The city wasn't sleeping. Neon lights pulsed like a heartbeat across the skyline, and a low buzz of honking, laughter, and distant sirens weaved through the streets like background music to chaos. Elira stood on the edge of her apartment's tiny balcony, one bare foot pressed against the cold iron rail, her phone still glowing with Reyna's last message.
"Come if you want. But don't come halfway."
That was two hours ago.
And now, here she was, dressed in a hoodie that didn't smell like her own perfume anymore, fingers clenched around her phone like it could give her the answer. A strange heat had been building inside her since last night, since that moment in the library where Reyna leaned closer — not to flirt, not to joke — but to see her. Like really see her.
That look hadn't left her head.
And damn it... it scared her.
Meanwhile, Reyna sat cross-legged in her apartment living room — music low, lights dimmed, and a glass of wine in one hand. The other hand? It tapped the rim of the glass with deliberate rhythm. One... two... three...
She didn't expect Elira to come. Girls like Elira didn't take risks. They didn't trade safety for curiosity. But Reyna had pushed. Just a little. She knew the moment they locked eyes in that library, something had cracked beneath Elira's surface.
She smiled bitterly.
"Let's see how deep that crack runs."
9:41 PM.
Elira showed up.
She stood outside Reyna's door for a full minute, unable to press the bell. Her heart beat like she'd run a mile. "This is dumb," she muttered. "I should go back. I should—"
The door opened.
Reyna didn't smile. Didn't speak. She just stepped aside and nodded.
And Elira walked in.
The apartment smelled like citrus and sage. Low jazz music drifted in from somewhere near the kitchen. Reyna didn't offer wine. She just walked to the couch, dropped onto it, and patted the spot beside her.
Elira sat stiffly. Like a soldier on the edge of enemy territory.
"You always this tense?" Reyna asked, not turning.
"Only when I don't know what's happening," Elira replied, eyes darting across the room — books, paintings, a black guitar case leaning in the corner.
Reyna finally looked at her.
"Then let's make it worse."
She leaned in.
Not a kiss.
Not a touch.
Just... a stare. Eyes locked so deeply Elira felt like her whole chest cracked open and all her secrets were pouring out.
"Why me?" Elira whispered.
"Because you've been screaming silently since the day I met you," Reyna said.
"And I... I don't like silence."
What followed was... not sex. Not yet.
But intimacy. Real, raw, tangled emotion that danced just at the edge of temptation.
They sat, face to face. No distance.
Reyna played her music. Elira talked about her broken relationship with her mother. Reyna told her how she'd once fallen in love with a girl who ghosted her after one night.
They didn't need to undress to feel naked.
It was all in the way they looked at each other — like every word mattered. Like this night was more than just rebellion. It was revelation.
12:14 AM.
Reyna got up. Walked to the kitchen. Came back with two glasses of wine.
"So... Elira," she said, teasingly formal, "what scares you more? That you're here, or that you don't want to leave?"
Elira didn't answer.
She took the glass. Sipped. Eyes never leaving Reyna's.
"I don't know what you want from me," Elira murmured.
Reyna smiled. "You think I want something?"
"Don't you?"
"Maybe I just want to watch you unravel."
Silence.
Then Elira did something neither expected.
She reached across the couch, grabbed Reyna's hand, and pulled it to her chest.
"Feel that?" she said.
Reyna nodded slowly.
"You're burning."
"No," Elira whispered. "You are."
And in that moment, every layer of doubt peeled back.
Not a kiss.
Not yet.
But a promise.
A slow pull toward a collision neither could stop.
END OF CHAPTER 3