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"It should have! That's basically a sonnet!"

Hakeem let out a laugh that came out closer to a sound of pain. Layla squeezed his wrist.

"Hey," she said. "Look at me."

He met her gaze.

"He likes you. Honestly, it sounds like he more than likes you,” she said, leaning forward. “The man who wrote your favorite book likes you, and I know you like him. It’s obvious, babe. And yes, you accused him of murder, which is objectively insane, and I will be making fun of you for it for the rest of your life. But Hakeem—he likes you. That part is real."

"I don't know what to do with that!" Hakeem put his hands in his hair.

"You go home, and you talk to him."

"But I just left?" Hakeem let the question hang in the air, though he knew the answer.

"Then go back. That's how this works. You leave here and go back, except this time you know something you didn't know before."

"What do I know now?"

"That he's not going to kill you. He writes beautiful, disturbing, psychological horror. And that he looks at you the way you described, which, for the record, is how someone looks at a person they're in love with, not a person they're writing a murder plan about."

Hakeem stared at the water in his hand. "I praised his work. To his face. While he was standing there, knowing I was talking about his book."

Layla pressed her lips together. "That is—yes. I could see how that might feel humiliating."

"Thank you."

"But also kind of romantic?"

"Layla."

"I'm just saying! You gave the man the most sincere, passionate review of his life, and he was standing right there falling for you while you said it. That's not embarrassing, that's a scene in a book. His book, probably."

Hakeem put the water down and leaned back into the couch. The ceiling of Layla's apartment had a water stain that looked like a bird, or possibly a continent, depending on how much emotional damage you'd sustained recently and projected onto it.

"He said the jokes were about our age gap," Hakeem said. "He was watching someone younger be talented and not know it. He made shitty jokes because he didn't know what else to do with what he was feeling."

Layla was quiet for a moment. "That makes sense."

"It makes sense now! It didn't make sense when he repeatedly insinuated I might not survive October. While cooking for me."

"Context is everything,” Layla stressed.

"Context nearly killed me."

They sat with that. Layla pulled the quilt off the chair and draped it over Hakeem's legs without him asking, an instinct she had when she knew talking had reached its limit and presence was all that was left.

Hakeem stared at the ceiling.

"I'm jealous of him," he said.

Layla looked at him. "Of Antonio?"

"Of Toni. Both. He's a real artist, Layla. He has an editor and books on shelves and people talking about him at bars. He's doing the thing I came to this city to do, except he's doing it basically right next to me."

"Did you submit the self-tape?"

"I submitted one self-tape after a month of avoidance while he's been publishing novels."