Page 73 of Definitely Not a Thing

“You’re not still in character are you?”

“Should I be?” he asked, wagging his eyebrows as he unlocked his door and stepped inside, clearly intending for me to follow.

So… I did.

As many times as he’d been inmyapartment, I’d never been in his.

It was less… bachelor-y than I expected.

There wasn’t anything gray in sight – it was dominated by warm wood tones and a surprising amount of plants. There were touches of orange and black – tasteful nods to his team colors that wouldn’t necessarily register as out of place with the rest of the palette.

And it wasclean.

Nice.

“Here,” Calvin said, and I turned to find him extending a gift bag in my direction.

“This is from the party?” I asked, confused as I accepted it.

It washeavy.

“Nah,” he said. “This is a littlethank youfor doing me this solid tonight.”

Eyebrow raised, I took it to the counter and peeked into the bag, gasping a little as I pulled the tissue aside. “Now how in the world did you know I would love this?” I asked, pulling out a bottle of an ultra-bougie, artisanal version of my favorite cocktail mixer.

“That night on the balcony,” he answered. “Remember, you picked the pineapple lemonade flavor, cause you thought it might be similar to a lemon drop. So when I saw a bottle at Nectar, I thought about you… figured you might like it.”

I grinned. “You figuredveryright,” I told him. “In fact… the lemon drop I was having when I heard those niggas hating… I did not get to enjoy it properly. Tell me you have vodka.”

“I do.”

“Then… let’s drink,” I suggested, already cracking the seal on the bottle.

“Bet,” Calvin agreed, already moving for his liquor cabinet. Ten minutes later, we were perched on the couch with our drinks – I’d run next door to switch out of my dress into lounge clothes, and when I came back, he’d already done the same.

“This isnuts,” I groaned after I’d taken a first sip. It was the perfect blend our sour and sweet, the vodka was smooth, the citrus was vibrant… “you did your biggest with this one. Thank you.”

“Thankyou,” he countered. “Like I said – I appreciate you being Team Calvin, even if it’s just for one night.”

I started to respond to that, but my phone chimed – a quick glance told me it was Kae.

Sending a picture.

Frowning, I navigated to the message to find that it was a screenshot… from some gossip account on social media, with a picture of me and Calvin.

“So it begins,” I said, holding up the phone to show him the image. “Good thing we kinda expected this, right?”

He nodded, taking a sip from his drink. “Yeah, we knew it was coming… it’s not going to make any trouble for you, right?”

“Trouble with who? I’m grown,” I laughed. “Andverysingle.”

“So we broke up?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Huh?”

“You saidverysingle,” he explained, leaning forward. “like you really needed it emphasized that you’re a free woman, and I’m just trying to understand when that happened. I thought we were in character?”

“Even now?”