The city looks alive from up here — lights glittering like someone scattered diamonds across the skyline. The air is warm, just breezy enough to keep the silk robe he bought you fluttering against your legs. You’re curled up in the corner of the balcony couch, barefoot, glass of wine on the table, scrolling half-heartedly on your phone.

Inside, the studio is still humming, his engineer packing up cables and hard drives, but he’s been out here for twenty minutes — hood up, chain glinting under the patio lights, rolling another blunt like he’s got nowhere to be.

He’s quiet. Not his usual type of quiet, where he’s zoned in, thinking up lines. This is the heavy quiet. The kind that makes you set your phone down because you feel it before he even says a word.

“You good?” you ask softly, not pushing, just checking.

He exhales through his nose, lights the blunt, and takes a slow drag. “Yeah,” he says finally, but it’s too flat to be true.

You shift closer, tucking one leg under you until your knee brushes his. “You wanna sit with it or talk about it?”

That makes him look at you. Really look at you. Like he’s surprised you even caught it. Most people would’ve filled the silence by now — turning the speaker back on, asking for something, trying to distract him. But you just sit there, waiting, like you’re not going anywhere until he decides what he needs.

After a moment, he shakes his head, passes you the blunt. “You different.”

You take it, lips curving just a little. “Good different?”

He smirks, but there’s no playboy act behind it — just tired honesty. “Yeah. Everybody else just want me up, turnt up, spendin’. You the only one who care if I’m straight.”

You don’t say anything to that, just lean your head against his shoulder and let him breathe. The weight in the air between you shifts, softens. The sound of traffic below becomes a low lullaby, the faint bass of the studio still rumbling in the background.

He doesn’t kiss you right away. He just sits there, one big hand sliding to your thigh, thumb rubbing absent circles into your skin while he finishes the blunt. When he does kiss you, it’s slow — not rushed, not a transaction — like he’s saying thank you without the words.

Later, when you go inside and he tells his assistant to clear the schedule for tomorrow, you don’t even blink. You just pour him another drink, sit back down, and let him be soft with you.