27. Amiyah
Chapter twenty-seven
Amiyah
We’re halfway up Mulholland Drive and the night air feels like warm silk against my bare legs.
Jae’s black-on-black sports car handles the hairpin curves with a lazy, arrogant grace, the low-slung engine growling and barely breaking a sweat as we climb higher into the dark, the city spilling out behind us in a slow-motion smear of neon white and bruised violet and iron-grey shadow.
I’m wearing a pink plaid skirt and a fitted tank top that I told myself had absolutely nothing to do with him when I put it on, and the lie is so transparent I’m almost impressed with my own audacity.
His text had arrived at 10:37 PM.
Jae: Bored and restless. Want a ride? I’ll pick you up.
I’d read it three times. The subtext was screaming so loud I could hear it from my bedroom. I typed back sure why not with the detached casualness of someone agreeing to a dental cleaning, then spent twenty minutes staring at my closet before pulling out the skirt.
The car smells like leather conditioner and cedar—that same warm, heavy scent that clings to his clothes and follows him through rooms. With its tinted windows and low, heavy-chested engine, the sound system is currently playing something low and instrumental, a piano line threading through the darkness just soft enough to talk over.
I have my elbow propped on the door, my head tilted back against the headrest, one bare leg crossed over the other.
The skirt is short. Deliberately short. It hits high up on my thighs the pleats soft against my skin every time the car shifts through a curve.
The fitted tank top clings to my ribs, sheer fabric that does nothing to hide the fact that I’m not wearing a bra.
I told myself it was too hot for layers. Another flimsy lie.
Jae drives with one hand loose on the wheel, his fingers long and relaxed against the leather.
His other arm rests along the center console, close enough that I can feel the heat radiating off his skin without touching it.
He’s wearing joggers and a ribbed white tank.
The streetlights sweep across the interior in slow, rhythmic passes, catching the sharp line of his jaw, the curve of his mouth, the way his eyes track the road with that unhurried focus that makes my stomach tighten.
Then the lights catch something else.
His gaze drops. Just for a second—a quick, involuntary flick down to my legs, the bare skin of my thigh where the skirt has ridden up, the curve of my knee against the leather seat.
He doesn’t pull away fast enough. I catch the whole thing: the slight dilation of his pupils, the way his throat moves when he swallows, the fractional tightening of his fingers on the wheel.
I say nothing. I let him look.
He does it again three minutes later at a red light, his eyes dragging slow and deliberate across the exposed line of my collarbone, the narrow strap of my top, the hollow at the base of my throat where my silver chain rests against warm skin.
The light turns green. He shifts gears, and the car pulls forward with a smooth, liquid surge that presses me back against the seat.
The city falls away beneath us as we climb.
The streets narrow, houses growing larger and further apart behind privacy hedges glowing under security lights.
Through my window, Los Angeles unravels into a sprawl of light so dense it loses all meaning—streetlamps bleeding into the orange haze of smog, the downtown skyline reduced to a jagged cluster of metal and glare.
Jae pulls into a gravel turnout at the crest of the hill. The engine cuts, and the silence that rushes in is immediate and heavy: the low, constant hum of the Hills, distant traffic on Mulholland, the whisper of wind through dry brush.
“We’re the only ones up here,” I say.
Jae leans back in his seat, one arm draped over the steering wheel. “For now.”
The console between us feels both too wide and not wide enough. His arm rests along the edge, his fingers loose, the small crown tattoo on his inner wrist catching the distant glow of the city.
“So,” he says. “Hypothetical.”
“Always with the hypotheticals.”
“If you could have any superpower—and you’re not allowed to pick flight, because that’s boring—what would it be?”
I tilt my head against the headrest, considering. “Invisibility.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Really? Not mind reading? Not super strength? You want to disappear.”
“I want the option to disappear,” I correct. “There’s a difference.”
“Hmm.” He studies me, his dark eyes unreadable in the dim light. “I’d pick time manipulation. Freeze time, rewind, fast-forward. The whole package.”
“Of course you would. Control freak.”
“Guilty.” He doesn’t deny it. “Next hypothetical. You’re stranded on a desert island. You can bring three books, one album, and one person. Go.”
“The complete works of Sherlock Holmes counts as one book if it’s bound together.”
“That’s cheating.”
“It’s efficient.”
He laughs—that low, warm sound starting in his chest and working up through his throat. I feel it more than hear it, a vibration traveling through the leather seat and into my ribs. “Fine. Holmes counts as one. The other two?”
“Maybe something by Toni Morrison. And a field guide to edible plants. Practical concerns.”
“And the album?”
“Something I could listen to a thousand times without going insane,” I say, tapping a nail against the console. “Probably SOS by SZA. Or maybe Titanic Rising by Weyes Blood if I want to lean into the existential dread.”
He glances sideways, a slow smirk catching the edge of his mouth. “Classic sad-girl hours. Fitting.”
“And the person?”
I look at him. Really look at him—the sharp cut of his jaw in profile, the city light turning his skin gold and shadow, the quiet intensity of his eyes. “I haven't decided yet.”
Something shifts in his expression—warmer, more complicated. He holds my gaze for a beat longer than he needs to, then looks back out at the city.
“My turn,” I say. “You’re at a crossroads. Two paths. One leads to safety, predictability, a life you already know the shape of. The other leads to something unknown—could be amazing, could destroy you. No guarantees either way. Which path do you take?”
He’s quiet for a long moment.
“The unknown,” he says finally, his voice dropping an octave, rough around the edges. “Every time.”
“Why?”
“Because safety is just another word for surrender.” He turns to look at me, and the raw weight in his eyes hits like a physical blow. “And I didn’t cross an ocean to surrender.”
The silence that follows is charged, heavy with something neither of us has named. I laugh at something he says about his sister’s shark blanket, real and unguarded—the kind of laugh that means my armor has cracked and I hadn't even noticed the lock giving way.
Then he catches me looking.
Not a glance—a look. His dark eyes find mine in the dim light and hold there, unblinking, the air in the car shifting so completely I can feel the pressure change in my ears.
“Careful, hotshot,” he says, his voice dropping into a low, rumbling growl that vibrates through the leather console.
“Or what?”
The corner of his mouth lifts in that slow, infuriating curve. “If you keep looking at me like that, I’m going to assume you like me.”
I lean in. Close enough to taste the dark, quiet air between us. “Quite overly confident, aren’t we?”
His eyes drop to my mouth. Just for a second—a quick, hungry glance. When he looks back up, his expression has darkened into something that makes my breath catch.
“You tell me,” he whispers.
His lips are inches from mine. Every carefully maintained boundary I have built since the day he sat too close to me in class is right here, drawn in the air between our mouths.
I cross it.
I kiss him.
Not a tentative brush, not a question. I just lean across the console and press my mouth straight into his.
My hand finds his jaw, my fingers curling hard into the skin behind his ear. The second our lips hit, something in my chest caves in completely, and I gasp right against his mouth.
Jae makes a low, rough sound in the back of his throat—half surprise, half hunger—and his hand snaps to the back of my neck, fingers tangling deep in my hair.
He pulls me in hard, like he’s been waiting months just to find out if I taste the way he imagined.
His mouth is warm and parted, kissing me with a heavy, desperate edge that leaves zero room to breathe.
I don’t pull away. I press closer, my palm flat against his chest so I can feel the frantic, heavy thud of his heart right through his shirt.
His other hand drops to my waist, his thumb dragging a slow, burning line across the bare skin above my skirt, and the friction is so sharp I actually arch into it before I can even think to stop myself.
I swing my leg over.
One smooth, decisive movement—my knee pressing into the leather beside his hip, my other foot finding the floorboard, and then I’m straddling him, the skirt riding up to the tops of my thighs, the heat of his body beneath me radiating through the thin fabric of my clothes.
Jae’s hands find my waist instantly, his grip firm, anchoring me against him as his head tilts back to look up at me.
His eyes are nearly black in the dim light, pupils blown wide, his breath coming fast and shallow.
“Fuck, Amiyah,” he breathes against my mouth.
His hands slide under the hem of my top, palms flat against the bare skin of my ribs, and the contact is so direct it makes me shudder. He pushes the fabric up slowly, and when I lift my arms and let him pull it over my head, the cool night air hits my bare skin, my nipples hardening instantly.
Jae’s gaze drops to my chest, the hunger in his expression so naked my throat tightens. “Jesus,” he whispers.
His mouth is on my collarbone, his lips trailing a hot, wet path down to the curve of my breast, and when he takes my nipple into his mouth—sucking hard, his tongue circling the sensitive peak—the sound tearing out of me is ragged and desperate.