Page 4 of The Spark

That was my business.

I kicked off my slippers and sat at the edge of my bed, my laptop slipping from my hands, untouched. My body was tense, thrumming with nerves I didn’t want to name. I pressed the heels of my palms to my eyes and took a deep breath.

This wasn’t just about tonight.

Weeks ago, Mama called me up like it was nothing, like she hadn’t been conspiring with Mrs. Regina for years.

“Baby,” she said in that sing-song voice that always came with an agenda,“Regina told me Amir’s place is getting work done. The noise is awful. She thought maybe, with you living alone and having a bigger space and all…”

I’d already been shaking my head.“Mama, no.”

“You didn’t even let me finish!”

“I already know what you’re gonna say.”

“All I’m saying,”she continued, unfazed,“is he needs a quiet place to land, and you’ve got space. It makes sense.”

Logical. Sensible. On paper.

But that’s the thing about paper—it don’t factor in the weight of old feelings. Feelings that had no business still living in me.

She didn’t know what it was like having him around. How many nights I spent with my knees tucked to my chest after he’d left, wondering if maybe, just maybe, he felt it too. The pull. The ache. The something that wasn’t quite friendship but never became more.

Not when he always had somebody on his arm. Pretty women. Stylish. Loud. Glossy. Never women like me.

I was the one he confided in. The one he checked in on. The one he calledAwith that low voice that curled down my spine like smoke. But never the one he chose.

So I let distance do what clarity couldn’t. I started creating space. Dodging texts. Cutting phone calls short. Telling myself I was protecting my peace when really… I was guarding my heart.

Now he was in my home, taking up space with that scent and that voice, and I was trying not to come undone.

But a part of me—a big, reckless, aching part—wanted nothing more than to let him unravel me. To be the reason I came undone.

2

I’d only been here for a few hours, and already, Amaya’s place felt like home.

Not because it was familiar, but because it was her.

That same soft, lingering scent of cocoa butter, vanilla, and something deeper—something warm, something that had been lodged in the back of my mind for years, no matter how much I tried to push it away. It clung to the air, to the blankets, to my skin.

I exhaled and sat on the edge of the bed in the spare bedroom, dragging a hand down my face. This was about to be a problem.

A real, fucking problem.

Because Amaya Jameson wasn’t just beautiful. She was the kind of fine that got under your skin. That took up space in your mind. The kind you felt in your gut. And now I had nowhere to escape it.

The room was nicer than I expected—but that was Amaya. She always had good taste, even back in the day when she was decorating her bedroom walls with postcards from museum gift shops and thrifted fabric she swore looked “textured, not cheap.”

But this space was grown. Intentional. An extension of her.

The walls were lined with art—some hers, some not. I recognized her brushstrokes immediately. Soft, fluid lines. Messy color stories that still somehow made perfect sense. A piece with charcoal shading caught my eye, and I smiled. She’d always had a soft spot for the grit of dry mediums, even though her digital work was what made people stop scrolling.

A sleek black bookshelf stretched along one wall, stacked high with thick-ass art history books that probably cost more than my entire sneaker collection. Graphic novels she used to rave about were tucked next to books on Black futurism, sketch pads, and well-worn portfolios. I spotted a Zadie Smith paperback, some Baldwin, and a limited edition Basquiat monograph she once said she’d save up for—guess she finally got it.

She didn’t just have good taste. She had vision. A way of seeing the world that turned spaces, people, memories—me—into art.

Everything about this place screamedher. And maybe that’s what had me feeling restless.

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