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Not good in the way self-tapes were usually good, where you could see the effort and appreciate the preparation and tell yourself you'd done a professional job. It was good in the way that meant he had opened something. It was raw and unfinished, as if he cut himself off before he could say more. It was the exact kind of vulnerability that casting directors either ignored completely or couldn't look away from. He looked like a man sitting in a house that was doing something sinister to him. He looked like Cole.

I look like myself, Hakeem thought with a sharp ache.

He didn’t look like the Hakeem who worked at an immersive bar, passing around banter like Halloween candy, and hiding behind humor and the physical charisma he'd been using to distract people from looking too closely. He was scared and wanted things and didn't know if wanting made him brave or just reckless.

Tabbi would have approved. Layla would have cried a little and then made a joke. His father, who supported him but was heartbroken when he left Las Cruces, would have said nothing but given him a shoulder squeeze before leaving the room, which was the Morales family's highest form of praise.

Hakeem opened the submission portal and uploaded the file. Typed his name, his contact info, and a short note that read: Thank you for extending the deadline. This role means something to me, which is probably obvious from the tape and possibly unprofessional to say, but I'm trying to stop editing myself before I've been seen.

He looked at that last sentence for a long time, then hit submit before he could change his mind.

The confirmation page loaded. A small green checkmark appeared. Your submission has been received. We will be in touch if your tape advances.

Hakeem set the phone down.

He lay back on the bed and pressed both hands over his face. Something was happening in his chest. It wasn’t panic or relief, but something in between. The feeling of finally doing the thing you feared, only to discover the fear doesn’t vanish afterward. It just changes shape. It becomes the fear of what happens next, which is less dramatic but somehow worse. At least avoidance had a structure; action just left you open.

He lay there for a while. The house was quiet, but he knew Antonio was still at home, somewhere in it. Maybe he was writing, or thinking. Whatever he was doing, he was definitely still sitting behind his rebuilt composure, and Hakeem felt a twinge he didn’t want to name, something close to jealousy—or worse, longing. Antonio seemed completely unaffected by last night, and Hakeem appreciated it and hated it all the same.

Hakeem pulled his hands from his face and stared at the ceiling.

He should have felt better. He'd done The Thing. The tape was submitted. The brave, uncomplicated, self-affirming act that Tabbi and Layla and even Antonio had told him to do—he had done it, and it was good work. He knew that with the trained certainty of an actor who had learned to distinguish between "I hope that was okay" and "that was the one."

But the house kept pressing in.

The locks Antonio had tested that morning. The paper in the recycling bin, folded neatly. Antonio had kissed him hard enough to draw blood, and contextually, it felt different now. Hallway too narrow—adjust or use kitchen instead? The birthday comment Antonio delivered blasé over one shoulder while walking away. Just making sure the house is secure before then.

Before. Then.

Hakeem sat up.

He picked up his phone and opened the notes app. Not to add a bullet point. He opened the list and read it from the top, slowly, the way you double-check a document before signing it.

Every item was still there. Every observation, instinct, and late-night addition typed with furious thumbs. The list had grown into something that no longer fit on a single screen. He scrolled through it and felt, for the first time, that the evidence he had was enough.

He had the notebook page from the first week. The 27 Club jokes. The writing-down-words. The manuscript featured a character who sounded like him in a house that sounded like theirs. The locks. The research. The birthday countdown that was getting specific enough to feel aimed.

Underneath all of it, braided so tightly into the evidence that separating them would require surgery: the doorframe, kiss, and blood. The sound Antonio made when Hakeem bit him back. The fact that Antonio had said you're disruptive, like it was the truest thing he'd ever admitted, and Hakeem had believed him. Now, believing him felt like the most dangerous thing Hakeem had done in this house. It felt like choosing to slowly boil. What was he willing to risk just for proximity to Antonio, who ran so hot and cold that Hakeem could hardly keep up?

He locked the phone.

He was done collecting. He was done circling and turning over hypotheses while lying in bed, running probability calculations he wasn't qualified to make. He needed to say it out loud. All of it. To Antonio's face. In the house they shared, where Hakeem's life was less a home and more a set.

He was going to confront him, even if it made him look insane. Even if the confrontation destroyed whatever the doorframe had started building between them.

He needed to know.

Hakeem lay back on the bed one more time and closed his eyes.

Tomorrow, Hakeem thought. Tomorrow, he would say it all, out loud.

The house seemed to relax around his resolve. It took on a new form. He would no longer be a passive recipient of whatever Antonio was going to dish out. He felt more alive than ever.

He didn’t want to consider how long that feeling might last.

Chapter Nine

Really?