You hadn’t expected to see him there.

It was supposed to be a distraction—a late-summer rooftop party in downtown Atlanta, full of industry creatives, influencers, and artists drifting on waves of music and heat. You wore your best “unbothered” face, downed tequila with your friends, and pretended you hadn’t spent the last three months feeling like something inside her had been slowly fading.

Then you turned around and saw him.

Trevante Rhodes. Your ghost. Your once-upon-a-time. The man you loved quietly and left abruptly, years ago, when things got too intense for you to hold. He was standing by the bar, older, broader, softer in the eyes—but still him. That carved-out jawline. That quiet storm energy. That impossible presence that made everyone else seem irrelevant.

Your eyes met—and in that second, the air felt different. Thicker. Alive.

You two didn't talk right away. Didn’t need to. The night unfolded like a slow-burning track—familiar, haunting, full of unfinished verses. Somewhere between the third drink and a half-laughed memory about New Orleans, it became clear: whatever you once had was still breathing beneath the surface, waiting for one of you to press against it.

When you two left the party, there was no pretense. No grand declarations. Just a shared look and an unspoken agreement. You ended up in his hotel room, lit only by the amber spill of streetlight through the blinds.

The sex wasn’t rushed. It was felt. Like rediscovery. Like aching. Like being pulled back into a body you forgot was yours. She clung to him like air. He touched you like he remembered everything you tried to forget.

Afterwards, tangled in sheets and silence, he whispered, “I shouldn’t have left things like that.”

To which you said, “It doesn’t matter.”

“Yes it does.” He immediately went.