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“Yeah,” we said at the same time…

SEVEN

The room was still thick with her.

The air hadn’t moved since she stepped out. Her voice was still in the walls—wrapped around the bassline, stitched into the breath between my bars.

I sat on the edge of the studio couch, palms flat on my thighs, letting the silence settle where her sound had just been. Mychest still buzzed from it. My skin still knew the shape of her tone.

She didn’t just sing.She revealed.

Every note felt like it cost her something—not pain, but presence. And when our voices touched in that booth… it wasn’t just music. It was memory. It was want. It was the closest thing to sex I’d ever felt with my clothes on.

And I felt it in my chest. In my neck. In the base of my spine.

Shit.

I dragged a hand down my jaw and exhaled through my nose—just as the door opened.

“Yo,” Amir called out, stepping in with that easy grin he always wore.

And behind him—Amaya.

Long box braids tied loose at the nape of her neck. Silver hoops. Soft cream sweater falling off one shoulder. She looked like calm personified. Like grace.

“Hey,” she said, her voice drifting over the space like smoke.

“Hey,” I returned, standing to give her a half-hug.

She used to stir something in me. Back when I was all want and no wisdom, which wasn’t that long ago to be honest. I mistook peace for conquest. But then I watched her with Amir. The way he softened around her. The way she saw through him and still held him steady.

That wasn’t lust. That was sacred. And I never wanted to be the man who tried to breach that.

But standing here now, with Amaya in the room and Sienna’s sound still moving in my bones, I realized something.

I wanted something like that. Something that moved slow. That opened me without warning. Something with weight.

“Where’s Sienna?” Amaya asked, glancing around.

“She just stepped out to take a call,” Amir answered.

As if on cue, the door opened again.

And there she was. They greeted each other like women who recognized depth when they saw it. Sienna complimented her art. Amaya returned it with praise of her voice.

“Y’all wanna grab food?” Amaya offered. “My treat.”

I hesitated. So did Sienna.

I didn’t mix work and personal—too many blurred lines but then I looked at Sienna. And she wasn’t just watching Amaya.

She was soaking something in.

Maybe needing a night that didn’t ask her to perform or prove.

A night to just breathe.

I shrugged. “I know a spot.”