Chapter Ten
A HACKER’S PROSE
Lane knew where they were before Lennox put the car in park.
The Ink Well sat tucked above a narrow independent bookstore on the east side of Stonebridge, its black awning stamped with gold lettering and a tiny ink bottle logo that spilled into the shape of a microphone.
Warm light glowed from the second-floor windows.
People clustered near the entrance, laughing with paper cups in hand, dressed in denim, leather, linen, locs, curls, sneakers, heels, and the kind of confidence only artists and people avoiding direct deposit could pull off after sunset.
Lane turned slowly toward Lennox.
“No.”
He smiled like he’d been waiting for that exact response. “You don’t even know what we’re doing.”
“I know where we are.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“Robot.”
“Lavender.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Why are we at The Ink Well?”
“Because it’s open mic night.”
Lane blinked. Then her gaze dropped to his jacket pocket, where something folded had shifted when he turned off the car.
Her stomach did something stupid. It fluttered with anticipation at his next words.
“No.”
His smile deepened. “Yes.”
“You’re not.”
“I am.”
“Lennox Jackson, if you brought me here to watch you make light of the beautiful nature that is poetry in a room full of poets who work tirelessly at their craft, I’ll personally unplug you.”
“I’m performing.”
Lane stared at him.
He looked calm. Too calm. Suspiciously calm for a man who dared to say something that ridiculous with a straight face.
“You’re serious.”
“Yes.”
“You? On a stage? With feelings?”
“I have feelings.”
“You have encrypted errors.”
He laughed and opened his door. “Come on.”
Lane stayed seated for another second as she watched the small crowd moving toward the stairs.
The Ink Well had always felt sacred to her.
Not because the venue was famous. Not because every poet who touched the mic was beyond good.
They were otherworldly. Some of them were there to heal.
Some were there to be perceived. Some were there because nobody in their group chat had told them they spun words into beauty.
So it was here where they could be heard and loved for the rhythm they intertwined with words.
The room mattered.
Places like The Ink Well gave people permission to tell the truth in public and survive the telling.
Lane had performed there twice as Lavender Haze.
Both times, in dim light, with her heart thudding and her palms damp.
She managed to keep her voice steady only because poetry had always been braver than she was.
The idea of Lennox walking into that kind of room with a poem in his pocket made her feel off balance in a way she didn’t know how to process or insult yet.
He came around and opened her door.
She looked up at him. “If this is terrible, I’m leaving you here.”
“You’re not leaving me.”
“If you rhyme heart with start, I’m calling an Uber.”
“Noted.”
“And if you perform something with finger snaps and hacker metaphors every three lines, I’m reporting you to the poets’ union.”
“There’s a poets’ union?”
“There’ll be after tonight if you embarrass me.”
He held out his hand.
Lane looked at it for a second too long.
Then she took it.
The warmth of his palm closed around her as he helped her out of the car like she wasn’t perfectly capable of doing it herself.
She should’ve complained. She didn’t. Maybe because he released her hand after, but she pulled it back.
Maybe because he looked nervous for half a second when he thought she wasn’t watching, and it made her want to be his support.
Oh.
That softened her more than the hand-holding.
The Ink Well smelled just as she’d remembered—like coffee and books.
The room stretched long and narrow, with exposed brick walls, small round tables, mismatched velvet chairs, and a tiny stage at the front beneath amber lights.
A chalkboard near the bar listed the night’s specials: jerk chicken sliders, smoked gouda mac bites, sweet potato fries, honey-lime wings, rum punch, and something called The Writer’s Block.
The crowd was already thick.
Not packed enough to feel suffocating, but alive.
People leaned into conversation. A woman in a copper head wrap laughed with her whole body near the bar.
Two men argued gently over whether Nikki Giovanni or Sonia Sanchez had the sharper pen.
A young poet in ripped black jeans paced near the stage, whispering lines to himself while his friend recorded him for moral support and probable Instagram content.
Lane breathed in.
Places that held space for art, release, and healing always gave her a sense of peace. Lennox watched her, and she hated that he caught the moment.
“You okay?”
“I’m at peace,” she stated honestly instead of covering what she was feeling with jokes. “Poetry saved my life. Being able to share my art and be in places where art is shared puts me at peace.” She exhaled and smiled at him.
“You deserve peace, Baby. At all times in all ways.”
“So make sure I have it with you.”
He smiled and led her to a table near the middle, close enough to see the stage but not close enough to be trapped by audience participation.
Smart man. Annoyingly smart. He pulled out her chair, waited for her to sit before going to the bar for drinks and food without needing her order because, of course, he’d been paying too much attention to her life.
He returned with The Writer’s Block for her and dark rum for him. He also grabbed some catfish bites, sweet potato fries, and honey-lime wings.
Lane looked at the spread. “You know, Robot, one day your observational skills are gonna get you kissed or arrested.
His eyes warmed. “I’m hoping for the first.”
“Hope privately.”
“Trying.”
He sat across from her, then pulled the folded paper from his pocket and smoothed it once against the table.
Lane’s gaze locked on it.
Her heart tilted.
Lennox stood. “I’m putting my name on the list.”
“You still have time to sit down and be normal.”
He leaned down, close enough for his cologne to curl around her thoughts. “You like me abnormal.”
“I tolerate you glitching.”
“Progress.”
Lane watched him walk to the host’s table near the stage, tall and easy in the room like he belonged anywhere he decided to stand.
The host, a broad woman with silver braids and red lipstick, looked at him, looked at the list, then looked back at him with delighted surprise.
Lennox said something Lane couldn’t hear.
The host’s eyes flew to Lane.
Lane’s stomach dropped.
“Oh, I’m killing him.”
Lennox returned with that same calm little smile.
“What did you do?”
“I put my name on the list.”
“And?”
“And nothing.”
“Your nothing has priors.”
He picked up his drink. “Enjoy the poets, Lavender.”
She pointed a sweet potato fry at him. “You’re on probation.”
“I live there now.”
The first poet was a young woman with a voice like smoke and a poem about grief that made the room go church quiet.
The second was an older man in a linen shirt who performed a piece about Black fathers, barbershops, and learning tenderness late in life.
The third poet was funny enough to have the room hollering, a poem about dating men who had podcasts and no bed frames.
Lane laughed until her cheeks hurt.
Lennox watched her more than he watched the stage.
She felt it every time.
At first, she tried to ignore him. Then she tried to glare.
Then she gave up and let the warmth of the room do what it came to do.
The bourbon in her drink helped. The poetry helped more.
Each voice seemed to loosen something inside her—one line at a time—until the tension she’d been carrying from Jeanette, Curtis Bell, and Lennox’s intrusive behavior softened around the edges.
Then the host stepped back onstage.
“All right, Ink Well family, y’all still with me?”
The room answered with claps, whistles, and somebody yelling, “Always!”
The host grinned. “Good, because this next poet is new to our mic, but from what he told me, he came with purpose tonight.”
Lane’s eyes cut to Lennox.
He picked up his paper.
Her stomach flipped.
“No,” she whispered.
He stood.
The host looked out over the room, smile widening. “And before he comes up here, I need y’all to know we’ve got a legend in the building tonight; make some noise for Lavender Haze.”
A few people gasped. Someone near the bar said, “Lavender Haze is here?” Another person clapped immediately, and suddenly the room looked at Lane with recognition, curiosity, and delight.
Lane’s face went hot as she glared at Lennox. He gave her a tiny shrug that said, You’re welcome, and I accept the consequences. She mouthed that she hated him and he mouthed back that she didn’t, making her laugh.
The host laughed like she’d seen the entire exchange. “Oh, this is about to be good. Give it up for Lennox Jackson.”
Applause rose as Lennox walked to the stage.
Lane sat very still.
The sight of him up there did something strange to her.
Lennox was usually so controlled in rooms, so aware of every exit and every eye, so smooth it was easy to mistake him for untouchable.
But under the amber stage lights, paper in hand, he was vulnerable and exposed for the sake of fitting in her world.
He adjusted the mic, glanced down once at the page, then looked directly at Lane.
“This poem is called ‘Unencrypted.’”
I met a woman who wore survival like it was stitched into her skin.
Not the kind of survival people put on inspirational posters.
The real kind.
The kind with scars hidden beneath laughter.
The kind that learns how to carry entire worlds without asking for help.
The kind that mistakes exhaustion for strength.
She walks through every room like she’s daring gravity to do its worst.
And somehow, gravity listens.
I’ve watched grown men forget entire conversations because she smiled.
Watched rooms shift toward her without realizing they were moving.
Watched her pretend not to notice.
That’s the thing about her.