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— the writing is good

He stared at those four words longer than any of the others.

He locked the phone and set it facedown on the mattress.

Through the wall, silence. Antonio was either reading, writing, or sitting very still in his room, knowing something had shifted by a quarter of an inch.

Hakeem lay back and looked at the ceiling.

His violent theory had not collapsed. If anything, it had grown a new wing. He was no longer dealing with a man who kept a cryptic notebook and knew too much about load-bearing walls. He was dealing with a man who had turned their shared house into a workspace and Hakeem into raw material, all while cooking him dinner and asking him about his favorite books with a face that made thinking difficult.

Hakeem was not reassured by the existence of an editor. If anything, the editor made it worse. An editor meant drafts; drafts meant process; process meant Antonio had been doing this for long enough to develop a system, and the system apparently included living with the source material and watching it make drinks in an apron.

He pressed both hands over his face.

The worst part—the part that made him want to throw his phone at the wall and then apologize to the phone—was that the writing had been good enough to make him feel something other than violated. There had been a moment, reading that kitchen scene, when he had felt seen in a way that was closer to tenderness than surveillance. The character on the page was not mocked or reduced. He was rendered with care. With the kind of attention that suggested the writer found him not just useful but genuinely, inconveniently interesting.

Hakeem hated that he'd noticed.

He hated more that it mattered.

Chapter Six

Little Fish

Hakeem texted Layla at nine in the morning, which she would later describe as "profoundly suspicious behavior from a man who does not believe in the sun before eleven."

HAKEEM:

Can you meet for lunch?

Three dots appeared immediately.

LAYLA:

absolutely

are you dying

HAKEEM:

…no

LAYLA:

are you sure because you just used punctuation

HAKEEM:

Layla

LAYLA:

taquería gloria on cypress at noon. if you're not there by 12:30 i'm eating your order in front of u while u cry

He got there first, which felt like a small, much-needed personal victory until he remembered that arriving early to a taco stand was not exactly an accomplishment. Who wouldn’t arrive early to a taco stand?

Taquería Gloria was a faded yellow building wedged between a tire shop and a laundromat on a block that smelled like diesel and grilled onion in equal measure. The awning was sun-bleached to the color of weak lemonade. Three plastic tables sat outside under it, bolted to the concrete in a way that suggested prior theft attempts. A hand-painted sign in the window read BREAKFAST MOST OF THE DAY in letters that had been retouched enough times to look like they were vibrating.