Chapter Ten: Quiet Company

The room was different than when Olivia had been in it. There was no longer the heavy sense of dread or the sharp, inescapable stench of **** in the air. Instead, the room felt lighter—still dimly lit, but not in that calculated, predatory way. The shadows no longer clawed at the corners. Now they softened them.

Without Daniel’s twisted quest for **** the room seemed larger, it had always been large, but now the focus wasn’t on the bedroom of the suite. Instead, the attention had shifted to the communal space. A sofa, a carpet, a fireplace, almost homelike in a way.

Marissa had taken off her cardigan. It lay draped neatly over the arm of a nearby armchair structured and still, like the last remnant of a day that had unraveled. Now she sat on the sofa, legs folded beneath her, her posture relaxed but alert. The neckline of her chocolate blouse shifted slightly as she leaned back into the cushions, revealing a sliver more skin than before, not seductive, not intentional, just human.

Her box braids, once neatly wound into a high bun, had been quietly let down. They tumbled over her shoulder now, long and unceremonious. She looked… softer this way. Still elegant, still composed, but more real. Like a woman off-duty.

“Bartended my way through college,” he said, pouring himself a drink. “Didn’t exactly have a trust fund like Sam.”

Marissa nodded slowly, the glass still cradled in her palm. Her parents had both been professionals, solidly middle class. Not rich, not spoiled, but stable. She’d never struggled the way Daniel had. Not like that. And sometimes she forgot because he wore his success so naturally, with such quiet command, that it was easy to assume he’d always belonged in boardrooms and bespoke suits.

“I always forget that,” she said, watching him. “The way you carry yourself now. You make it seem so easy. Like you were born in those suits.”

“I had to learn a lot,” he said to her. “First time I went to the country club with Sam and her folks. I felt like a goddamn fool. I didn’t know what fork to use, how to order wine, what ‘business casual’ actually meant. I thought khakis and a tucked-in polo was high-end. I remember the way her dad looked me up and down like I’d just pissed on the carpet.” He took a drink, then exhaled. “I went home that night and ordered three books: one on etiquette, one on golf, and one on how to pair wine.”

Marissa raised her eyebrows. “You studied.”

“I studied the way some people pray,” he said. “Like survival depended on it.”

The silence stretched between them, long but not uncomfortable. It lingered like warmth from the drink—settling low, not burning.

“I get it,” she said finally, her voice quieter now. “First time I walked into my internship at the NGO, I was the only Black woman in the room. One of the few women, period. Everyone else had these neat little degrees from Yale or Cambridge, and there I was from Howard, wearing my mother’s old blazer and a pair of shoes that pinched by noon.”

Daniel smiled, gently. “And you killed it anyway.”

She nodded, not boastfully. Just stating a fact. “Yeah. But not before I cried in a bathroom stall and spent the first two months making sure I spoke in a tone that wouldn’t scare the white girls.”

His smile faded. “Jesus.”

Marissa gave a small shrug. “It’s not like I didn’t know the rules. You want to stay, you make yourself palatable. You don’t speak too loud, you don’t dress too bold, and God forbid you get angry.”

“I know that dance,” Daniel said, the bitterness threading back through his voice.

“Of course you do,” she said. “We all do. We just don’t always talk about it.”

He looked at her, sometimes he felt others spoke of Marissa as though she were some ethereal being. A real life saint come to life. But he could see it now. The pain and the weariness she held. He looked at her, the way her braids framed her face now, the curve of her cheek in the firelight. He saw the weight behind her ease, the quiet strength in her softness.

She raised her glass and shook it, the ice striking against the glass. He smiled and started to work on another drink.

“So,” she said, dragging the word out like it weighed more than it should. Her eyes stayed on her glass, but her tone sharpened just slightly, like someone bracing for a bruise. “Sam.”

He glanced at her, then nodded once as he poured a splash of Aperol into the glass. “Yeah.”

“I didn’t know she liked women.”

Daniel finished stirring the drink before answering. “Neither did I.”

A pause. The kind that didn’t demand filling.

Marissa took a sip, then let the glass rest against her knee. “I mean… I always knew she liked the attention. She had that thing about her flirty, charming, magnetic. But I figured it was harmless. Playful. Never anything real.”

Daniel leaned against the edge of the bar, arms crossed loosely over his chest. “Yeah. I used to think that too. That it was just part of how she moved through the world. Charming everyone. Drawing light to herself like a damn chandelier.”

Marissa’s eyes flicked to his, tired and steady. “Did she ever talk to you about it?”

“No. Never.” His jaw flexed. “And now I can’t tell if that was about shame… or strategy.”

Marissa looked down into her drink, swirling it absently. “Or both.” She watched as Daniel came around to sit next to her. “You know what they say, sexuality is a spectrum I guess.” She sipped the cocktail again savoring the sweet, but not too sweet taste, “Were you really going to sleep with Olivia?”

Daniel nearly choked on his drink. He coughed once, caught off guard. “Jesus,” he muttered. “That’s a hell of a question.”

She wasn’t going to let him go without answering, her gaze on him like a burning laser.

He exhaled, leaned back slightly, let the firelight stretch across the ceiling before answering. “I think…” he began, slow and measured, “deep down, I knew I couldn’t go through with it. Not really.”

“I wonder what it would have been like for her,”

She said to him. She slowly sipped her drink. “Olivia’s never had any interest in men.” She drank some more savoring the cocktail. “I wonder about that.”

Daniel looked at her. “About what?”

“About Olivia. About why she was willing to do it.” She swirled her drink, thoughtful. “She’s never even thought about men that way, you know that right? Of course you do.”

He just listened nodding his head.

“So why was she willing to do it?” Marissa asked, more to herself than to him. She swirled her drink again, eyes distant. “To keep the secret? To protect me? Her image? Her control?” She paused. “It’s not just that she cheated. It’s that she was willing to cross every line she’d drawn for herself just to make sure it never came out.”

Daniel didn’t speak, but the weight of her words settled between them.

Marissa took another sip, then let out a breath that sounded more like a quiet laugh.