Page 9 of What the Leos Burned (BLP Signs of Love #6)

Let the Past Be The Past

Zay sat on the edge of the conference chair and bounced one leg to the rhythm of his nerves.

The quiet of the meeting room only made it worse.

Sunlight streamed through tall windows and caught the dust that floated in the air.

Everything felt still. It had been almost three weeks since The Culture Circuit.

Three weeks since he’d seen Princess. He didn’t know what his deal was.

He hadn’t seen her in fifteen years before then; however, he had been on edge all morning, anticipating this meeting.

He remained in Atlanta, at his suite at the DoubleTree, for the past three weeks. Kam and Simone flew back home to Los Angeles, with only Kam who returned for the meeting just this morning.

“You about to crack the damn floor, bro,” Kam mumbled from the chair beside him, although his eyes remained glued to his phone. “Why you movin’ like you on trial?”

Zay didn’t respond. Maybe, he thought, in a way, he was.

Across the large conference table in the room, Malcolm flipped through his production packet and nodded silently to himself. Everyone was early. Except her.

Suddenly, the door opened. Zay looked up.

Love stepped in with a quiet command. She wore a cream blouse tucked into sleek black slacks, and her silver heels glinted beneath her.

Her curls were pinned into a high bun with a few strands framing her face.

She looked like she belonged here, powerful and confident.

Tara was at her side, whispering quickly into her earpiece, multitasking with practiced ease.

Zay couldn’t look away. She caught his gaze for a second—just long enough to acknowledge him—before she turned to greet Malcolm and Kam with a polite smile.

She walked around the table and sat on the opposite side of Zay, directly in front of him.

“Y’all ready for magic?” Malcolm asked. He stood and then rubbed his hands together. “We’re officially greenlit. Timeline’s tight, but if we lock in this creative direction now, we’re talkin’ premiere by next fall.”

He grabbed a remote off the table and pointed it to the projector that hung in the middle of the room on the ceiling. A TV monitor turned on across the room, and a table chart with graphs and timelines flashed across the screen.

“Scoring will run alongside production,” Simone added, appearing on the screen’s right corner via Zoom, live from Los Angeles.

“Zay, you’ll work closely with our chief editor, Mrs. Love T.

herself. A few scenes will be in post as early as next month.

We want the tone to feel rich. Textured.

The music needs to breathe with her words.

It shouldn’t take you two more than a few weeks. ”

Zay and Love both grew nervous at the news, but each remained poised. She nodded and crossed her arms as she listened. He sat up straighter in the chair and swung it side to side.

“It’s a slow-burn love story,” Simone continued, glancing toward Zay. “Character-driven. Some heavy moments, some soft ones. It’s about grief, healing, and choosing joy, even when it’s hard to.”

Malcolm added, “We want the score to feel like memory. Layered. Bittersweet. Some scenes will be completely silent outside the music.”

Simone chimed back in through the screen. “We don’t need noise. We need emotion.”

Zay nodded slowly. “I hear you.”

“Good,” Malcolm said. He flipped to another page in his binder. “Contract draft’s in your inbox, Kam. Expect six months minimum collaboration, maybe longer if we align on a second project.”

“Let’s make something beautiful,” Kam stated through a smile. “Real beautiful.”

From there, the conversation shifted into business. More timelines, campaign launch dates, and promotional rollouts. Everyone played their part. Kam cracked a few jokes, Simone walked through release windows, and Tara ducked out twice to take calls and make sure Love’s next panel was on schedule.

Love stayed mostly quiet. But her eyes kept drifting to him.

When the meeting was over, Malcolm was the first to leave the room after ending the Zoom with Simone. Kam followed behind him to grab copies of the final paperwork. Tara took another call and stepped out.

That left just the two of them in the room. He couldn’t help but stare at her. She was even more beautiful now than she had been as a teenager. Not just physically, although God knew she still had the curves he once had memorized, but her presence was sharper.

She felt his eyes on her but pulled out her phone and nervously scrolled through emails she’d already read earlier that day.

She found something about his presence, strong and commanding, highly attractive.

The way he just stood out in the room, even without saying much, made her stomach quiver with the same butterflies she recognized from her teenage days, riding around Downtown Detroit with him.

Breaking the awkward silence between the two, Zay asked casually, “So, . . . how’s married life?”

She flinched slightly, and he caught it. He immediately regretted asking, but his expression remained solid. He waited for her reply.

It took her a second to respond. She debated on how much truth she should give him.

“Well, it ain’t like in the movies,” she said, eyes fixed on the documents in front of her. “I’ll tell you that. It’s no fairy tale.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah. I’m sure it’s not. Probably got highs and lows.”

She scoffed and raised her eyebrows. “Yep, highs and lows is correct.”

She didn’t explain further. Although he wasn’t too sure what she meant by that, he didn’t push. She gathered her notes as if she was preparing to leave, so he quickly thought of something else to say.

“I meant what I said before, congrats on the book. I’m proud of you. Real talk. I didn’t even know you wrote one until that night.”

“Yeah, well, . . . I’m not a big social media person,” she replied. “I only keep a profile because Tara forces me to post for promo. She runs all of it. I hate it.”

Zay laughed. “You always did. I swear, you the only person who could disappear and really be gone forever.”

As soon as the words left his lips, he felt the weight of them. After everything that transpired between them in the past, . . . the words just came out more twisted than he meant them to be. Before he could correct what he meant, she spoke.

“I didn’t disappear.” She paused before she continued, her voice low. “I just chose peace.”

He nodded and decided not to press any further, changing the subject. “I ain’t never really been online like that either. Unless I’m dropping something.”

There was another stillness between them then, thick but not uncomfortable. He, again, broke the silence.

“Fifteen years and it wasn’t even algorithms that brought us back together. Wild, right?”

She smiled gently and leaned back in her chair. “This really is very wild.”

The sun reflected off her neck, and a silver glow shined in his eyes. That was when he noticed the necklace. A thin sterling silver chain with a heart-shaped diamond pendant, resting just below the collar of her blouse. It was simple but familiar.

His jaw tightened.

“You still have that?” he asked quietly.

Love glanced down. Her fingers instinctively touched the charm. She didn’t answer right away.

Before she could reply, Kam entered back into the room with the finalized production folder. “Yo. We’re locked in.Congratsto the both of you. Let’s make this hot!”

Tara stuck her head in, one hand on the door, the other with the phone to her ear. “Love, car’s out front.”

She nodded, gathered the papers in front of her into a neat stack, placed them in a manilla folder, and threw it into her tote.

She stood from her chair and walked around the conference table with her head down to avoid Zay’s gaze.

He hesitated and quickly debated whether to stop her, ask her more questions to get answers he never received after fifteen years, but couldn’t think of the right words to say. As she walked through the open door, he called out her name.

“Princess, wait.”

She stopped, placed one hand on the door but kept her head still.

He rose from his chair slowly and placed both hands on the tabletop. He leaned forward. Kam stood still, puzzled. He gazed between the two of them but remained silent. Zay exhaled before he spoke.

“You really gonna act like we don’t have history?”

Love’s eyes lowered to the ground. She breathed in then out and looked over her shoulder. Her expression was unreadable.

“It’s been fifteen years, Zay,” she said. “Let the past be the past.”

Then, she walked out the door. It shut softly behind her.

Zay stood there at the table for a moment. He sighed then sat back in the chair.

Kam walked over to him and clapped a hand on his shoulder. “You good?”

He didn’t answer at first. Then finally, he answered. “I . . . I don’t even know, bruh.”

Kam just exhaled. “Princess? Who is Princess? And what was that all about?”

Zay let out a breath and mumbled something cryptic about a hook to a forgotten song he hadn’t finished in fifteen years.