Page 23 of What the Leos Burned (BLP Signs of Love #6)

The Climax

Zay stepped out of the black SUV and breathed into the early afternoon breeze. The movie studio lot buzzed with people, but inside, he was still. Focused. Different.

His home studio back in Los Angeles had done what it needed to do.

He was almost finished with the song that had been sitting in his soul since he was a teenager scribbling verses about a girl with honey skin.

Now, he was back to finish this film. Back to do what he came to do. This time with clarity, not ego.

His Balenciaga boots hit the pavement with a steady rhythm as he crossed the lot toward the soundstage.

A few heads turned when he walked in, but he expected that.

He hadn’t been on set in a few days, and from what Kam told him, neither had she .

He wasn’t sure if she’d show up today or even for the remainder of filming.

A part of him hoped she wouldn’t, but another part prayed she would.

Deuce, seated on a crate nearby with a prop mic in hand, smiled when he saw Zay walk into the room.

“Aye, look who decided to come back from his European silent retreat.” He grinned. “Did you find inner peace or just better Wi-Fi?”

Laughter scattered across the room. Zay shook his head and tossed his bag toward the back. “Both.”

Then, he saw her. Love was standing near the lighting rig with Tara. She held a clipboard in her hand and looked polished as always. Their eyes met for the first time in days. She gave him a soft, unsure smile.

He returned it. It wasn’t much, but he could tell that there wasn’t any bad blood. Just . . . space.

Malcolm clapped his hands, drawing everyone to the center.

Zay walked toward the center with his head down, occasionally glancing at Love with each step.

Her hair was straightened and long, with some tucked neatly behind her ear.

Her head remained down as she walked toward Malcolm, like she was deep in thought.

Her brows furrowed slightly with that same look she used to give when something weighed heavy on her mind.

He recognized that look from before. He hoped that his being in the room hadn’t stirred up anything else.

He thought about talking to her again to smooth any tension but quickly dismissed the thought.

The last time he tried, it didn’t end too well.

When he reached the front of where Malcolm stood, he shifted his attention to him.

“Alright, let’s tighten it up for the table read.” Malcolm began. “Deuce, Shai . . . scene thirty-two.”

The sounds of chairs scratching the floor and papers turning filled the room as everyone grabbed their scripts and settled in.

Zay eased into his chair beside Deuce and stretched out a bit before he flipped through the binder of pages.

Although he read further along in the book, he hadn’t made it that far yet.

He’d started reading it again back in L.A.

, late at night when his headphones were off, and the room was quiet, but he still only got about halfway.

He was aware that he fit in to the “illiterate rapper” cliché where “rappers don’t read,” but that wasn’t the case with him.

Thechapters were raw, too real. He thought he knew where it was headed.

The male character was a black man from Detroit, with odds stacked against him.

He joined the military for a better life, and just when the love started heating up between him and the female character, he was deployed.

Zay figured that the rest of the story was about how the male character returned from overseas but left a love interest behind.

When he saw the female main character, he remembered their love for one another, and he stayed. They made it work. Happy ending.

Zay thought he was just being cocky when he assumed the male lead might’ve been inspired by him, but as Shai and Deuce began reading, the lines hit different. More . . . familiar.

The scene opened with soft banter. It felt nostalgic. Safe. Two people reconnecting after years apart. Then came the shift.

He scanned the scene heading again, trying to stay grounded.

INT. SMALL DETROIT APARTMENT – NIGHT.

His jaw clenched as he shook his head.

Nah.

He leaned back in his chair and glanced at the script like it was some puzzle he’d already figured out.

This ain’t real. It’s fiction. Just a story.

Yet, his hands were sweating.

Suddenly, the room seemed quieter. Shai’s voice floated through the stillness. She read like she was speaking directly from the character’s soul.

“I didn’t tell you because I didn’t think I could. You were gone. Half a world away. I didn’t want to make you choose between your dream and . . . us.”

Zay inhaled slow, deep breaths.

His eyes narrowed on the page, suddenly tracing every word, every pause. Every damn comma.

“I imagined you being happy. I thought you were overseas living your life the way you always said you would. I told myself you didn’t need to know.”

No . . .

He blinked and sat up straighter. His heart thudded.

This ain’t—this can’t be ? —

His mind raced backward to when they broke up, when she disappeared. To when he first heard through a mutual friend the news that crushed him internally. He looked up at her.

Love was still. Her hands folded over her script with eyes fixed on Shai but not focused. Her expression looked like something detonated in her chest, and she was just trying to stand through the smoke.

Shai kept reading.

“By the time you came back, you had someone else. You had a new life, a new name. I didn’t want to complicate it. I didn’t want to be another woman from your past, asking for something.”

The air grew thick.

Zay swallowed as his pulse quickened.

“But he was yours,” Shai continued. “From the moment I saw that second line on the test, I knew. But I didn’t know how to tell you.”

That one line stopped time.

His breath caught. His mind spiraled. Second line on the test. Overseas. A woman who stayed quiet. A child . . . who didn’t know.

No.

No, no, no . . .

His gaze snapped to Love, and her expression told it all.

She wasn’t watching the scene anymore. She wasn’t acting. She wasn’t even breathing.

It was as if she was bracing.

He heard through a mutual friend that she had a baby a year later. He’d assumed it was someone else’s and that she had moved on.

In that moment, he knew this wasn’t just a story. He realized he wasn’t reading a script. He was reading a confession.

This is the truth. Her daughter . . . is mine.

His stomach flipped. A pressure built in his chest so heavy, it felt like grief. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. His throat was locked.

The timeline made sense when he thought about it.

There was no way the girl he fell in love with could find and replace him with a man she wouldn’t know enough about to have a child with.

It had been fifteen years, true, but during that first year, surely, she could have been pregnant for nine months.

He pounded his fists on the table with a sharp thump. He stood suddenly, and the chair beneath him screeched loudly on the ground, but his world had just cracked open even louder.

He had to get out.

The members of the cast all turned their heads abruptly toward him, but his back was already turned as he headed toward the door.

A few people jumped from the sudden noise and glanced around at each other puzzlingly.

Deuce silently mouthed to Shai “What just happened?” and she shrugged her shoulders.

Malcolm waved his hand toward the cast. “Keep reading,” he told Shai. “Don’t get distracted.”

Love’s head remained down the entire time. When Malcolm signaled to the cast to keep reading, her head shot up. When Zay reached the door, she slowly scooted her chair backward and moved toward the door after him. The cast watched as she exited the room but didn’t interrupt as Shai kept reading.

She softly shut the door behind them.

Zay was standing in the hallway with his back to her. His fists were clenched at his sides.

He felt Love stepping close, and he heard her arm gently reaching for his.

“Zay . . .”

He turned slowly. His voice came low and strained. “Tell me that wasn’t what I think it was.”

She hesitated for a moment and didn’t answer immediately.

He stared at her with glistening eyes. “So, . . . she’s mine?”

Tears pooled in hers. Her mouth parted once but then closed again. He could tell she was hesitant. Her non-response gave it away, but he still clenched as she spoke.

“Yes.”

The word hit him like a punch to his gut. His chest caved inward as if trying to protect something that had already shattered. A buzzing roared in his ears, louder than the silence between them. He staggered back a step, blinking hard, but the hallway didn’t refocus.

Fifteen years. Nine months of ultrasounds and doctor appointments. Fourteen birthdays. Fourteen years of ‘first days’ of day care and school.

Fourteen chances he never even knew he missed.

His hands trembled as they hovered near his sides, unsure whether to reach for her or push her away. His throat tightened with a heat that rose fast and hard. He felt rage, regret, and disbelief all wrapped around something deeper: grief.

Grief for the father he never got to be.

“All of these years, Princess?” he rasped, voice raw and rising. “Really?”

He shook his head slowly with his jaw clenched like it was the only thing holding him together.

“You looked me in my face all this time . . . and never said a word?”

She opened her mouth to answer, but he wasn’t ready to hear it. His world was spinning. Then, the movie, the music, not even the months of trying to grow felt like it was enough. The one thing that might’ve meant everything . . . was already fifteen years too late.

Zay took a full step back and placed his hands over his head. “You kept a baby—my daughter from me . . . for fifteen years?”

She opened her mouth and tried to explain, but he cut her off, his voice rising. “Fifteen years, Love. I missed everything. First steps. First words. School. All of it.”

“I wanted to tell you so many times,” she cried, “but you were on tour, flying across the world. You had just gotten signed. You were finally making it. Every time I thought about telling you, I’d hear you talk about how you didn’t want to be like your stepdad.

How you never wanted to have kids ’cause you didn’t think you could be a father. ”

“That don’t mean I wouldn’t have tried,” he snapped and clutched his heart. “You should’ve let me decide that.”

“I was eighteen, Zay, and alone. You were gone. You didn’t reach out either.”

“Because you told me never to contact you again!” Zay shouted. “I figured you moved on with your life and was happy. That’s all I ever wanted for you.”

Love shook her head as tears fell from her cheeks. “I was terrified. Yes, I made that choice. I chose to do it by myself. But don’t think for a second that it didn’t break me. I cried every time I looked at her, with your same eyes and nose . . . I wanted you there.”

He looked away, staring off at the far wall like it might hold the answers.

“What happened to the baby you had overseas?” she asked.

He blinked. “What?”

“You told me you got some girl pregnant in Amsterdam.”

He scoffed. “It wasn’t mine. Found out way before she even gave birth.”

Love’s eyes grew wide like she hit a wall she hadn’t seen coming. Her face dimmed with disbelief. She looked as if confusion was something that weighed heavy on her, then she exhaled. The tears fell freely from her face as the silence grew between them.

Zay put his head down and quickly wiped a tear that threatened to spill from his eyes. His lips pressed into a thin line, then parted again like he might speak, but nothing came out. Neither of them spoke for a moment.

He finally tilted his head up at her, and suddenly, he no longer saw the grown woman that was controlled and poised that he had grown to know over the past few months.

Now, he only saw that same teenage girl that had once been his entire world.

The girl that had carried a piece of him without him for all these years without him ever knowing.

He didn’t yell again. He just stepped back.

“I need to go.”

She nodded, and tears slipped quietly down her cheek. “Okay.”

He gave her one final look, hurt and heavy, then walked away.

Love stood in the hallway, alone again.

This time, she let herself break.