Marisol pulled up to the gate house for Bisi’s immaculate waterfront neighborhood and rolled down her window. Mean streets. Tuh. A friendly middle-aged security guard greeted her. 

“Hi,” she replied, “I’m Marisol Ortiz. I’m here to visit Bisi Egbe. She said she’d leave my name at the gate?”

“Oh, yes! I’ve got your name right here. Can I see some ID?”

Marisol flipped open her wallet and handed over her driver’s license for inspection. The guard glanced at it and handed it back to her. He introduced himself, in Spanish, as Manuel, and asked her how her drive was. She smiled and chatted with him for a minute and then he opened the gate, pointed out the turn for Bisi’s house, and let her through, wishing her a good evening with a gap-toothed smile and a big wave. 

Mari found Bisi’s townhouse with no trouble in terms of locating it, but a little bit of trouble in terms of taking it in. It was large and new and modern and attractive and, very obviously, expensive. Slightly intimidating. All in all, a suitable dwelling for Dr. Bisi Egbe, cardio-thoracic surgeon at Johns Hopkins, but an unfamiliar habitat for Mari. Not entirely, though. It was on the water and Mari had grown up on an island, so the ocean—or the Bay, in this case— made it feel a little like home. 

Excited, nervous, and hopeful, Mari pulled her visor down and checked her face in the mirror one last time. She looked ok. She looked good. She took a deep breath and opened the car door and climbed out. She grabbed her purse, but left a small overnight bag she’d packed in the backseat. She didn’t know whether she would need it. She was hoping she would, but not assuming she would. Checking her hair in the reflection of her car window, she smoothed her sweater dress a final time and stood up as tall and straight as she could. Mari, you were talking to her two hours ago. It’s the same Bisi you talk to every night. Just get in there and have a good time. 

She walked to the front door, feeling an unsettling lightness crawling through her forearms and over her sternum and into her throat, as if parts of her were threatening to detach and float away. She let out a breath she’d been holding and pulled in a fresh one, nice and slowly, and then reached out and rang the doorbell. Ok. It’s underway. It’s happening. You’ll find out what happens soon enough. Just calm down, Mari. Just when her forehead and the palms of her hands were threatening to join the floating revolution, Bisi pulled open the door and stepped outside, reaching for Mari, engulfing her in a huge hug.

“You’re here! Finally, you’re here! I’ve been losing my mind all day waiting for you. I just made myself stop checking the front door every five minutes and I went upstairs to grab something, and of course that’s when you got here. Were you waiting long?”

Forever. “Probably all of twenty seconds,” said Mari, breathing in Bisi’s fresh, herbaceous scent and feeling it sinking into her, spreading through her system, quelling the uprising, making her whole again. 

“Please, come in,” said Bisi, stepping inside and gesturing for Mari to join her. Mari followed suit, sliding her feet out of the stacked-heel booties she had on and nudging them into line with Bisi’s shoes. 

“Here, come this way,” said Bisi, leading Mari up a short flight of stairs and into a spacious, airy living room with enormous windows that looked out into the harbor. There she paused, and lifted Mari’s chin, and kissed her, just once, only lingering for a moment before she lifted her head and said, “I’m so glad you’re here. Let me get you comfortable. And let me look at you. No, let me bring you a drink first. What would you like?”

“Maybe just a glass of water, for now,” said Mari, not really needing any chemical assistance to feel dazed or desperate. The embrace and the kiss and Bisi’s scent were more than enough. 

“Ok, well, make yourself comfortable, sit anywhere or feel free to look around and I’ll be right back.” Bisi disappeared into what was, presumably, the kitchen. It seemed to be the place from which all the good cooking smells originated. 

Mari wandered over to the windows and enjoyed the view of the water, even though the day was grey and overcast. Then she slipped her purse off of her shoulder and looked around for a place to set it down. She spotted a chair with something sitting in it and wandered over to set down her bag there as well and then stopped, arrested. She stared at the lithograph for a long moment, going pale. Stiffly, she put her purse strap back over her shoulder and shifted the bag in front of her, holding it there as if it was going to shield her from what came next.

Bisi returned with a glass of water, but Marisol did not look up at her as she asked, “What’s this doing here, Bisi? This is the print that Halston Hollis won in the silent auction.”

Bisi held out the glass of water, but Marisol did not notice. A small line formed between Bisi’s eyebrows. The energy in the room had changed, Mari’s scent had changed, her body language had changed. Because of the print? Because Halston Hollis had been so unpleasant to Mari? Bisi hastened to explain, “Oh, well, he sent it to me yesterday. I suppose he felt grateful for my assistance, such as it was, and he sent it to me. This is the piece I was bidding on myself, actually. The infamous Braxton snatched it out from under me while we were upstairs with his star client. Hollis sent a note with it—a thank you and an apology. I trust you got one as well? A note of apology, I mean?”

Marisol’s hand tightened around the strap of her purse. “Funnily enough, I did not." Still looking fixedly at the print, Marisol cleared her throat and said, “Listen, I… need to go.”

“What?” Bisi asked, dismayed. “You’ve just arrived!”

Marisol had already taken a step backwards and was shaking her head. “I’m sorry. I don’t…Thank you for inviting me over, but I’m not interested in doing this.” Marisol gestured toward the print with two fingers in a vague circling motion.

“In doing what, Temi?” 

“In being in… competition. Especially not with that.”

“The lithograph?” Bisi asked stupidly, her brain having shorted out at the idea of Mari leaving.

“The Omega who sent it to you. I wasn’t trying to pry, but I packed that print up personally and mailed it to California, so I knew... It makes me tired thinking about trying to date someone who has Halston Hollis running after them. I mean, I have decent self-esteem, but this is not a reasonable ask from the universe. That’s just… ridiculous and I’m… like I said, I’m not doing it.” 

“You think Halston Hollis is running after me?”

Mari shrugged jerkily. “Looks like it. Did the note in that envelope include his phone number, by any chance? Any invitation to get in touch?”

Bisi blushed, feeling guilty although she hadn’t thought much about the phone number until now. She’d been more concerned about the thing from an ethical standpoint. And an accounting standpoint. “It did.”

“There you go. You think celebrities hand out their phone numbers to everyone? That’s a big deal.” Mari was tapping her foot now, simmering with displeasure. The scent of distress was wafting out into the room, setting Bisi’s teeth on edge. “Honestly, though?” Mari continued, “Congratulations. It makes sense. This makes sense. You and him. Same tier kind of a thing? The red carpet photos alone, oh my God. Whew. Stunning. Wear red. You look amazing in red.”

“No,” said Bisi, incredulously. “None of this makes sense. But I will agree with you that it is ridiculous that you are, apparently, concerned about him.”

Marisol grimaced and her cheeks turned a dull red. Her distress intensified, and a note of anger singed Bisi’s nose. “Ridiculous. Well, thanks, I guess, for that. I was trying to be cool and sophisticated about this, but you laughing at me actually makes me feel less stupid, paradoxically. Feels like this is a less of a referendum on me and more of a referendum on you now.” Then Mari snapped her mouth and eyes closed, took a long slow breath in, obviously fighting with herself. She spoke again. “¡Ayyyyy bendito!…” she said in a low voice. “Look at me having a meltdown. That was not ideal. Not cool, Marisol. She did not do anything wrong. You never discussed this, nobody promised anything, so this is a you thing. Be better. Be grounded.” Her face calm and blank now, with all the bland emotional unavailability of a mannequin, she opened her eyes and looked at Bisi without looking at Bisi. In a flattened tone, she continued, “Ok. I’m sorry for being insulting just then. I appreciate the invitation to join you for dinner. It was very kind of you. It’s not your fault that you’re a gorgeous, single heart surgeon. These things are bound to happen to you, and that’s great for you, and you should enjoy them. If we were…We’re not, though, really…”

Mari wrapped a second hand around her purse strap as if it was going to somehow slip out of the white-knuckled grip of her first hand. “Look, I’m— I’m not sophisticated. I would be miserable dating you and knowing that you were dating other people. Any other person. Let alone him. I would be miserable for you to be around. I just… that’s just not how I’m set up. So this won’t work. I’ll just go now, ok?” She turned like she absolutely meant to go, but Bisi stepped into her path. Marisol looked up, but looked past Bisi’s ear rather than into her eyes, her face set. Bisi flashed to the moment they’d met, with Marisol looking up at her. So recently. But she felt no differently than Marisol did. She would have been supremely unhappy to think that Mari was dating someone else, anyone else. Let alone some famous person, she supposed. But Bisi was not dating anyone else, or considering dating anyone else, and she needed to get that across. 

Fix this, she urged herself. She assessed the situation as rapidly as she could, looking for a place to start. “Marisol, no. Wait just a moment. I apologize for my choice of words, but to be fair, you are being ridiculous. Now ask me why I said that you are being ridiculous.” 

The smell of anger crackled in the air as Marisol said, succinctly, “Pass.” Well, anger was better than that cold blankness, at least. Sensing that she was risking a headbutt to her nose, but willing to chance it, Bisi lowered her head until she could say quietly, next to Marisol’s ear, “Temi. Marisol. Why will you never ask the questions I want you to ask me so that I can give you the answers I want to give you? Please. Ask me.” As she finished speaking, she took a long breath filled with Marisol’s scent and felt it all the way into her nail beds. Just completely delicious, even unhappy. Oh my God, I am in so much trouble. Bisi wasn’t keeping her scent fully suppressed either, and she wasn’t putting much effort into trying. It was impossible to control how Marisol’s sweetly-spiced scent made her feel. Or how much she wanted her.

Marisol gave her a half-hearted glare in return, but Bisi could scent a wisp of desire curling through the air, displacing some of the sizzle of Marisol’s anger. “I don’t ask because I don’t want to know why. There’s not a good way to be ‘ridiculous.’”

Fair point. Bisi was supposed to be charming, or so she’d been told. She was good at flirting. Persuasive… With the exception of the delightful but unfortunately loyal Anderson Omegas, she’d been having a good run. And now, this. With the person she most wanted to charm. “Marisol. I was not laughing at you. I was teasing you. There’s a difference, is there not? I was teasing you because I think it is silly for you to worry about Holston Hallis coming after me…”

Marisol’s brow furrowed but she angled her ear minutely towards Bisi, listening.

“I have very long legs. I run regularly. I’m faster than hell, and always have been. I have trophies and medals from school. The hurdles. The four hundred meter... He’d never catch me. And also, there’s no competition. I’m not dating anyone else. I don’t want him at all. I want you. I will send the art back, I was always going to. It only arrived yesterday. It’s a piece of paper. I like it very much, but I don’t want it like I want you— I told you that the night we met. I don’t want to be on a red carpet wearing any color—red is supposed to be bad luck, actually, in Nigeria, even though I like to wear it. What I want is to be here, with you. It’s flattering that you think that I would hold the attention of that boy for longer than what would turn out to be the longest few weeks or months of my life, I’m sure, but do you seriously think I would want that? That I would prefer being in California as his arm candy to being here, doing my job at one of the coolest places for any surgeon to work… and being with you? I am almost offended. No, I am offended. If you didn’t smell so delicious, if you weren’t so beautiful, and if I hadn’t spent the whole week thinking about you and looking forward to tonight, I might toss you out on your ear for that.”

Was it Bisi’s imagination, or did Marisol turn her head a little more? Ah, she can be persuaded. Bisi got even less careful about her scent control. “Do you know what you smell like to me, Temi? Dessert. Sweet, but spiced, too. And when you are angry, more spice than sweet. Do you know what that Omega smells like? Cigarettes, syrup, and entitlement. I wish him the best, but it’s you I want to spend my time with. So, Mari, will you stay? I can go put the print in the trash right now if you like.”

Mari looked up at her, startled. “No, are you crazy!? It’s beautiful. And it was very expensive.”

“Yes, I’m crazy. It is beautiful and valuable, and I don’t care. I will dispose of it gladly. Or I will send the poor woman right back to her collector if it convinces you that I don’t care. We can go to the UPS store together right now.”

“Oh, no. Don’t say that. Now I feel bad for a print.”

“Then I will give it to you.” 

“No, it’s too expensive. And it will always remind me of all this.”

Bisi laughed. “Mari, I don’t care about the print. Just stay. Please. If I had a single romantic thought about Holston Hallis, do you think I would have left the damned thing sitting on the chair for you to see? It came, I opened it, I haven’t had a chance to do anything else about it… that’s all. But I certainly have not used the phone number in that letter, nor do I intend to. As for the print— I work hard and I can buy my own art…Take the damned thing home with you if you like, you were put to far more trouble over Holston Hallis than I was.”

“It’s Halston Hollis, Bisi.”

“Close enough. I really couldn’t care less what his name is.”

Mari covered her face with a hand and groaned. “Shit. Bisi, I’m sorry. I overreacted… I was surprised to see that print again and it’s just… he’s Halston Hollis. Most Alphas would give their right… eye… to get his phone number. And I just didn’t want you to be seeing someone else, and I told Allain I trusted you and I was planning… just…look, I’m sorry. Are you sure you don’t want me to go?”