Page 13 of Love Letters from a Libra (BLP Signs of Love #13)

Notes app – Her place looks lived in on purpose. Comfortable. I didn’t want to leave. That’s new.

This wasn’t the first time I’d spent the night with a woman, but it might be the first time I felt this peculiar sense of rightness the morning after.

Usually, I was planning my exit strategy, mentally reclaiming my solitude.

Still, now, watching Zanaa steep tea with the same focus I brought to my security protocols.

I felt something take root, a desire to stay and integrate into her mornings rather than retreat to my own.

Last night replayed in my mind, her body moving with mine, the way she arched against me, and how she cried out my name like it was something sacred.

It wasn’t just the physical connection that had undone me.

It was the way she looked at me afterward, like she was seeing all of me, not just the parts I curated for display, but the shadows, too, and instead of turning away, she drew closer.

“Morning, Moon Man.” Zanaa’s voice startled me from my thoughts. She was in front of me, handing me a mug.

I took the mug, our fingers touching in a way that shouldn’t have felt significant, but somehow, it did. “Moon Man?”

“Mm-hmm. You have a gravitational pull like the moon on the tides.”

The name settled into my chest, warming me even more than the hot tea I was drinking. It was intimate in a way that made my breath catch. Not because it was particularly romantic, but because it suggested she’d been watching me too.

“I like watching you move through your space. Everything here feels intentional,” I admitted, surprising myself with honesty.

Zanaa smiled, reaching up to brush a loc back from my face. Her touch was confident. “That’s high praise coming from Mr. Everything-in-its-place.”

I followed her back to bed, where we sat cross-legged, facing each other, mugs cradled in our hands. The sheets were pooled around her waist, and her skin was golden in the morning light.

“Did you sleep okay?” she asked, studying my face.

“Better than I had in a while,” I answered truthfully.

I felt peace, waking up in this chaotic space that should’ve made my orderly soul wince.

Bigger than any security breach I’d ever encountered because it suggested that what I’d been seeking through control and precision might actually be found in surrender.

In the messiness of connection and allowing someone else’s system to overlay my own.

I’d been a rock for troubled women before. I knew exactly how to hold onto someone who was falling apart, how to be the steady center to someone else’s storm, but this being chosen by someone who didn’t need saving was uncharted territory.

Zanaa leaned forward and pressed a kiss to my cheek, lingering just long enough for me to catch her scent again. “You’re thinking very loudly,” she murmured against my skin.

“Just processing,” I said, my voice rougher than I intended.

I set the mug down on her nightstand, aware that my body was already shifting, tensing subtly as self-preservation kicked in. My shoulders straightened almost imperceptibly. My breathing became more measured, and the vulnerability of the night before slid behind a familiar mask of calm capability.

“I should probably get going. I’m meeting my sister for lunch,” I noted, glancing at the clock.

It wasn’t a lie. I did have plans with Amir today, but it wasn’t the whole truth either. The real truth was, I needed space to process what was happening between us, to rebuild the walls that the one night in her bed had already begun to erode.

I nodded. There was no disappointment or suspicion visible in her expression. “Tell her I said hi, even though we’ve never met,” she said with a smile that suggested she saw through me but chose not to press the issue.

That was another thing that frightened me. She didn’t grasp or cling, didn’t try to extract promises or extensions. She simply accepted making space for my retreat without making me feel guilty. It was so different from what I was used to. I didn’t quite know how to navigate it.

As I gathered my belongings, I slipped on my shirt and checked for my keys and wallet.

I felt her watching me, not with anxiety or insecurity, but with a quiet attention that she brought to everything.

I wondered what she saw in my movements, what my body was saying, and what my words were avoiding.

“I’ll text you later,” a phrase that was used as if it were a question rather than a promise.

Zanaa nodded, pulling the sheet back onto her as she settled against the pillows. “I’d like that.”

Three simple words, free of demand or manipulation. The simplicity of it made my chest ache with longing.

A few hours later, after I’d gone home and showered, I entered the Fourth Avenue Grill.

It hadn’t changed in the decade that I’d been coming here, and it had the same cramped tables and photos of celebrities on the walls.

There was history in the air. My sister already had a table in the corner with two mugs in front of her.

She sat scrolling through her phone with the intensity she brought to everything. I could tell Amir was in analysis mode even from across the room.

“Well, well. Someone spent the night elsewhere,” she said without even looking up as I slid into the seat across from her.

I reached for the coffee. She had already ordered black, no sugar for me, and I took a careful sip. “Good morning to you too.”

My sister was younger at twenty-two, but often seemed decades wiser. Her braids were pulled back in a neat ponytail, and her MIT sweatshirt hung loosely on her frame, but there was nothing casual about the way she examined me.

“You look different. Relaxed but trying not to be. You’re doing that thing with your jaw,” she declared.

I resisted the urge to check what “thing” my jaw was apparently doing. “Can we at least order before the interrogation starts?”

“You’re falling for her for real.” Amir grinned, leaning back in her chair.

The statement landed like a missile strike.

“It’s not that simple,” I replied.

“It never is with you, but I know that look. The last time I saw it was when you brought Candace to Aunt Nubi’s birthday.” Amir sipped her coffee, which I knew was probably a complicated concoction of whipped cream and caramel that made my teeth hurt just looking at it.

The mention of my ex tightened something in my chest. “This is different.”

“Different how?”

Before I answered, the server appeared. An older woman who had been working here since before I was born. She remembered my order without needing to write it down. After she left, Amir leaned forward with her elbows on the table, her chin propped up on her hands.

“Different how?” she pressed.

I considered how to explain Zanaa to someone who hadn’t met her and how to capture her essence without revealing too much about her. “She’s not needy; she’s self-contained and has her whole life figured out.”

“Ah, that’s new territory for you. She doesn’t need saving.”

“I don’t have a savior complex,” I protested, though the words sounded hollow, even to me.

“Please. You’ve been rescuing people since you were nine years old and then decided I was your responsibility after Mom died. It was your whole thing.” She scoffed.

I didn’t argue her point. We’d had this conversation before, Amir trying to release me from a burden.

I never saw it as a burden, and I insisted that looking out for her was just what brothers were supposed to do.

Instead, I watched the condensation form on my water glass, tracing patterns that reminded me of how Zanaa had traced my tattoos last night with her fingers, following the tribal lines with reverent curiosity.

“Tell me about her, the real stuff, not the resume version.” Amir smiled.

I hesitated, remembering the last time I opened up about someone and how I talked about Candace for hours, detailing all the ways she fascinated and challenged me.

Amir had listened patiently before warning me about the intensity in my voice and the signs of hyper fixation she had recognized from our childhood.

I hadn’t listened. The crash and burn that followed had proven her right.

“The last time I talked too much about someone, she slipped away before I could even show her the real me,” I replied carefully.

Amir’s expression shifted to something gentler, the teasing edge temporarily gone. “Candace didn’t leave because you talked about her. She left because you gave and gave until you had nothing left and then blamed yourself for being empty.”

The truth stung. Our food arrived, giving me a moment to compose myself. Amir dove into her pancakes while I pushed the eggs around on my plate. My appetite suddenly diminished.

“I like her laugh. It’s different when she is being polite versus when something really hits her, and she has a way of seeing things that reminds me of you, actually, but softer, less analytical,” I found myself saying.

Amir grinned around a mouthful of pancake. “High praise, comparing her to me.”

“She runs an astrology blog, Celestial Body. It’s actually really good, not the horoscope nonsense from the magazines, but how she sees people, really sees them.”

“Including you?” Amir raised an eyebrow.

I thought about how Zanaa had looked at me this morning, how she called me Moon Man with the smile that suggested she’d been studying me when I wasn’t looking. “Yeah, including me.”

“That’s what scares you, isn’t it? Not that she needs saving, but that she sees the part of you that you hide from everyone else.” Amir’s voice was gentle but knowing.