Chapter Twenty-Three #2
“The Miracle Mothers Charity Gala,” I said, kneeling to rescue a stack of neon Post-its before they met their end under his foot. “I’m proposing a community initiative—Maternal Wellness. Postpartum counseling, nurse visits, peer groups, maybe even a hotline.”
He nodded slowly. “And this is your idea of fun?”
“Some people do yoga,” I said, gesturing at the organized whirlwind. “I color-code trauma statistics.”
“So...all of this is for a ten-minute presentation?”
“Yes.”
“Isn’t that a little much?”
My spine straightened. “Excuse me?”
“I just mean—” He pointed vaguely at the explosion of color and paper. “You’ve turned the living room into a command center. Are you sure you’re not just trying to prove a point? That you can win?”
The words landed with the sting of lemon juice in a paper cut. Probably because he was right. But I wasn’t about to let him know that.
“What?” I said, my voice coming out too fast. “You don’t think I could actually care about this?”
“That’s not—”
“Because I do,” I snapped. “I care about helping people. I didn’t spend half my life memorizing anatomy and missing social events just to prove a point.”
He lifted his hands in surrender. “That’s not what I meant.”
The fight in me drained all at once, leaving only the vacant echo of it behind. I folded my arms, looking anywhere but at him. The room felt too loud in its silence—papers breathing softly under the fan, the faint hum of the refrigerator, the pulse in my own throat.
My gaze landed on the floor, on the mayhem I’d made of my ideas—highlighters, data sheets, fragments of gusto scattered like confetti after a parade no one came to.
Finally, I said, “You know they didn’t even come to my white coat ceremony.”
“Who didn’t?”
“My parents,” I spat. “They didn’t come to a single graduation, they refused to spend a dime on my education—despite being the first and only person in my family to get accepted into university. Half the time they didn’t even believe I’d make it this far, and when I did, they didn’t care.”
“Your dad didn’t go either?”
I let out a weak snort. “My dad...” I shook my head. “He wasn’t like my mom. He wasn’t cruel, or mean, or criticizing every inch of my existence.” My voice sagged. “He was quiet. And somehow that was worse. Because it just meant I wasn’t worth defending.”
He didn’t say anything. The absence of noise stretched, full and heavy.
“Is it so terrible,” I continued, “to want to prove myself? To want to be...enough?”
He stared at me for a beat too long, like he was weighing every possible version of the truth before choosing one. “Yes, it is terrible. You don’t need to prove yourself to anyone, Lillian. You’re a doctor. You’re successful. You already are enough. You always were. Who cares what they think?”
He said it like it was simple math, like the proof of my worth was right there in the degrees on the wall. “I do,” I said. “I care.”
His brow furrowed, but my word vomit barreled right over him before he got the chance to respond.
“Sometimes I just want to dump all of me out,” I admitted quietly. “I just want to get rid of everything—the whole sloppy, insufferable version of myself that made me so difficult to keep—and start over as someone new. Someone who would’ve been easier to love in the first place.”
“Well,” he said softly, like the answer had always been there, waiting for me to catch up to it, “even if you managed to do that...I think you’d accidentally find your way back to being you.”
I huffed out a small, uneven laugh, but it didn’t quite land. “That’s not very encouraging.”
His gaze didn’t waver. “It is,” he murmured. “Because there’s nothing about you that needs replacing.”
The vulnerability in the loft was pressing down on me, so instead of drowning in it, I did the only logical thing a spiraling adult woman could do.
“Dance with me.”
He blinked. “Excuse me?”
I unplugged my headphones and hit play. Music flooded into the room.
“Dance with me,” I repeated, grabbing his hand.
But his arm stayed stiff, locked at his side like he’d been carved out of unwilling marble.
I groaned, already breathless as I started shimmying around him. “Do you ever get tired of being so uptight? Seriously, I will happily pull the stick out of your butt whenever you want. I won’t even make you beg. All you have to do is ask...nicely.”
“I don’t have a stick...anywhere,” he muttered, ears pink, refusing to move even an inch.
I snorted. “You’re cute when you lie. Because when you lie, you don’t even know you’re lying. You genuinely believe whatever nonsense is spewing from your mouth.”
I spun in closer, bumping his shoulder with mine, grinning. “You think you’re so stoic, Mr. Tough Guy, but you’re not. You’re an adorably awkward boy who falls for his own fantasies”
I pinched him in the side, right above his hip. He jolted—a tiny, scandalized convulsion—and a single laugh burst free.
“A ticklish, adorably awkward boy who falls for his own fantasies.”
Another defenceless laugh escaped his tight security, and I laughed with him, delighted.
Hearing him laugh made me delighted. I continued to pirouette around him in a messy orbit, waving my arms like some deranged, pastel-colored planet, letting the music crash through me in one last surge of delusional bravery.
And he continued to watch me twirl and flail and giggle, his cheeks a shade of cherry red so vivid it could’ve been evidence. His eyes were bright, too—too soft, too focused, too something—for a man allegedly above dancing, emotions, or basic silliness.
But just as the song swelled, his hand shot out, fingers wrapping around my wrist and tugging me back toward him.
I barely had time to register what was happening before he spun me once—effortlessly, like he’d done this before, like he wasn’t supposed to be good at this but somehow was—then dipped me without warning.
I laughed in surprise, stomach hiccupping, his arm firm at my back, the other gripping my waist. My eyes flew to his, wide and beaming, and for one suspended second, we just...looked at each other, both a little breathless, both smiling like we’d accidentally broken some unspoken rule.
Then the music tipped into a quieter, introspective bridge, and the spell thinned, ruining the moment. He straightened me almost immediately—too quickly, like he’d suddenly remembered himself—and let his hands fall away. The space rushed back between us. I slowed, stopped, exhaled.
“It didn’t work,” I said finally.
He frowned. “What didn’t?”
“My mom. Her voice. It’s still ringing in my ears. I couldn’t dance her out of me.”
Khalifa stepped closer, cupped both palms around my ear like he was about to tell me a secret, took a dramatic breath, and bellowed: “Leave Lillian alone!”
The shout reverberated through my skull. I yelped, half laughing, half ducking, because the heat of his breath grazed my neck on the way out, sending an involuntary shiver darting down my spine.
He pulled back, eyebrows lifted, pleased with himself. “Did it work?”
I paused, letting the buzzing settle into something manageable. “Yes,” I said dryly. “But only because you popped my eardrum and spit in my ear.”
His face crumpled in mortification as he reached up, sweeping his thumb over the curve of my ear in gentle apology. “Sorry.”
I turned the music off and bent, collecting my papers, stacking them with more force than necessary.
My mother’s relentless voice was gone now, replaced by the humiliatingly persistent replay of Khalifa casually sticking his finger into my ear like it was the most normal Tuesday activity.
Fantastic. I’d traded lifelong trauma for. ..ear intimacy? Growth?
He crouched beside me and started helping gather stray notes, his long fingers smoothing the creased corners before passing them to me. We worked inaudibly, knees bumping, my breath still a little uneven from my impromptu dance therapy.
And every time his skin skimmed mine, a miniscule spark shot through me. Probably static electricity.
Probably.
When the floor was visible again, he looked around, then back at me. “Are you tired?”
“Not really,” I said, adjusting my long waves where they’d slipped loose from my banana clip. “Why?”
He leaned against the wall, wearing that rare, crooked, almost-smile that made my pulse skip. “It’s too late for pancakes, but what about some ice cream? I’ll even eat some with you.”
“You? Eat ice cream?”
He shrugged. “Desperate times.”
“Yeah, sure. I have to quiz you anyway.”
“Quiz me? For what?”
“For Hurricane Sarah tomorrow.”
“Right,” he said dryly. “How could I forget? The friendship inquisition.”
“Exactly.” I headed for the freezer. “We’ll start with the basics—favorite color, favorite movie, number of times you’ve cried watching My Girl.”
“I don’t cry during movies.”
“Good,” I called over my shoulder. “That’s question one. You already failed.” I pulled out the tub of ice cream—well, some vegan thing disguised as ice cream that was actually better than regular ice cream, but I wasn’t about to tell him that—and grabbed two spoons. “Question two: how did we meet?”
Silence.
“Wrong,” I said, sampling a bite. “The answer is not ‘we were forced into an arranged marriage for my freedom, and you’re dying mother—may she rest in peace.’ It’s ‘opposites attract.’ Very romantic. Very convincing.”
When I came into the living room, he’d sprawled against the back of the couch, one arm slung lazily over his chest. His eyes were closed, his breathing deep and even.
I scoffed, ready to throw a spoon at him. “You have got to be kidding me.”
But the irritation didn’t last long, because as I looked at him—completely at ease, lashes brushing his cheeks, lips parted slightly—the flutter in my chest was back.
For once, he wasn’t guarded. He wasn’t the man who measured every word before speaking or buried his feelings under dry wit and logic.
He was just...Khalifa. Unarmored, uncensored, entirely and beautifully human.
I should’ve looked away, but it felt like catching a rare celestial event—something you knew wouldn’t last, so you let yourself stare long enough to make it weird.
He was like a butterfly or a deer: impossibly pretty, but one wrong move and he’d startle, vanish, fold back into himself before I could blink.
The thought made my ribs ache unexpectedly, this instinct to breathe quieter, think fainter, just to keep him from slipping away.
“Fine,” I muttered, plopping down beside him. “Sleep through your exam, Professor. See if I care.”
I didn’t care, though, not really. It was hard to stay mad at someone who always listened to me harp on about anything and everything—my catastrophes, my tangents, my unnecessary medical metaphors—like each one was the most fascinating bedtime story.
I popped the lid and lifted my spoon, fully committed to my first bite when he suddenly tipped over, landing straight in my lap.
I froze, every muscle locking as he snuggled against me, heat-laced and sculpted and very much real.
My stomach flipped so hard it was practically acrobatic.
I stared down at him, willing him to wake up and fix this, or at least acknowledge it.
My hand twitched before my brain caught up. I dropped it, shook my head, and told myself to get a grip. Then I did it again—hovered, faltered, retreated. Three botched attempts later, my fingertips finally grazed his cheek. His skin was warm. Smooth. Softer than I expected.
And then, as if he’d been waiting for my touch, he leaned into it. Only slightly. Enough to make my heart lurch.
I sucked in a breath and yanked my hand back like I’d been burned, pulse pounding, ice cream completely forgotten. This was insane, I was insane. He sighed in his sleep, low and vulnerable, and I melted faster than the half-eaten pint currently leaking into the cushion.
I reached for the throw blanket and draped it over his body, careful not to jostle him.
His brow relaxed like my small act had tugged him closer to peace.
I smiled and sat back, spoon in hand, watching him sleep like a fool while I ate straight from the tub.
The questions I’d meant to ask him drifted somewhere between the flicker of the TV and the adorable sound of his snoring.
By the time I hit the bottom of the carton, I’d decided two things: one, he was objectively infuriating. And two, I was absolutely screwed.