"Yeah." She was already rifling through her suitcase for fresh clothes, completely unbothered. "I an, we have to live sowhere as a couple. It’s definitely not going to be your shoebox apartnt."
"Why not?" he demanded, sitting up fully now, affronted.
Queen turned to him, one eyebrow arched high.
"Well, uh... my house is bigger. Way bigger. With better lighting. And a pool. And no neighbors... We can make all the noise we want when we have... " She gave him a sly look. "...a loud orgasm."
Drake flushed, recalling exactly how loud she had gotten last night and how many tis.
Still, he wasn’t about to just roll over without a fight.
"We don’t need a big house," he argued stubbornly, crossing his arms. "It’s just the two of us. We can survive without a tennis court and three guest bedrooms."
"I will not be staying at your apartnt, Drake. Period." Queen said from the bathroom doorway, waving her hairbrush. "When you get a better house, we can revisit this conversation."
Drake’s jaw practically hit the floor. "I’m not staying at your house either! I have a ho. A perfectly acceptable ho!"
Queen raised a regal eyebrow, totally unimpressed.
"Oh sure," she said, laughing under her breath.
Drake’s nostrils flared.
"What do you think people will say about when I pack up my bags and move into your house like so kept man?" he demanded, sounding scandalized.
Queen’s eyes twinkled with mischief.
"They’ll say you finally stepped up in life," she tossed over her shoulder, then disappeared behind the door with a sharp click.
The finality of the door slamming felt like a punch to Drake’s dignity. He stood there for a full ten seconds, mouth hanging open, his soul temporarily leaving his body.
"What the actual fuck?" he finally muttered, running a hand down his face.
He grabbed his phone, desperate for sanity, and hit dial on Chayara’s number again.
Straight to voicemail.
He stared at the phone like it had personally betrayed him.
*****
anwhile, across town, Chayara sat nervously at the window of her favorite coffee shop, a cappuccino clutched between both hands.
She checked her watch for the fifteenth ti. ’The guy’ her dad had sent was late. She didn’t even know his na. Just "the guy."
She was about to give up and leave when the bell above the door jingled and in walked trouble with the brownest eyes she had ever seen in her life.
Chayara almost inhaled her coffee the wrong way. She coughed, sputtered, and tried to regain so dignity as he approached.
"Hi!" he said with a smile that could lt glaciers. "Are you Chayara Nuro?"
Chay nodded, slightly starstruck, still gripping her coffee.
"What’s your na?" Chayara managed to ask.
"Guy Pique," he replied, offering a warm smile.
Chayara blinked, montarily taken aback. "Your na is actually Guy? You’re not just a guy?"
"I assure you, Miss Nuro, I am and will always be just a guy. But my na is also Guy. Bla my parents. It’s pronounced ’Gi,’ but people take one look at the spelling and just mispronounce it, so I went with it."
Chayara chuckled, the tension easing from her shoulders. "I’d rather call you Gi."
"Okay, ma’am. So, talk to . You’re a designer. What’s your dream?" Gi urged, leaning forward with genuine interest.
Chayara smiled, feeling a spark of excitent. "I’m not a ma’am. I’m just ...Chay."
Gi’s eyes twinkled. "Your father asked to build you a brand to rember. First thing is to never downplay your worth."
"Yes, sir!" she responded, mock saluting.
"Now, let’s begin."
*****
There were three days left of the honeymoon, and Drake already felt the walls closing in. He had his first squabble as a married man. His wife expected him to move into her house because his wasn’t good enough.
Chay wasn’t picking up her calls, so yes, there he was, banging on her apartnt door. She opened it, surprised to see him there.
"Shouldn’t you still be on your honeymoon?" she asked, arms crossed.
Drake stepped around her into the room, waiting for her to shut the door.
"You aren’t picking your calls. Why aren’t you picking your calls?" Drake asked. He stood awkwardly by the arm of the couch.
"I was busy," Chay answered simply, curling her legs up on the couch.
Drake frowned. "And you couldn’t return it when you were... unbusy?"
"I didn’t want to," she said.
Drake’s face twisted, as if she’d slapped him. "What... what is going on, Chay? Talk to ."
"Nothing’s going on," she said. "I just want to focus on myself now that my friends are married to each other. I don’t want to be the third wheel. It’s awkward."
"Chay..." Drake took a deep breath. "You could never be a third wheel. You’re... you’re part of us."
Chay scoffed. "There’s always a rallying cry around Queen. She sses up, we clean it up. She gets into trouble, we all roll out the support squad. And I know—I know I’m guilty of it too. But for once, I want to choose . Everyone who’s ever looked out for is either dead or in jail, Drake. I’ve got to look out for now."
Drake paced, one hand dragging through his hair while the other gestured wildly, as if trying to pull the answers out of the air. "Chay, you aren’t making any sense."
She tilted her head and gave a bitter half-smile. "Aren’t I?"
"I did what a good friend would do," he said, quieter now. "I stepped up when Queen was about to self-destruct. I would’ve done the sa for you. You know that, right?"
Her eyes t his. "Would you?" she asked, the words coming out soft and fragile. "But you don’t love , Drake. So why would you?"
"Do you, Chay? Do you love ?"
And there it was—the question that made all her emotional retreating and phone dodging make sense. The question that wrapped her throat in barbed wire and made her pulse do backflips.
She didn’t answer. Not right away. She just stared at him, eyes wide, lips parted, unsure whether to run or confess.
"Because," Drake added, taking a cautious step forward, "that’s the only thing that would make sense in how you’ve been acting."
Chay looked down at her hands, twisting her fingers.
"It doesn’t matter."
"Chay... Oh my God," Drake said, as if he’d just been hit by an emotional freight train he should’ve seen coming five years ago.
"I said it doesn’t matter, Drake," she repeated, firr this ti.
Drake ran both hands through his already disheveled hair, his breath coming in short, ragged bursts. "Oh God," he muttered again, pacing.
Chay turned her face away. She had learned a long ti ago to cry in silence. But this... this was a different pain.
"I think you should leave," she said softly.
Drake hesitated, his body still, but his mind scrambling in a dozen directions. He may have just detonated a nuclear bomb on the beautiful, bizarre little trio they had ford.
"Chay..." he began, dragging his feet closer to her. "I’m sorry. I should have been more sensitive. I should’ve known. I should’ve seen it. You were always there. Always... constant."
"What would you have done differently?" she asked, finally uncurling her legs from the couch, standing with surprising steadiness. "If you had known?"
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