I peel off my black uniform, heavy with lime juice and sweat, and collapse onto my bed. My first day at Luzia and my mind’s swimming with everything James taught me, premium spirits on the top shelf, mixers on the right, wine list to memorize by Friday. Who knew there was a whole science to cutting fruit? Not me, definitely not me.
My phone buzzes with a text from Alex.
ALEX THE GREATEST VBFF
First day details!! Can you make a spicy marg yet? You know they’re my weakness
I should reply, but my eyes are so heavy. Another buzz makes my heart skip.
Alfie Spencer
Meet at admin building. 8am
Four months ago, that message would’ve been perfectly normal. Now it sends butterflies racing through my stomach.
“Don’t be an idiot,” I tell my ceiling. “It’s just community service.”
I set three alarms (because I know myself) and drag my tired body to the shower. The hot water helps my aching muscles, but it also gives my mind time to wander. And lately, all my thoughts seem to lead to Alfie. How he looked in the dean’s office. His tanned arms filling his black t-shirt. The way his eyes found mine during our coffee not-date and made my heart stop.
I work the soap into my shoulder knots, imagining different hands, stronger, larger, more certain. In my mind, Alfie’s standing behind me, his fingers working out the tension in my muscles, his breath hot against my neck-
“Nope!” I turn the water ice cold. “We are not doing this. We’re thinking about drink recipes. Garnish techniques. Literally anything else.”
But back in bed, my skin still tingles. Maybe it’s leftover adrenaline from work. Maybe it’s the way Alfie’s voice gets rough when he’s frustrated. Maybe it’s remembering how his hands felt steadying me earlier, strong and sure.
“Oh, screw it.” I reach for my bedside drawer. Fine. If this is what it takes to get some sleep.
The familiar buzz of my vibrator fills the quiet room. I close my eyes, trying to think of anyone else, that cute guy from my chem lab, the last guy I hooked up with who had an impressive member,anyone. But as pleasure builds, there’s only Alfie. The sharp line of his jaw, those clever hands, the way he says “Tara” in his deep voice that makes my insides swirl.
When I finally come undone, his name falls from my lips like a confession.
Oh boy, have I sinned.
8
ALFIE
My sketchbook is overflowing. Not with landscapes or figures, but with her. Page after page of her. The way the light gets tangled in her hair. The way her hands move when she’s talking too fast, lost in something that sets her on fire. The look she gets right before she tells a joke. She’s everywhere, in every stroke of graphite, every smear of charcoal. And I don’t know if I’m trying to capture her or if I just can’t stop.
Now she’s walking ahead of me, ponytail swinging, completely unaware that she’s already taken up permanent space in my mind. And my fingers twitch. Not just to sketch her again. But to do something about it.
But it’s not just her. It’s the mural. The thing that’s been hijacking my thoughts, keeping me up at night. For the first time in years, I actuallywantto create something. Not just precise, sterile technical drawings of mineral formations. Real art. But this—this isn’t technical drawings or sterile sketches. This is something raw, something that leaves me exposed. The sort of art that peels youopen, that shows the world what’s going on inside your head.
And the scariest part? I don’t know if it’s the art or if it’s her.
But, Spencers don’t do vulnerable. We don’t show our hand, don’t let people see the mess behind the mask. Art used to be my rebellion against that - my way of making sense of things when words fail. The way I survived growing up in a house where feelings were treated like weaknesses to be managed.
I was seven the first time I really created something. Not for school or because someone told me to, but because I needed to. It was the same day I first understood what Spencer love looked like.
I found my father with his secretary in his study. The image still makes me queasy and my head swim. The painting I created that night wasn’t pretty, it was dark colors and harsh lines. It still sits in the back of my closet at home. My mother thought it waslovely, hung it up for a while. She never realized it was my way of processing what I’d seen.
Yeah, I know how it sounds. Poor little rich boy with daddy issues turning to art for therapy. Classic troubled heir bullshit. Doesn’t make it any less true.
Tara spins around, somehow managing to make even that look graceful despite wielding a trash picker. “I think we’ve done enough of this today.” She glances at the half-full trash bag between us. “Coffee break?”
Something in her voice—hopeful, casual—makes me pause. I should say no. Troy’s told me to back off and he’s made it clear what he will do to anybody who hurts his sister. Instead, I hear myself say, “Yeah, okay.”
My phone buzzes in my pocket. Drake. Again. I silence it, but not before Tara notices.
