My heart stuttered, pulse tripping over itself. “You can’t control everything, Ahmir.”
He took one deliberate step closer — close enough that the noise of the gym faded, the parents and kids blurred into background static, and all I could feel was the heat rolling off him. “You keep saying that like it’s true,” he murmured, voice pitched for me alone. “Like you don’t feel the difference when I’m gone.” I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. His gaze dropped slowly — to my mouth, to my throat, to the rise of my chest as I tried to steady my breathing — then lifted again with a knowing I felt in my knees. “You wanted hands-on,” he whispered, breathing warm against my ear. “You’re about to get it.”
A sharp spark shot through me, low and hot, grounding itself in the place that still remem
