6. Space Between
SIX
SPACE BETWEEN
NAILAH
I was already awake.
I'd been awake since 4:12, lying in the dark with one arm behind my head and my phone face down on my chest, thinking about the way silk looks against dark skin. The way a man's pulse feels under your thumb when he's letting you hold him still.
Josh was already warming up when I got to the gym. Same corner, same resistance bands, same protein shake sweating on the bench beside him. He looked up when I dropped my bag.
"You're early."
"Couldn't sleep."
He raised an eyebrow. Josh was a good trainer and a better friend. Never once made it weird. "Couldn't sleep, or didn't want to?"
I grabbed a band and looped it around the squat rack without answering.
He let it go. That was Josh. He noticed everything and pushed nothing. Said I needed more protein and more water and more rest, and then spotted me through deadlifts without asking why my form was sharper than it had been in months. Why my grip on the bar was different. Tighter. More intentional.
Because I know what these hands can do now.
I pulled 195 clean. Deep. Came up from the bottom like I was pressing the floor away from me.
Josh said "damn" under his breath.
I caught it. Kept lifting. Loaded ten more.
"Since when do you add plates without me forcing you?”
"Just feel strong today."
He looked at me in assessment. The way a trainer looks at a body performing differently than its pattern.
"Something’s changed."
"Yeah." I wiped down the bar. "Something did."
Monday came and so did work, and a problem it was.
Not the work itself. Nine Body Co. kept me busy.
We were in the middle of a new product launch: an EDP called Pure Passion, and my inbox was full of campaign briefs and scent profiles.
Passion fruit, white tea, coconut cream, cocoa butter, tonka, sandalwood, amber.
I'd been writing copy about it for two weeks and the fragrance notes had burrowed into my subconscious, showing up in my dreams, in my showers, in the oil I smoothed across my collarbones before leaving the house.
The problem was that I was sitting at my desk Friday afternoon with a half written Instagram caption on screen and all I could think about was the sound a metal ring makes when silk passes through it.
Pure Passion: Feel good in the skin you're already in.
I stared at it. Flat. Generic. The kind of copy I'd been producing for months: soft, aspirational, forgettable.
I deleted it.
Your body already knows. It has always known. The only question is whether you'll let it speak.
Better. Something with a spine. Something that expected the reader to meet it standing up.
I kept writing. Three more captions. A product description. An email header. All of it came out different. Not louder. Sturdier.
Bria leaned over the partition. Green juice. Eyebrows up.
"You look different today."
"Same face."
"It's not the face. It’s your aura, babe. You look refreshed” She waved at my posture. My shoulders. The way I was sitting up straight in my chair for the first time in months, chest open, taking up the full width of my desk space.
"New pillow,” I threw out.
"That is not a pillow." She narrowed her eyes. "That is a man."
"Goodnight, Bria."
"It's two in the afternoon."
"And yet."
She went back to her desk. I bit my cheek to keep from smiling.
The truth is, Bria wasn't wrong. Something was different and it showed in everything.
The way I answered emails–direct, no qualifiers, no apologizing for existing in someone's inbox.
The way I scheduled content–bold choices, less hedging, trusting my instinct about what the audience wanted to see.
The way I stood in the break room waiting for the microwave, not pressed against the wall making myself smaller, but centered.
Feet planted. Hips taking up the space they required.
It's funny how learning your own power in one room changes the way you carry yourself in every other room. The back studio was teaching me something that bled into everything.
After work, I was walking to my car when my phone buzzed.
Jarvis
You eat yet?
I hadn't. I'd been surviving on a Kind bar since 2 PM because the Pure Passion campaign ate my whole afternoon and I forgot lunch existed.
No.
I'm on Peters. You're ten minutes from me. Come eat.
I sat in my car with the engine off. Overthinking. This was just... food. With a man I'd been naked in front of. A man I'd only ever seen in controlled environments designed for one specific purpose.
What were we outside of that room?
I started the car.
When I arrived, he was leaning against his black Escalade in the parking lot of a taco truck on Northside Drive, two Styrofoam containers already in hand. He was dressed in Amiri, a grey crewneck sweatshirt, black jeans, sneakers. A Braves cap pulled low.
I pulled in beside him. Got out.
He smiled. Fast. Like seeing me in his space surprised him even though he'd invited me.
"You look tired," he said.
"Complimentary."
"You look beautiful and tired. Better?"
"Marginally." I took the container he offered. "What is this?"
"Birria. From the truck behind you. Don't ask questions, just eat. Trust me.”
We sat the food on hood of his car. Side by side. The evening still warm, that thick Atlanta summer air that smells like asphalt and honeysuckle. Traffic on Northside humming past us. His thigh near mine but not touching. The containers open on our laps.
I took a bite and my eyes closed.
“Mmmm”
"Told you," he said.
"Shut up.”
He laughed. Low. Easy. The sound of it was different with just us and the conversation just flowed.
He asked me what my favorite movie was and when I said Love Jones he groaned like I'd physically hurt him. "Every woman in Atlanta says Love Jones, Nai. Give me something else.”
“For real. That's my movie.”
"Fine. Top three then. No repeats from anyone else's list."
"Love Jones, Set It Off, and Waiting to Exhale.”
"Set It Off is crazy." He laughed. "You just told me everything I need to know about you. You want romance, revenge, and a good time with your girls."
"And what's yours?"
"Heat. Training Day. And..." He chewed, thinking. "Man on Fire."
"So you like watching men be obsessed and violent."
"I like watching men commit fully to something." He looked at me sideways. "There's a difference."
I stole one of his tacos. He let me.
We talked about high school. He reminisced about my mother's cooking. Specifically the oxtails.
“Ms. Gina’s oxtails had me at that house every Sunday for six months," he said. "I wasn't there for Malik half the time. I was there for the food. Hell I need to go pay her a visit soon, I haven’t ate like that in a while.”
"She would've fed you even without Malik. You know how she is. Any child that walked through that door was getting a plate."
"Facts. She ever ask about me?"
"All the time. 'How's that Jarvis boy doing? He has some nice hands? You know what they say about a man with big hands? He still taking pictures?'" I mimicked her voice and he almost choked on his food laughing.
"Nice hands? Your mama said I have nice hands?"
“She always seemed to have a crush on you. That, or she was trying to get me to see the appeal,” I laughed.
“She would just love this,” I laughed more pointing between the two of us.
“Shit, let’s go give her the good news.” He joked, pulling me closer to him by my hips.
“Ain’t no news,” I said, shoving his shoulder.
“Yeah, not yet.” He caught my hand before I could pull it back, and we caught each other’s eyes. Held it for just a second. Then a passing car horn broke the connection.
We argued about music for twenty minutes. He was a Jill Scott purist. I told him Jill was untouchable but Erykah was the blueprint. He said "those are fighting words, Nailah Cross" with such genuine offense that I thought he might actually leave.
He didn't leave. He put on Jill's "He Loves Me" on his car speaker and conducted it with a taco in his hand, mouthing every word. I watched him perform an entire verse to me in a parking lot on Northside Drive and thought: oh. This man is ridiculous. And I want him so much it scares me.
We talked about where we'd live if we could live anywhere. He said Portugal. I said Martha's Vineyard. He said "bougie" and I said "peaceful" and he said "same thing for Black people" and I couldn't even argue.
He asked me what I was afraid of. Casually, between bites.
"Roaches," I said. "The flying ones."
"Atlanta roaches are a different species."
"They have CONFIDENCE, Jarvis. They fly AT you."
"I'll kill them for you."
"You don't even know where I live."
"So tell me where you live."
I looked at him. He looked at me. The invitation sitting between us, light and easy, not heavy with anything except the simple fact that a man wanted to know where I lived so he could kill roaches for me. The most mundane, ordinary, domestic thing. And it made my chest tight.
"Kirkwood," I said. "Off Memorial."
"That's fifteen minutes from my studio."
"I know."
"You've been fifteen minutes from me this whole time."
"I know."
He shook his head. Smiling. Looking at the last of the sunset like it had told him something good.
Another minute passed. The sky going from gold to purple. His arm warm against mine. The sound of Atlanta evening traffic a low constant beneath everything.
"Same time next week?" he asked. "This truck's here every Wednesday."
"Are you asking me on a date, Jarvis?"
"I'm asking if you want tacos with me next Wednesday. Call it whatever you want."
"Next Wednesday," I said.
"Bet."