Page 59 of Collateral Love
Instead, he pushed his chair back and came around the table. He didn’t crowd me; he wasn’t stupid. He just pulled out the chair beside mine and sat, long legs taking up more space than they needed, warmth radiating off his body in waves.
“Move,” he said quietly.
I shifted the map toward him; his arm brushed mine. My nerves went on high alert like this was a threat situation when it was just proximity.
He glanced down, eyes flicking over routes, timings, and margins. His finger tapped one intersection.
“You already solved this,” he said. “You adjusted it yesterday.”
“I was revisiting.”
“Kenya.” His tone sharpened just enough to cut through my defenses. “You double-check. You don’t triple-check unless something's off.”
“It is off,” I snapped. “We expanded volume. We added three new runners. Campus security tightened patrols on the north side. The system is heavier, the environment is different, and if I don’t adjust the math properly, somebody ends up in cuffs or a casket. So yeah, I triple-check.”
He let me finish. Let the words hang between us. Then he nodded slowly.
“I hear all that,” he said. “But that’s not the only reason you starin’ at the same damn square.”
My jaw tightened. “You think you know me that well now?”
“Yeah,” he said simply. “I do.”
I hated how my chest reacted to that. I felt a stupid little ache, like something inside me clenched around the truth of it.
He shifted in his chair, angling his body toward me fully.
“You don’t ever slow down unless something scares you,” he said. “You don’t call it fear, ‘cause you think that’s some weakshit. You call it ‘margin of error.’ You call it ‘planning.’ But I see it, lil’ mama. You tense as fuck.”
I forced myself to meet his gaze. “You think I’m scared?”
“I think you finally realize how much you hold,” he said. “And that shit can feel heavy.”
The room felt smaller suddenly.
I hated being seen. Not the surface-level attention I got from thirsty boys and jealous girls. I hated being seen in the way Zayden was looking at me, as if he was reading the part of the graph nobody was supposed to notice.
“I don’t have time to be scared,” I said.
He nodded once. “Yeah. That’s your problem.”
I dropped my pen and sat back, shoulders stiff. “What do you want from me right now, Zay? You want me to admit I’m exhausted? That I’ve been juggling so much shit, I don’t remember the last time I slept more than three hours. That if I fuck this up, my sister’s future, the money for my brother’s appeal, and your whole operation gets crushed under white folks’ ‘zero tolerance policy’?”
I laughed, sharply. “Congratulations. You're right. I’m tired. I’m terrified. And I can’t stop.”
His eyes softened. “You can, though.”
“No,” I said. “I can’t.”
He leaned forward, forearms braced on his knees. “If you fall apart for five minutes, the world doesn’t end, Kenya. Product still moves. Money still hits. My name still holds weight. X is still my brother. Your sister still looks at you like you hung the fuckin’ moon. The math doesn’t evaporate ‘cause you exhaled.”
I swallowed. My throat felt thick.
“That’s not how it worked in my house,” I said quietly.
It slipped out before I could stop it.
He went still.
