Page 62 of Kisses and Paperclips

I stood there for a moment, lips parted, breath shallow, trying to remember what I was supposed to be doing.

???

The second-floor afterparty was already doing the most, and it had barely started.

Velvet ropes. Custom cocktails named after our spring line. A DJ actually taking requests. They turned the space into a whole club. I didn’t plan a single part of this night. Which meant, for once, I got to enjoy it like a guest instead of on the verge of a migraine.

Because if there’s one thing Evelyn Brooks doesn’t do, it’s “casual.” The woman throws a launch party like she’s producing the Oscars. So I stayed out of the way and let everyone else scramble.

I was already planning my exit.

Zamir had texted me an hour ago: Staying at Malik’s. Don’t wait up. Translation: I had the rare gift of a night off. No teenage boy ransacking the fridge like he didn’t eat a full meal two hours ago. Just me, an empty house and eating whatever I wanted without being asked for some.

But of course, my girls weren’t letting me disappear that easily.

Mika and Nia begged for afterparty passes like it was Coachella, then flipped the script and guilt-tripped me into staying. “Just one drink,” they said, all lashes and pouty lips. Plus, Nia had the nerve to threaten to stop cooking for me if I bailed early, knowing damn well her Chicken Alfredo is my love language.

They meant well. They always do. And truthfully, they’ve shown up for every Guilty Pleasures launch like they were on payroll. So, I stayed. Reapplied my gloss, fluffed my hair, and sipped my usual Pepsi, no ice out of a champagne flute. Because if I’m going to be the only sober one in the room, I might as well be extra about it.

The soda in my champagne flute was halfway to my lips when I heard it.

“Serenaaa!”

Drawn out. Loud enough to punch through bass, laughter, and clinking glass. My name, dragged across the air like a warning.

Everything in me stilled.

Not just because of the voice—but because of the shift. The invisible ripple that moved through the room. The way people paused mid-sentence, eyes darting toward the sound, confusion stirring in their expressions. Like something was coming, and no one knew what.

But I knew.

I didn’t have to turn around. My body recognized him before my eyes did. That’s the thing about trauma—it doesn’t knock. It doesn’t ask for permission. It lives in the spine, in the shoulders, in the breath you suddenly forget how to take.

“Serena!”

Closer this time.

I turned slowly, already bracing.

He stumbled into view like a ghost I’d prayed not to see. Shirt wrinkled and clinging to his chest, sweat shining along his temples, eyes glassy and unfocused. Security had one hand on his arm, steadying him as he swayed, still trying to move like a man who had control of anything.

“My daughter runs this whole damn company!” he boomed, waving something in the air that definitely wasn’t an invite. “Y’all really gonna keep a father from seein’ his own flesh and blood?”

My stomach dropped.

I could feel it all happening in slow motion. The crowd quieting, the judgment rippling through the space like a low tide pulling back. A few people whispered. I noticed a few others grabbed their phones.

Mika appeared on my left. Nia on my right. Neither of them said a word, but I felt the shift in them too. The way they squared their shoulders. The way they stood a little taller. Like they could shield me from something they both knew I couldn’t outrun.

“There she is!” my father shouted, breaking past the velvet rope like it wasn’t there. “There’s my girl!”

Every step he took was a stumble. Every word louder than the last. Arms wide like we were about to embrace under a spotlight I never asked for.

And me? I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.

He stopped a few feet away, close enough for me to smell the liquor bleeding through whatever cologne he threw on to cover it.

“My baby girl,” he slurred, gesturing to me like I was some kind of trophy. “Built this whole thing with her bare hands. Just like her daddy taught her!”.

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