rough, not the greedy kind of kiss a man used when he was trying to prove possession, but slow, confident, certain, the kind of kiss that arrived like an answer both of them had been pretending not to know, his hand sliding from her wrist to her waist while the other came up to cradle the side of her face with a tenderness so familiar it hurt more than the heat did.

Odessa meant to hold herself still.

She really did.

For one proud, useless second, she stood there with her hands hovering between them as if she might still choose dignity, as if dignity had ever survived Jaafar’s mouth.

Then he tilted his head, deepened the kiss by the smallest degree, and she folded.

Not dramatically.

Not weakly.

Just honestly.

Her hand curled into his shirt, her body leaning into his, and Jaafar made a low sound against her mouth like he had been holding his breath for months and had finally found air again.

That sound almost ruined her.

Because it was not smug.

It was relief.

It was want.

It was a man coming home to something he had no right to call home yet, but intended to earn with both hands.

When he pulled back, it was barely enough to speak, his forehead resting near hers, his breath warm against her lips, his confidence shining through the softness in his eyes like sunlight through storm clouds.

“See?” he murmured.

Odessa’s eyes were still closed.

“Do not say something slick.”

“I wasn’t.”

“You were.”

“I was just gonna say,” he whispered, brushing his thumb along her cheek, “that’s how I got you the first time.”

Her eyes opened.

He grinned.

There he was.

Wicked.

Beautiful.

Absolutely unrepentant.

Odessa shoved at his chest, but Jaafar caught her close again before she could get far, laughing quietly as she glared up at him with swollen lips and offended pride.

“You are impossible,” she breathed.

“And you still kissed me.”

“You kissed me.”

“You kissed back.”

“I was startled.”

“For that long?”

“Jaafar.”

“Odessa.”

She hated him.

She loved him.

The tragedy of it was that both things had learned how to sit at the same table.

He looked down at her, grin softening, and suddenly his voice gentled again.

“Let me take you out tomorrow, just us.”

“You trying to be useful now?”

He glanced at her, eyes warm, mouth wicked.

“Baby, I’ve always been useful.”

She pointed at him.

“Do not start.”

Jaafar looked toward the hallway where their son slept, then back at her with a grin that was pure trouble dressed in tenderness.

“Too late,” he said. “I started four years ago.”

tags : @mamasturn @plan3tch1ld ( lmk if you wanna be added or removed !)

[bowlby4]

[diamondsinterlude]

Decided to try and work on Only a Vampire Can Love You Forever! Now I don’t know when this will be out but hopefully soon!

[hennndo]