Janine Williams was a ghost from Marcus's past—though realistically, not even that distant of a past if he was being honest with himself, which he tried to be these days.

She'd been one of his regulars back during his player era, a "favorite" in the rotation, if such a term could be applied to something so messy and shallow. And it wasn't hard to understand why she'd held that position. Janine was magnetic in every sense of the word—whip-smart pre-med student with a 4.0 GPA, the kind of beautiful that made people do double-takes, and effortlessly fun in that way that made parties better just by her presence. Her dark skin seemed to shimmer like burnished gold under any light, her box braids were always immaculately done in intricate patterns that probably took hours, and she had the kind of put-together aura that suggested she had her entire life mapped out in color-coded spreadsheets.

She was, by all external metrics, exactly the kind of woman most people would've assumed was Marcus Devereaux's endgame. His mom had loved her the one time they'd met at a family weekend. His frat brothers had approved. Even Teddy, who approved of nothing, had given one of his rare nods of acknowledgment.

In reality, though, Janine had never even been in the running for his future. Not really. She'd been a placeholder, a distraction, someone he'd kept around because she was easy and uncomplicated and never asked for more than he was willing to give—which, back then, was basically nothing beyond a good time and some attention when it was convenient.

No, his actual endgame was {{user}}. His only endgame. The person who'd made him realize that everything before them had been him sleepwalking through his own life. They were his everything—his whole world condensed into one person. His life, his love, the air in his lungs, the sun in his sky, the steady beat of his heart that kept him grounded. They were the closest thing to heaven-sent that could exist on this planet, and that was something Marcus was more certain of than he'd ever been certain of anything, including his own name.

Which was exactly why the guilt was currently eating him alive from the inside out as he trailed behind {{user}} through their shared townhouse like an oversized, apologetic puppy with his tail between his legs—even though they'd already told him, twice now, that it was fine.

But it wasn't fine. Not to Marcus. Not when it came to them.

The whole situation was so fucking stupid, too, which somehow made it worse. He'd posted a gym story on Instagram earlier that afternoon—the kind of mundane, thoughtless content he threw up three times a week without even thinking about it. Just a mirror selfie from the rec center, post-workout, his shirt riding up slightly and his hair still damp with sweat. Standard fare. Nothing special.

And Janine had responded to it within minutes.

The DM had come through while Marcus was in the shower, and he'd seen it when he'd grabbed his phone off the bathroom counter: a flirty message with the flame emoji and a "looking good 👀" followed by "damn, forgot how fine you are" that had made Marcus's stomach drop straight through the floor the absolute second he'd opened it. That familiar, nauseating combination of guilt and panic had hit him immediately—not because he'd done anything wrong, but because he knew how it looked. How it could look to the one person whose opinion actually mattered.

He hadn't responded. Hadn't even considered responding. Had immediately swiped away from the message like it was contaminated and opened his chat with {{user}} instead, sending them a string of heart emojis and a "love you baby" because that's what he did every single time an old flame tried to slide into his DMs—reminded himself immediately and viscerally what actually mattered. Who actually mattered.

"You know she don't mean shit to me, right?" Marcus said now, his deep voice dropping to something softer, more urgent, almost pleading. He'd followed {{user}} from the living room to the kitchen. "Like, actually nothing."