Chapter Eleven
NO SAFE MODE
The Ink Well stayed loud long after Lane stepped off that stage.
Not just with applause, though there was plenty of that.
People clapped until her palms tingled in sympathy.
They snapped, cheered, called out her pen name like Lavender Haze had been gone too long and the room had been waiting for her return.
A woman near the bar wiped her eyes. The host kept shaking her head and saying, “Now that’s poetry,” like the night had personally blessed her.
But the loudest thing was inside Lane; her heart was beating out of her chest. The impossible, reckless, terrifying thought that maybe Lennox Jackson had found one of the few doors she’d forgotten to lock.
He didn’t let her go immediately. After she stepped into his arms, he held her in front of the whole room like there wasn’t a single thing to hide. No joke to soften it. No slick line to make it smaller. No rush to turn the moment into something physical because feelings made him nervous.
He just held her carefully and proudly. Like she was precious, and he didn’t care who saw him knowing it.
That should’ve scared her more than it did.
Instead, she let herself breathe against his chest while the room celebrated around them, and when he pressed a kiss to her temple, Lane closed her eyes for one second longer than pride recommended.
“You good, Lavender?” he murmured.
“No,” she whispered. “You embarrassed me with tenderness in public.”
His chest shook beneath her cheek. “My bad.”
“It absolutely is.”
“You kissed me like you forgave me for at least three crimes,” he joked.
“Two misdemeanors, max,” she shot back.”
He laughed as his arms tightened once before he loosened his hold, and somehow that small obedience did more to her than the grip would’ve.
After they gathered their things, the host insisted on hugging Lane, then Lennox, then Lane again.
Three people asked when Lavender Haze was coming back to the mic.
Someone bought them another round of drinks they didn’t touch because Lennox gave Lane one look and said, “Food,” like her emotional unraveling came with a mandatory meal plan.
That was how they ended up at Marigold’s after midnight, tucked into a corner booth beneath a humming neon sign shaped like a coffee cup.
Marigold’s was one of those diners that survived because the food was good, the coffee was strong, and the staff had seen too much to judge anybody.
The booths were cracked red vinyl. The floors were black-and-white tile.
The menu was laminated, sticky at the corners, and far too long to be trusted, which meant the best thing to order was always whatever the cook yelled he had left.
Lane slid into the booth, still buzzing from the open mic, her body warmed by poetry, adrenaline, and Lennox’s hand resting at the small of her back all the way from the car to the door.
He sat beside her instead of across from her.
Lane looked at him. “You allergic to personal space?” she questioned.
“Yes, next question,” he sounded unapologetic.
“At least you’re honest.”
“I’m learning that helps.”
He stretched one arm along the back of the booth, not touching her at first, just there.
Lane hated that the waiting for his touch got to her.
She hated even more that she leaned into him first. His hand dropped to her shoulder, thumb brushing once over the seam of her sweatshirt.
It wasn’t overtly sexual, almost absentminded, like touching her had become his resting state.
The waitress appeared with two waters and a look that said she’d watched enough late-night couples to know exactly when not to ask questions. “What can I get y’all?”
Lane opened the menu. “What’s still good this time of night?”
The waitress popped her gum. “Everything. Catfish and wings. Pancakes, if you trust Lamar back there with batter after midnight.”
From somewhere in the kitchen, a man yelled, “I heard that, Keisha.”
Keisha didn’t blink. “You were meant to.”
Lane laughed. “Catfish basket for me, extra hot sauce.”
Lennox looked at the menu. “Same and sweet potato pie if there’s any left.”
Keisha gave him an approving nod. “There’s one slice.”
He looked at Lane. “We’ll take it.”
Lane lifted a brow. “We?”
“You don’t want sweet potato pie?”
“I do.”
“Then we.”
Keisha smirked. “Y’all cute.”
“No, we’re not,” Lane said immediately.
“Yes, y’all are,” Keisha replied, already walking away, “And loud about it.”
Her phone buzzed on the table. The sound cut through the warmth so sharply her fingers stilled around her water glass. Lennox felt the shift before she said anything. His hand stopped moving on her shoulder, and the easy expression on his face smoothed into something watchful.
Lane didn’t pick up the phone as it buzzed repeatedly with the unknown number. They both knew it was Jeanette as Lennox reached for her phone but stopped himself. The restraint he showed only confirmed that he was always keeping her boundaries at the forefront of his mind.
“She’s been using multiple numbers,” Lane said, picking up the phone herself. “And text apps—whatever she can find. I block one, and another pops up.”
“Can I see?”
She looked at him with the question sitting between them.
This wasn’t his hand already on her business while he pretended it was protection.
Lane unlocked the phone and passed it to him as he scrolled through the message thread, his face giving away almost nothing, but his body gave him up.
The muscle jumping in his jaw. The tautness in his shoulders.
The way his thumb paused over one message before moving on.
Lane didn’t need to read it to know which one had caught him. Jeanette had sent it while they were inside The Ink Well.
Unknown: You think performing poems changes what you were? I know the real you.
Another had come twenty minutes later.
Unknown: Meet me before I stop asking nice.
Unknown: You owe me.
Lane hated that one most. She didn’t owe Jeanette shit. An ass whooping at worst and her ass to kiss at best. It wasn’t as if Jeanette had given her anything but a nervous system that flinched at broken locks and unknown numbers.
Lennox set the phone down between them, screen facing up but untouched. “Don’t handle this by yourself.”
She looked toward the window, where the neon reflection blurred against the glass. “I’ve been handling her by myself my whole life.”
“I know.” His voice softened. “And I’m asking you to stop making that the requirement.”
He didn’t say she couldn’t handle it. He didn’t say she was in over her head. He didn’t try to turn her mother into another mission he could complete from behind a screen while Lane waited for the report.
He asked again. Damn Robot and his software updates.
Lennox turned slightly in the booth, his knee pressing lightly against hers. “Let me help and support you. Not take over or make decisions for you. I just want to offer my help and support, whatever that looks like to you.”
Lane bit the inside of her lip, then released it when she realized she was doing it.
His eyes dropped to the movement, darkening for half a second before he forced them back to hers.
She wanted to say no on instinct. No was clean.
No kept the gates locked. No meant nobody could disappoint her unless she opened the door and gave them the map.
But no also meant going home alone with Jeanette’s threats buzzing through her phone and the old girl inside her bracing for another night of saving herself.
Lane was tired of saving herself in rooms where someone else was asking to stand guard.
“Okay,” she said quietly.
She looked at the surprised expression on his face. “Don’t make that face.”
“What face?”
“The face like I just gave you nuclear codes.”
“I’ll let you help,” she said. “But I lead.”
“You lead.”
Keisha returned with two catfish baskets and eyed them both. “Do I need to bring hot sauce or a referee?” She asked jokingly.
“Both,” Lane said.
Lennox laughed, and just like that, the heaviness shifted enough to let air back in.
They ate and talked about everything and nothing.
Lane dipped catfish into hot sauce and stole fries from Lennox’s basket even though hers were right there.
Lennox let her, then stole a piece of her fish and pretended to be offended when she slapped his hand.
“Thief,” she said.
“You stole first,” he reminded her
“Lennox, I’m too charming to be a thief. ”
“You’re violent.”
“And yet you’re still sitting here,” she stuck her tongue out to tease him.
“I make poor choices.”
Lane paused with a fry halfway to her mouth. “That is the most self-aware thing you’ve ever said.”
Lennox’s thigh pressed against hers helped her mood more than she wanted to admit.
He seemed incapable of not touching her for longer than five minutes.
If she shifted away to reach for a napkin, he pouted.
A grown man moonlighting as a hacker with government-level skills and underworld infamy, pouting because her knee wasn’t touching his.
Lane watched it happen the third time and nearly choked on her water.
“What?” he asked.
“You pout.”
“I do not.”
“You absolutely do.”
“Girl, I’m grown.”
“Grown people pout, and your ass is proof.”
He leaned back, offended. “I’m affectionate.”
“You’re clingy with perfect teeth.”
“I like touching you.”
Her face warmed at how plainly he admitted it. No performance or slickness—just truth.
Lane looked down at her plate. “I noticed.”
“You mind?” He asked,
She swallowed. “Not tonight.”
His smile softened. “Then come here.”
“I’m already beside you.”
“Closer,” he demanded.
“You are very needy for a man with this much audacity.”
“Only with you.”
Lane should’ve rolled her eyes harder. Instead, she slid a little closer until her thigh rested fully against his. Lennox’s arm settled around her shoulders, and the satisfied little exhale he released should’ve annoyed her; it only made her stupidly warm.