Chapter 20 #2
She tilted her head, studying me like a particularly fascinating piece of modern art at a museum gallery.
“You look different.”
“I do not.”
“Oh, you absolutely do.”
From the living room, a sudden burst of easy, loud laughter erupted.
Cal and Jalen were cracking up over something, the rich, booming sound of their amusement drifting easily through the open hallway of the high-rise.
Nia's eyes instinctively followed the trail of the laughter, tracking it back toward the couch, before her gaze snapped right back to me.
“You have this glow about you,” she whispered, her eyes dancing.
I laughed quietly, a faint flush hitting my cheeks as I reached out and took the wine bottle from her hands.
“Stop.”
“I'm completely serious, Mars.”
She stepped closer, lowering her voice just enough to make absolute sure the guys couldn't hear us over the television and their own conversation.
“You look... lighter.”
I frowned, looking down at my clothes before looking back at her.
“Lighter?”
“Yeah,” Nia said softly, her expression turning unusually genuine for a fraction of a second.
“You don't look like you're constantly carrying the heavy weight of the world on your shoulders anymore.
The corporate armor is missing.”
I didn't answer her right away.
Instead, my eyes drifted past her shoulder toward the living room.
Jalen was in the dead center of telling some animated story, gesturing with his hands, a display that had both him and my brother laughing so hard they could barely get the words out.
As I watched the relaxed line of Jalen's shoulders and the bright, easy tilt of his head, a soft, unprompted smile spread across my face without me even realizing it.
Nia caught it immediately, her triumphant grin locking back into place.
“There it is,” she whispered, nudging my arm.
I blinked, pulling my gaze away from the couch.
“What?”
"That smile."
I looked back at her.
"What about it?"
"I haven't seen you smile like that in years."
Heat crept into my cheeks.
"I smile all the time."
"You do," she admitted, "but this one is different."
I laughed nervously.
"You're reading too much into it."
She slipped her arm through mine as we walked toward the kitchen.
"No," she said with a knowing grin. "I think you're finally letting yourself be happy."
I tried to play it off, but the truth was she wasn't wrong.
Lately I felt lighter than I had in years, and somewhere between the dinners, the laughter, and the quiet evenings spent doing absolutely nothing, I had stopped waiting for something to go wrong.
For the first time in a very long time, life felt easy.
I hadn't realized how exhausting it had been to carry my guard around until I finally started setting it down.
"Come on," I said as I nudged her shoulder with mine. "Let's start karaoke before those two start debating the entire playbook."
She didn't move.
Instead, she folded her arms across her chest and looked at me with the same knowing smile that always meant she had noticed something I hadn't.
"Mmhmm," she said quietly.
I rolled my eyes.
"Don't start."
"I'm not starting anything," she replied as she followed me toward the living room. "I'm simply making observations."
Cal looked up from the couch the moment we walked in.
"There you are," he said. "We were just telling Jalen about the time you tried to sing Beyoncé at my birthday party."
I pointed at him immediately.
"That story has officially been retired."
Jalen leaned back against the couch with a grin spreading across his face.
"I think I need to hear this story."
"No, you absolutely do not."
"Oh, he absolutely does," Cal said with a laugh.
Nia already had her phone in her hand.
"I hope you're ready because we're recreating the performance tonight."
I groaned.
"I thought you were my best friend."
"I am," she said. "That is exactly why this is happening."
Within minutes the karaoke machine filled the living room with music, and any hope I had of preserving my dignity disappeared.
The next two hours turned into exactly the kind of night I hadn't realized I needed.
The house filled with laughter, terrible singing, and enough food to feed twice as many people.
Cal somehow knew every lyric to every early 2000s rap song, while Nia performed every R&B classic like she was headlining a sold-out concert.
Jalen claimed he wasn't much of a singer, but after enough encouragement, he reluctantly agreed to join me for a duet.
Neither of us knew more than half the words.
By the second verse we had completely abandoned the lyrics and started making them up, laughing so hard that we could barely finish the song.
At one point I looked over and caught him watching me instead of the television screen.
When our eyes met, he smiled and gave my hand a quick squeeze before letting go as though it had happened without either of us thinking about it.
It was such a small gesture that I doubted anyone else noticed.
When I looked toward Nia, she was already watching us with one eyebrow raised.
I immediately looked away.
Later, while Cal was passionately explaining why his fantasy football predictions were always right, Jalen quietly leaned toward me.
"I think your brother has been talking for fifteen straight minutes."
I smiled without looking at him.
"I timed him once."
"And?"
"Twenty-three minutes."
He covered his mouth to hide a laugh.
Across the room, Nia caught the exchange.
She didn't say anything.
She simply smiled into her wine glass.
Every now and then Jalen would reach for another fry from my plate, and without thinking, I would lightly smack his hand away.
A few minutes later I caught myself reaching over to brush a crumb from the corner of his mouth before I even realized what I was doing.
Neither of us reacted.
The moment simply happened as naturally as breathing.
Cal kept talking, completely oblivious.
Nia saw everything.
By the time the karaoke machine finally fell silent, empty plates covered the coffee table, the dishwasher hummed quietly in the kitchen, and someone had lowered the music until it blended softly into the background.
The four of us settled into an easy rhythm that felt surprisingly comfortable.
Jalen and Cal stayed inside, leaning over a tablet while they studied tomorrow's game plan together.
Their voices drifted through the open sliding glass door as they debated defensive coverages and argued over which receiver would have the biggest game.
Out on the patio, Nia and I claimed the lounge chairs, a bottle of crisp white sweating in the ice bucket between us. The heavy, warm evening breeze carried the scent of jasmine from the courtyard below, while the lights of the Houston skyline bled softly into the glass towers in the distance.
Nia took a slow sip, her eyes tracking me over the rim of her glass with that same, knowing look she’d been wearing all evening.
"Well," she said, setting her glass down with a soft clink.
I smiled, though my pulse ticked up a fraction. "What?"
"I see exactly what you've been up to for the past month."
I laughed quietly, pulling one leg up onto the cushion and tucking it beneath me. "Come on. It hasn't been that obvious."
Nia almost choked on her wine. "Mars."
"What?"
"You just brushed a stray crumb off that man's jaw like you've been married for ten years and share a mortgage.
"Heat flooded my cheeks, sudden and scorching.
"I did not."
"You absolutely did."
"I wasn't even thinking!"
"I know," Nia said, her grin turning soft and triumphant. "That's exactly my point."
I stared down into my glass, watching the dark liquid swirl as the truth finally sank in.
"I didn't realize that happened."
She smiled softly.
"It happened when you stopped trying so hard to protect yourself and finally started letting someone love you."
I didn't answer.
I wasn't sure I could.
She gestured toward the living room where Jalen's voice drifted through the open doorway as he and Cal debated something on the tablet with the kind of confidence only two sports fanatics could have.
"You two are practically attached at this point."
I followed her gaze and couldn't help smiling when I saw Jalen laughing at something my brother had just said.
She wasn't wrong.
Over the past few weeks, we had somehow settled into each other's lives without either of us realizing it was happening.
Nia smiled knowingly.
"That's usually a good sign."
I nodded slowly.
"He just makes everything feel... simple."
She tilted her head.
"Simple how?"
I thought about it for a moment before answering.
"He understands my sense of humor without me having to explain it, and somehow we always end up laughing about the most random things."
I smiled to myself as another memory surfaced.
"The other night we spent almost twenty minutes arguing over whether cereal counted as soup, and he was so committed to proving his point that he actually started looking up definitions."
Nia laughed.
"That sounds like him."
"I don't know if I've ever laughed so hard."
She took another sip of her wine.
"What else?"
I looked toward the living room again.
"He notices things."
"What kind of things?"
"The little things that most people overlook."
I smiled without realizing it.
"If I look tired, he notices before I say anything. If I've had a stressful day, he somehow knows exactly when to make me laugh instead of asking me a hundred questions. If I'm working too long without taking a break, he quietly sets a cup of coffee next to my laptop without saying a word."
Nia listened without interrupting.
"He pays attention," I continued. "Not because he has to, but because he genuinely wants to."
She smiled softly.
"And?"
I looked down at my wine glass.
"He makes me feel safe."
The words escaped before I had the chance to think about them.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
Nia reached over and rested her hand on mine.
"I think that's the detail you've been avoiding."
I let out a quiet laugh.
"I know."
"You've spent years protecting your peace, Mars."
"I have."
"And now?"
I glanced back toward the house where Jalen had thrown his head back laughing at something Cal had said.