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And just like that, the ground slips out from under Rumi’s composure. Her stomach drops — not unpleasantly, just sharply — and something warm and unsteady sweeps across her chest. She searches Mira’s face, desperately trying to read her expression. Because she thinks she knows what Mira means.

She thinks Mira is talking about the kiss — the kiss that hasn’t left Rumi’s mind since it happened, the one she keeps replaying when she shouldn’t. The one that still lingers on her mouth, soft and warm and far too easy to get lost in. And then there’s Zoey, too — the way she’d let Rumi explore, patient and encouraging, smiling when Rumi faltered, letting her take the lead in small, daring ways. Mira guiding her, steady and insistent, while Zoey pressed warmth against her, pressing, teasing, letting her feel wanted without overwhelming. Both of them together, their touch and attention making Rumi weak in the knees, breathless in ways she didn’t know were possible, and the ache of wanting — wanting to taste, to feel, to linger in them both again — coils tight and hot in her chest.

The thoughts punch a hole straight through her chest. Her pulse hammers, and suddenly, all the restraint she’s been trying to cultivate feels too thin, too fragile to protect her from how much she wants them both, all at once.

But what if she’s wrong? What if she misreads this? What if Mira means something else entirely? What if assuming makes things awkward or ruins this fragile, shimmering moment between them?

“I, uh…” Rumi stammers, voice thin and unsteady. The sound makes her flinch, she never sounds like that. Not even when she’s nervous. Her hand twitches at her side, fingers curling in on themselves as if she needs to hold something solid. Something grounding. Preferably Mira’s hand. Preferably Mira herself. She still tries to keep the hand intertwined with Mira’s still.

Her pulse is too loud in her ears. Her body is too warm and too cold all at once. She feels the ghost of Mira’s mouth on hers — the softness, the firmness, the way Mira had exhaled against her skin like she’d been wanting that kiss just as much.

And beneath it, softer and far less understood, there’s a small thrum of unease under her sternum — a quiet instinct that tightens when she imagines reaching first, touching first, leaning in first. Something pushing up against what she wants with dizzying intensity.

She swallows, tries again. “I don’t— I mean, I wasn’t sure if you meant…” The words barely make it out. Her voice feels thick, heavy with embarrassment and hope and the kind of fear that scrapes at her ribs. Her pulse stutters, her breath shortens. She can’t tell if she’s trembling or if the night air itself is shivering around them.

“I’m not saying no.” Mira’s answer lands steady, unhesitating — and something in Rumi stumbles. They’ve stopped walking without Rumi noticing, she doesn’t know who halted first, only that Mira is standing just close enough her warmth brushes against Rumi like a promise.

Mira’s eyes are on her. Fully. Completely. It hits Rumi like a hand to the sternum. She doesn’t always register the difference in their height, but she feels every millimetre of it now — Mira looking down at her with a focus that borders on hungry. Her gaze is darker than before, softened around the edges but deepened through the centre, and it’s locked onto Rumi with a quiet, startling intensity.

The air between them crackles, charged and taut, like every breath they take pulls them one step closer together. Rumi’s stomach dips. The memory of the kiss — warm, steady, devastating — tugs at her like gravity itself. She wants to close the distance. She wants to feel Mira’s body slot against hers, wants that warmth pressed to her front, wants to taste her just once more.

And Mira’s leaning in. Just enough to be unmistakable. Just enough to say she wants this too. “Ask.” Mira’s voice is low, quiet but sure, shaped like an invitation and a challenge all at once. It curls through Rumi’s chest and down her spine, tugging heat to the surface of her skin. Mira doesn’t move any closer — not physically — but everything about her opens toward Rumi, as if she’s already halfway there, as if all Rumi has to do is breathe in and fall forward.

The single word sends sparks straight between Rumi’s hips and it really shouldn’t. It really, really shouldn’t. It isn’t even commanding — or rather, it would be, except Mira’s voice softens at each end of the word, still wrapped in that warmth and care she never quite sheds no matter the context. And yet it’s steady and low and familiar in a way that pulls strength straight from Rumi’s knees. Familiar from the studio, from Mira’s hands guiding her hips, adjusting her stance, telling her to breathe, to focus, to trust.

But here, like this… it feels entirely different. Entirely new. Entirely dangerous.

“Please.” She doesn’t recognize her own voice. Quiet. Breathless. Soft in a way she never lets herself be in front of anyone. The sound is almost a confession, shaped out of need rather than control. And Rumi feels it leave her like something pulled from deep within — vulnerable, exposed, wanting.

Her eyes flick from Mira’s upturned mouth to her gaze and back again, helpless, her pulse drumming so hard she can feel it in her fingertips. She hadn’t even noticed how fast her heart was beating until now, until saying that one word cracked something open.

Mira’s eyes widen — just for a breath. Shock flickers across her face, sharp and unguarded.

Rumi doesn’t know why. She doesn’t know what Mira expected her to say — or not say — but it clearly wasn’t that. And something else flashes behind the surprise, something darker, hotter, something that makes Mira’s throat work as she swallows and her gaze dip for the briefest, telling moment.

Rumi doesn’t understand the look, but she feels it — feels the way Mira suddenly holds herself tighter, like she’s pulling back on a thread that threatens to snap. Like restraint is suddenly something she has to consciously maintain.

And god. That knowledge alone almost undoes Rumi.

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