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“The rest of it isn’t yours.”

There was no cruelty in the line. It was a factual statement from a person with edges, asserting his right to privacy. A person inconveniently made fuller in Hakeem’s mind by the existence of a boundary.

Hakeem nodded once. “Right.”

Antonio held his gaze for one more second. “Goodnight, Hakeem.”

Then he waited.

It was only after a beat that Hakeem realized Antonio was giving him room to leave first.

Chapter Four

He Keeps Writing Me Down

The night Hakeem got home late from covering a minor role he had not wanted in the first place, the house was awake in all the wrong ways.

The porch light was on, drawing a slow orbit of moths that kept hurling themselves at the yellow glass like tiny doomed stunt performers. The front steps still held the day’s heat in the wood, and the air had turned cooler in that late-September Los Angeles way. It could almost trick a person into romance if the telephone wires overhead did not keep reminding them where they were. Down the street, a low rider passed with music playing loud enough to feel in the ribs.

Hakeem let himself in with the specific exhaustion of someone who'd spent hours feigning gratitude for an opportunity he hated.

Understudy.

Even the word irritated him. It sounded apologetic. It sounded like a person standing offstage with his shoes on, waiting for someone else’s disaster to become his big moment. Hakeem did not want disaster-adjacent access. He wanted to be chosen on purpose.

He dropped his keys in the bowl by the door, pausing for a second in the dim front hall, the sour aftertaste of fake blood and stage smoke still coating the back of his throat. The Last Cue had done a late rehearsal run for an expanded scene in one of the immersive sets, and Tabbi had decided at the last second that Hakeem should cover for Tyler, who had called out with what Layla privately described as “a mysterious heterosexual emergency.”

So Hakeem had spent two hours stepping into a role with six lines and one extremely stupid death collapse, then had been told afterward by Tabbi that he brought “convincing emotional fragility” to the moment.

Which, frankly, could have ruined a lesser man’s whole evening.

The house smelled wrong—briny and sharp, like the ocean had been dragged inland and pinned to the kitchen counter. Underneath that, lime, and something green and raw like a jalapeño split open.

Hakeem followed the smell.

Antonio was at the counter with his sleeves pushed to the elbows and a knife in his hand. Not a small knife. A wide, heavy-bladed cleaver that looked loaded and efficient. The cutting board in front of him was wet. A bowl of quartered limes sat to one side, and a stack of dried chiles sat on the other. Between them, arranged on a sheet of newspaper, were three live crabs.

Hakeem stopped in the doorway.

The crabs were moving. It wasn’t horribly dramatic. It didn’t look like they were staging an escape or making a case for their survival. They shifted, legs clicking against the newspaper, claws opening and closing with the resigned energy of creatures who understood the general direction of the evening.

Antonio glanced up. "You're home."

"What is happening in this kitchen?"

"Dinner."

"That is currently alive."

"Not for long."

Antonio picked up the nearest crab with his left hand, holding it from behind, so the claws couldn't reach him—a practiced grip that Hakeem found both impressive and viscerally alarming. He flipped it onto its back with a quick, easy motion. The crab's legs waved once. Antonio set the tip of the knife at the center of the shell and pressed down in one firm, decisive stroke.

The movement took less than a second. The crab went still.

Hakeem's hand found the wall.

"Aguachile de jaiba," Antonio said, setting the crab aside and reaching for the next one. "My mother’s recipe. The crab is served raw, so it has to be fresh. A knife through the center is the fastest way." He looked up at Hakeem. "Most humane, too."