Chapter 24
24
T he last few weeks had moved like a blur.
Taraj’s album was buzzing across the industry. Leaked snippets had caught fire, and suddenly, the names in my inbox weren’t just hungry indie artists. They were top-shelf. Big budgets. Bigger expectations.
It was everything I’d worked for. Everything I thought I wanted.
And somewhere between chasing that next win, stacking that next move, I started fumbling her.
I didn’t mean to.
I just told myself I was busy. That she knew me well enough to understand the grind. That short texts and fewer phone calls wouldn’t be the death of us. But standing there in that studio, scrolling back through our last few messages—brief, hollow, barely warm—I knew I’d already done the damage.
She had every reason to think I was slipping away. Because in some ways…I had.
That day, I didn’t even register the moment Tasha walked in. I was deep in the mix, laser-focused on tweaking Raj’s vocals. He was in the booth, laying down something raw, his voice dragging pain and hunger through every bar.
It was fire.
But the moment Tasha touched me—her hand on my chest, her fingers trailing light over my shirt—my entire body tensed. I stepped back immediately, the word don’t already rising in my throat.
And then Raj’s voice cut in, sharp and direct through the speakers.
“Yo, Amir—look.”
I turned and time stopped.
Amaya stood in the doorway. Still. Quiet. Staring. And just like that, the ground beneath me cracked wide open.
She didn’t flinch. Didn’t rage on even if what she saw was a misunderstanding. She just looked at me. Looked through me.
And that was worse.
Because I could see it in her face—the exact moment something broke. The disbelief. The grief.
Her mouth parted like she wanted to say something. Maybe needed to but instead her jaw locked and her chin lifted before she walked out.
No scene. No goodbye. Just…gone.
Panic shot through me. “Shit,” I muttered, shoving past Tasha, nearly knocking her over as I bolted for the door.
She was already at the curb, standing stiff as an Uber pulled up beside her. She always took a car to the studio so we could drive home together.
I caught her wrist. “Amaya, wait?—”
She yanked away like my touch burned her. “Wait for what?”
Her voice cracked, and I swear to God it took everything in me not to fall apart on the sidewalk right then.
“It’s not what you think—” I started, already knowing how fucking weak that sounded.
She laughed—the sound was sharp and gutted. “Oh, it’s not?”
She stepped closer, her watery brown eyes locked on mine, fire blazing beneath her pain. “I’ve been sitting here— waiting —trying to understand why the man who begged for me suddenly started vanishing.”
I opened my mouth to respond. Then closed it again.
What was I gonna say? That I didn’t touch Tasha? That I never wanted her?
It was the truth—but the wrong one because the truth was, I should’ve shut that shit down weeks ago. Should’ve never let her linger. Should’ve never allowed that blurred presence to get close enough to cast doubt.
Why did I let her hang around? Especially after she called me late the other night, getting my number from someone who I’d never be able to pin down. I only knew it wasn’t Raj because I asked him.
I didn’t have the answer for my bullshit. And that silence cost me everything.
Amaya’s voice trembled, her fists clenched at her sides. “And then I come here, and I see you hugged up with her ?”
I flinched. That tone—tight, trembling, trying not to break—it killed me.
“You got it,” she whispered, shaking her head.
A car door opened. She got in without another glance.
And I stood there—on that sidewalk—watching the woman I loved disappear into the night.
I didn’t move. I couldn’t. I couldn’t go after her.
Because what was I gonna do? Apologize? Promise it meant nothing? I hadn’t even touched Tasha like that, but I let her hover. Let her orbit too long, feeding off the space I created when I started pulling away.
My silence let Amaya feel alone and that’s on me.
When I finally turned back toward the studio, my hands were curled into fists. My chest ached with a kind of pressure I couldn’t shake. The kind that told me I’d already fucked this up worse than I even realized.
Inside, the whole vibe had shifted.
Tasha was grabbing her bag, eyes red, sniffing like she was the one who lost something.
I didn’t say a word to her and didn’t even look her way. She wasn’t the story here. Amaya was. I didn’t give a fuck what had her feelings hurt.
Raj stood by the soundboard, arms crossed, his expression tight.
“She was waiting for that moment,” he muttered. His head tilted towards the door. “Tasha. She set that shit up.”
“I know.”
He watched me for a beat, then said, “I told her to fall back. She won’t be a problem anymore.”
The way he said it—calm, measured, final—hit different. There was a chill in it. Not fake or performative, but bone-deep. That wasn’t just Raj talking.
That was Shine’s son— the son of a legend of the streets that even I knew about. I nodded once, jaw clenched. Didn’t trust myself to say more.
Because if I opened my mouth, even for a second, I might fall all the way apart. I might expose the fracture I was barely holding shut.
I didn’t go to Amaya’s place and get into another argument with her. She deserved better than that. And her apartment was too sacred to me. It is where our love bloomed. It was too soft. Too good. Too full of everything I didn’t deserve right now.
I wasn’t about to track this pain across her floor.
So I did the only thing I could. I went to my condo. The one that had finally been finished. The one I hadn’t set foot in since that night —the one we spent together after our first date.
Just one night. But it haunted the whole place.
The second I opened the door, the silence met me like a punch to the chest. It was too empty. it didn’t feel like her, smell like her.
It didn’t sound like her laugh bouncing off the walls or her voice asking if we had wine chilled. But the memory of her lived in the air. In the floorboards. In the bedsheets we’d tangled.
The night she rode me with moonlight painting her skin, her body open, trusting, beautiful. The way she whispered my name like she already knew it belonged to her.
That night, she made this place feel like a home. Now it was just square footage. And I was just a man who had everything he wanted… And still found a way to fuck it up.