Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
PIZZA
The cameras swing back toward me like they’ve been starving for this exact moment, and I can feel the expectation before a single question is even asked.
It moves through the crowd in a subtle shift, tightening the air, sharpening attention, pulling everything into focus around me.
They want me to make a correction. They want some kind of reassurance.
They want me to smooth over what he just did and remind them why I have always been the easiest answer in the room.
I step into that expectation with practiced ease, letting my shoulders settle, letting my smile curve into something warm and effortless, something that reads as natural even though every inch of it is as fake as a red-carpet reaction shot and twice as rehearsed.
“Pizza,” a reporter says, leaning in with barely disguised excitement, “care to comment on Pineapple’s suggestion?”
The word suggestion feels far too small for what just happened.
I keep my expression steady, even as the heat from the lamps above feels like a butane torch against my skin.
It’s different now. I’m aware of it in a way I wasn’t before.
The warmth doesn’t just sit on my surface.
It slips lower, settling into my center in a way that feels heavier than it should, like it has somewhere to go now instead of simply existing as part of the performance.
“I think some things are louder than they are worth, and I have no interest in letting volume talk me into bad taste.”
A ripple of laughter moves through the crowd, followed by a wave of approval that feels almost immediate. The critics relax. The cameras flash. The tension loosens just enough to feel like everything is back where it belongs.
“Are you saying you’d never consider it?” another voice asks, pushing just a little further, curious in a way that feels more personal than professional.
I don’t hesitate.
“No.” The word lands, exactly the way I intended.
There’s a small shift in the room after that—a settling—like everyone has been given permission to stop wondering. Conversations resume. The energy evens out. The narrative locks back into something comfortable, something familiar, something that fits the version of me they all came here to see.
I hold that version in place long enough to let them believe it.
Then I leave again to the respite of the backstage hallway.
It feels quieter, but the heat doesn’t disappear with the cameras.
If anything, it becomes more noticeable without the distraction of constant attention.
My steps slow as the warmth in my center shifts again, deepening instead of fading, spreading outward in a way that makes me acutely aware of every movement, every brush of fabric, every second that passes without it settling back into something manageable.
I press my lips together, trying to steady my breathing, trying to convince myself this is just leftover heat from the lights, from the crowd, from the intensity of the moment.
Like something has changed the way my body processes it.
“You said no.”
His voice reaches me before I turn, low and steady, like he already knows exactly what he’s walking into. I pause for a fraction of a second, then face him with as much composure as I can gather.
“I meant it,” I say.
The words come easily. Too easily.
He studies me for a moment, then takes a slow step closer, enough to shift the space between us.
“I’m sure you did,” he replies. “Out there.” He nods over his shoulder towards the spectacle of the red carpet.
The distinction settles between us immediately.
I feel it in the way my center responds, a low, pulsing warmth that deepens instead of fading.
“That’s the only place it matters,” I insist, even as the sensation builds again, slow and steady, refusing to be ignored.
His gaze lowers briefly, aware, and the reaction it pulls from me is immediate. The warmth in my center shifts again, turning heavier, more fluid, making me adjust my stance before I can stop myself. The movement is small, controlled, but it’s enough.
“You’re still reacting to me. Am I making you hot and bothered?” he says quietly.
“I’m standing in a building full of heat lamps,” I reply, holding onto the most logical explanation I have.
“You left them behind minutes ago,” he says. “That’s not what this is.”
The certainty in his voice makes it harder to dismiss.
I want to push back. I want to shut this down. Instead, I feel it.
The way the heat hasn’t left. The way it has settled deeper. The way it has become something else entirely.
“What do you want?” I ask, because I need this to have edges, something I can define and control.
His expression sharpens slightly, focus settling into place.
“I want to see what happens when you stop pretending you don’t feel this,” he says.
My breath shifts, just enough for me to notice.
“That’s not an answer,” I say.
“It’s the only one that matters right now,” he replies.
I study him, trying to find the flaw in this, the angle that makes it ridiculous, the reason I can dismiss it and walk away without thinking about it again.
I can’t find it.
Because the truth is already there, sitting heavy and undeniable in my body.
I am reacting. I have been reacting and it is not stopping.
“What are you suggesting?” I ask, quieter now.
“A private tasting,” he says.
The words land between us, simple and loaded all at once.
“Controlled,” he continues. “No cameras. No audience. Just you deciding if you actually hate the idea… or if you’ve just never given yourself the chance to find out.”
The heat in my center pulses again, deeper now, more insistent, spreading in a way that makes it impossible to ignore how present it is. It lingers, it builds, it refuses to settle back into something manageable.
This is a terrible idea.
This is exactly the kind of decision that complicates everything.
This is—
“…fine.”
The word leaves me before I can stop it.
He doesn’t answer. He just watches me for a moment, as if he’s leaving the door open for me to take it back. I don’t.
“One session,” I add, lifting my chin slightly, forcing control back into my posture even as my body continues to respond in ways I am not acknowledging out loud. “Private. That’s it.”
He nods once.
“One session,” he agrees.
The tension remains between us, though it has changed shape now, tightening into something more defined and, somehow, more difficult to ignore.
I turn before I can say anything else, before I can second-guess it, before I can admit how much of that decision had nothing to do with logic and everything to do with the way my body has already started anticipating something I haven’t even experienced yet.
Behind me, I hear the slow drag of his breath, and I hate how much I can hear in it without ever turning around.
The sound settles over my skin with a quiet, ruinous kind of confidence, the kind that says he already knows exactly what he’s done to me and intends to enjoy every second of it.
I keep walking anyway, keeping my shoulders straight and my pace even, though the air between us feels charged in a way that makes distance feel almost useless.
I don’t look back because I already know what I’d find if I did, and the worst part is that some restless, traitorous part of me is already bracing for the next moment, as if this whole thing has only just shifted into something neither of us is going to be able to forget.