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Hakeem frowned. “What?”

“Toni,” she said. “Would.”

He stared at her. “You don’t even know what Toni looks like. There’s never an author photo, and their online presence is minimal. Trust me, I’ve tried. What kind of author isn’t on social media?” Hakeem mused.

“Well, that’s exactly it,” Layla said. “I’m horny for the mystique.”

Tabbi said, without inflection, “Author photos are often disappointing.”

“So you understand my point of view,” Layla said.

Hakeem snorted despite himself, then reached for his apron. “I am not participating in this conversation.”

“You already did,” Layla said. “You gave an entire little eulogy about longing and dread.”

“That is not what happened.”

Layla wiggled the paperback. “No? Because it kind of sounded like you were talking about wanting to get pinned against a bannister in a cursed house.”

Heat flashed up Hakeem’s neck so quickly it felt chemical.

“That was an insane sentence,” he said.

“Was it inaccurate?”

He opened his mouth, then closed it again.

Tabbi looked between them, unmoved. “Can we all survive one shift before turning this into a workplace HR incident?”

Layla laughed and tucked the book under the register. “Fine. But I’m right.”

Hakeem tied his apron harder than necessary.

The house was quiet when he got home.

Not ominous quiet. Just late quiet. The kind that made the old place feel its age and announce it to anyone near. Antonio had left a single lamp on in the living room, throwing warm, low light across the couch and the crowded bookshelf beside it.

Antonio’s shoes were by the door. He was home.

Hakeem locked the front door, dropped his keys in the bowl on the entry table, and stood there for a second longer than necessary.

The bookshelf caught his eye mostly because of the work conversation, if he was being honest. Toni had been in the air all evening, and now there was a shelf full of books in a house that had begun to feel crowded with tiny details.

He wandered over.

A couple of niche poetry collections. Film books that surprised and impressed him. A battered copy of Audition with notes sticking out of it. A few horror paperbacks with cracked spines. Then there it was. His favorite Toni. He pulled it free before he could overthink it.

Of course, it was Mercy House. Of course, this beautiful, intriguing, slightly frightening man had read Hakeem’s favorite, and by the looks of the spine, he had read it many times.

He opened the cover, more out of idle nosiness than anything else, and found pencil markings in the margins. Sparse, but unmistakable. A line under one paragraph. Two words written beside another.

too early

A few pages later:

He should have looked longer

Hakeem frowned and turned one more page. He had strong opinions about annotations.