Page 5 of Collateral Love
“Who are you?” he asked.
I stepped closer, close enough to make it clear I wasn’t asking for space in his world, I was taking it.
“Kenya,” I said. “And you’re too smart to be doing this where amateurs can watch you.”
His gaze flicked over me again—my bag, my clothes, my posture. The way I didn’t fidget. The way I didn’t apologize for being in his face.
“And what makes you think you can tell me what to do?” he asked.
I leaned in, voice dropping, because some truths didn’t belong in the open.
“Because I’m the one who has to live here when you leave,” I said. “And because if you’re going to do business out here, you’re going to do it right.”
Zayden stared at me for a long moment, like he was deciding whether I was a liability or a blessing.
Then he said, “You got a plan?”
I smiled again.
This time, it almost looked like trouble.
“Library,” I said. “Third floor. Seven tonight.”
He didn’t answer right away.
He just watched me like he already knew he was going to show up.
I turned to walk off, and behind me, his voice followed like a shadow.
“Kenya.”
I stopped but didn’t turn around.
“You always this bold?” he asked.
I adjusted the strap of my backpack and kept my eyes forward.
“I’m always this prepared,” I said. “There’s a difference.”
And I walked away knowing two things:
Zayden King was intrigued by me, and if he came to that library, we would be in business together.
The library wasquiet in the way only college libraries ever were—too quiet to be peaceful. It was a ghost town on Friday night. Almost everyone was out celebrating the end of the midterm season. That was why I picked it.
Men like Zayden King respected privacy.
I was on the third floor in the back corner. I reserved a study room with a long oak table scarred with years of restless hands and carved initials. I had my laptop open, notebooks stacked neatly to my left, pen aligned just so that if anyone walked past the room and was watching, they would’ve thought I was waiting on a study partner.
Truly, I was waiting on a reckoning.
He didn’t announce himself. Didn’t clear his throat. Didn’t make noise just to be acknowledged. He stopped at the end of the table and let his presence settle into the space like a weight.
“You’re punctual,” he said.
“So are you,” I replied without looking up.
I felt his eyes on me. His eyes were heavy, assessing, sharper now than they’d been outside. The campus bravado was gone. This was the version of him that Crestwood whispered about.
