Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
“Walk you home?”
Bea froze midstep outside Monaghan he joined, tugging the tote bag from her shoulder to carry himself. Her ‘thank you’ came out awkward.
Their hands flirted, close but never touching.
What were they, now that they weren’t pretending to be something like friends?
“How’s work?” he asked.
A neutral, normal question. Unfortunately all she could hear was her own voice in that car saying, I’m ready for real.
“Busy,” she said quickly. He was calm and contained; she was all second thoughts and self-consciousness.
“I read your memo on the Female Safety Index,” he told her.
Her head turned. “Those are internal.”
“They are.” He pressed the button for the crosswalk.
“So how’d you read it?” She fidgeted with her watch.
“I’m one of the insiders.”
She shot him a look. “Your work’s not even really in this field.”
He shrugged. “But I’m interested.”
That threw her off-balance—interested in what? The data? The content? Her?
“What did you think?” she asked.
He switched to her other side as they crossed the road, taking the edge closest to the cars. “You write like someone who didn’t believe the numbers at first, checked them twice, and then couldn’t wait to prove herself wrong. Most analysts start from conviction. You start from surprise.”
She blinked, caught off guard by the accuracy. “That’s…unnervingly specific.”
“I like your voice in those memos,” he said. “It’s honest. It doesn’t sound institutional.”
“Honestly, I was just floored. Only zero point zero two incidents against women per thousand residents? With the ratio here being one point three men to one woman? It makes no sense. But then I remember it’s the UR and then it does.”
“That curiosity is exactly what comes through. That’s why M and S keeps giving you the assignments.”
“You’ve read more than one?”
“I’ve read them all. Since the first, about how we don’t have a gender pay gap.”
That earned a tiny laugh of surprise, and for a moment, everything between them loosened.
They reached her building too quickly. The city hummed around them. She wasn’t sure if he meant to stay or go. But he wasn’t moving…and she didn’t want to say goodbye yet.
“You want to come up?” It came out fast. “For tea, or a glass of water, or something. Lillian’s gonna be home soon.”
Rafael let her finish the ramble. “I want to.”
Somehow they made it up the elevator and onto the correct floor. She even got the door open.
The apartment was bright and airy. They’d left the balcony curtains open, as usual. The air smelled faintly of chamomile and overwatered succulents.
She slipped off her flats. He removed his sneakers.
When they walked into the living room, she felt him stop. Something had caught his attention. She followed his line of sight.
Hanging on the rack by the dining table, drying nonchalantly in the sun: two lace bras and two pairs of underwear.
Oh. OH.
She lunged, grabbed them in an agitated heap, and backed toward the hall.
“I’m just—shower,” she blurted. “It’s been a long day. City pollution. I think I walked through a patch of…air. I’ll be back.”
His mouth quirked. His eyes trailed her retreat, because apparently watching her glitch was as gratifying as the lingerie.
The bathroom door clicked shut behind her.
Steam filled the room fast as she turned on the water, just to have the cover of noise. It was sandal weather, but she ran her showers hot no matter the season.
She leaned her forehead to the mirror, fingers braced on the edge of the sink. “You can handle this,” she whispered to herself. “He’s just a man.” Pause. “A very large, very distracting man that sometimes makes you asphyxiate, but still a man.”
Water: on.
Spiral: off.
Body wash. Shampoo and conditioner. Rinse.
She couldn’t be ensconced in here forever. At least now she was vanilla scented.
Bea grabbed the towel and dried her body and hair. Quick application of moisturizer, still trying to pretend this was normal.
Reached for her clothes—found air.
Checked again, more desperately.
Only her backup clothes hung carelessly on the door. Unfortunately for her, it consisted of a white cropped sleep tee that said “NOPE” in faded block letters, and the striped sleep shorts she always wore when no one important was around.
The lace bras and underwear she’d brought in with her.
That was it.
Laggardly, she dressed in what she had, trying to get her heart to pick a pace and stick to it. She wore this in front of Lillian all the time. It wasn’t even close to being seductive.
And yet…it was Rafael. Exposing this much skin in front of him felt tantamount to provocation.
Should she warn him? Ask him to get something from the kitchen so she could do a mad dash to her bedroom? But that seemed more likely to make him raise an eyebrow and stay put.
Maybe he was on the balcony.
Please let him be on the balcony.
She cracked the door open.
Rafael was seated on the couch, long legs stretched out, elbow hooked over the back cushion. Sprawled in a way that claimed the space. Waiting for her.
He saw her immediately.
His gaze traced her throat, her chest, to the bare section where her navel seemed to wave at him. Down her bare legs. And then—slowly, inexorably—came back up over the line of her shorts and paused at the three inches of skin exposed above the waistband.
His stare lingered there, hot and merciless, until her stomach responded as though he’d made contact. Only then did his eyes return to hers.
A single breath, and then: “Is that your belly button, little Bea?” His voice was smoke, dark and velvet, and her knees nearly forgot how to hold her.
He stood, moving closer. Her senses rioted, undone by nearness alone, every nerve straining toward the possibility that he might touch her.
A key turned. Rafael’s forward motion ceased. The door swung open.
Lillian entered the room, and in a single glance, comprehended the tableau. She bit her cheek, fighting a smile. “Should I come back later?”
“Yes,” Rafael said at the exact moment Bea said, “No.”
Lillian raised a brow. “I’ll just…grab something from my room. I’ll be a couple of minutes.” She disappeared down the hall, door closing behind her.
Silence stretched, dense and deliberate. Bea’s pulse was everywhere at once.
Rafael’s eyes traced her one last time. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Right. The concert.”
“That,” he said, voice low, “and everything that comes after.”
He left her standing there, while the air held his shape a moment longer than it should have.
RAFAEL
The stadium heaved with sound and fervor, a living beast of twenty thousand bodies surging beneath waves of white light.
Rafael’s eyes were locked on only one.
Bea was a few steps ahead of him, weaving eagerly through the thick of the floor crowd.
Her brown waves were down, loose, shoulders swaying like the night was already in her bloodstream.
The strip of skin that had lived in his head for twenty-four hours was, regrettably, gone from sight. The memory wasn’t.
They found their spot near the stage.
Bea was half agony, half awe when the band appeared in a thunderclap of pyrotechnics. “It’s real,” she breathed.
Then the lights cut.
The opening riff of “Do I Wanna Know?” spilled into the dark.
She screamed. Not cute nor careful. A sound that just bursts when you get exactly what you’ve been aching for. The noise went straight inside him, lodging under his skin.
He wanted to hear it again. Same pitch, but under him.
Her hands shot up, thrown wide to the air, fingers twisting in time. Her mouth moved with every lyric. He should’ve been watching the stage. He’d paid double for the damn tickets. But all he saw was her.
He’d played this album in high school, heard it in military training. Through workouts, broken skin, and taped fists. Not precisely formative, but remembered.
But for Bea—who never seemed to love anything in halves—it was as if the music had made her.
He saw a girl who was more than just goodness and sense. One who craved to burn, not just behave. He’d seen it before: in a borrowed poolhouse kitchen, barefoot and unguarded; in the karaoke room, unafraid and unstoppable.
Back then, he hadn’t quite understood what it was he was seeing, only that it made everything else fade.
He wanted this version of her. Wanted every version of her. But this one especially. Awake, wanting. And his.
Rafael stepped behind her. Not touching. Just letting the shape of his body form around hers. She backed into him instinctively, her shoulders brushing his chest, and didn’t glance up.
He let the moment breathe, suspended, ambiguous, then set his hands on her hips. A tremor went through her, small but unmistakable.
The next song hit. The one she’d been waiting for. He could feel it under his fingertips. “R U Mine?” tore through the air.
Floodlights swept the crowd, guitars going dirty and divine. Her hips moved beneath his hands, finding rhythm. Every muscle in him went tight. He forced himself to stay still—to let her have this, to just watch.
But the lyrics came up, too close to everything he hadn’t said.
He leaned in, mouth brushing the shell of her ear, and sang it softly as the line hit. “I just wanna hear you say, ‘You got me, baby, are you mine?’”
She froze, then turned, eyes wide. Searching, startled, but not alarmed. She was right there on the edge between flight and freefall.
His gaze dropped to her mouth. One hand slid up under her hair to the back of her head, thumb tracing the tender curve of her ear—a command disguised as a touch. He paused, long enough for her to stop him.
She didn’t.
His mouth met hers.
No teasing, no buildup. Just a hard, perfect seal of flavor and pressure. The relief was sharp enough to hurt. Two beats. Three—because it was so good. Then he broke it. This place was too public for the way he wanted to kiss her.
“Friends don’t know the way you taste,” he said against her cheek. His mouth grazed hers again. “Let me take you out.”
Bea drew a shaky breath.
Her eyes met his. She nodded.
Group Chat: Basketball War Crimes
CLAIRE: Did you or did you not go to the sold out Arctic Monkeys concert yesterday?!
BEA: …yes
CLAIRE: …
CLAIRE: ......
CLAIRE: WITHOUT ME??
BEA: You left a week ago
LAURENT: She went with Rafael
CLAIRE: WHAT
CLAIRE: Was this a group thing???
CLAIRE: Or did I just find out you attended a spiritual event with a 6’3” man unchaperoned?!
BEA: I don’t see how his height is relevant
LAURENT: Ask her if it was a date
CLAIRE: WAS IT A DATE?!
BEA: It was a birthday present
CLAIRE: So you’re telling me you guys went together
CLAIRE: And there were dim lights. Sweat. Sexy basslines.
CLAIRE: And you just sat there like coworkers?
RAFAEL: I wasn’t sitting.
LAURENT: Not a sitting moment.
CLAIRE: I JUST SPIT COFFEE ON MY KEYBOARD
LAURENT: Happy birthday, Bea.
Bea stared at her screen.
She couldn’t bring herself to reply. She cringe-laughed into her palm and closed the chat like that would somehow put the fire out.
Her phone vibrated again. Not the group. Private message.
RAFAEL: You didn’t answer the question.
LITTLE BEA: What question?
RAFAEL: Was it a date?
LITTLE BEA: You said it was a birthday present
RAFAEL: You usually let guys kiss you on your birthday?
LITTLE BEA: What if I said yes?
RAFAEL: I’d never let anyone near you in November again
LITTLE BEA: Just November?
She entered before she could think. Then instantly panicked and jabbed at the screen, trying to recall the message. Too late.
RAFAEL: I don’t plan on sharing you in any month.
Bea stared at the text like it might set her phone alight.
Then, full meltdown mode engaged, she jumped into her private chat with Claire and slammed out a message in all caps:
BEYA SLAYA: I ACCIDENTALLY FLIRTED WITH RAFAEL
CLAIRE BEAR: JUST NOW?! OR AT THE CONCERT?! I NEED TIMESTAMPS.
BEYA SLAYA: JUST NOW. BY TEXT.
BEYA SLAYA: IT WAS INTENTIONALLY UNINTENTIONALLY FLIRTY.
BEYA SLAYA: And then he replied. And now I have to flee the country
CLAIRE BEAR: Okay but just to be clear - did you ALSO flirt at the concert?
BEYA SLAYA: Maybe.
CLAIRE BEAR: Was it verbal or…bodily. Be honest
Bea typed the response with her eyes closed like that would protect her.
BEYA SLAYA: Both. He kissed me.
CLAIRE BEAR: !!!!!!!!!!! I need oxygen AND DETAILS
CLAIRE BEAR: You have to LEAD with that piece of information!!!!!
She could still taste him. Metal and heat and something like control. He was only the second man who had ever kissed her. Second, in her entire life.
Rafael had kissed her like he was holding something in, his whole body braced against what he really wanted to do. And even so, even careful, she felt singed.
Incoming call: Claire
Bea sighed, accepted, and let her best friend’s shriek fill the room.