Nobody's Girlfriend

Sy is good at being wanted. She’s even better at leaving. The Norfolk barber has built her life around control: open the shop early, keep her words measured, and never let a woman close enough to ask for more. Sy doesn’t chase. She doesn’t make promises. And she damn sure doesn’t call anything love. Then Nia Branch walks into her barbershop at two-thirty and catches the cape at her collarbone herself. At thirty-eight, Nia has a business to run, a family to carry, and no time for games. She isn’t asking to be anybody’s girlfriend. She wants honesty. Exclusivity. Someone willing to show up when it matters. Sy can handle desire. What she can’t handle is being seen. But the closer Nia gets, the harder it becomes for Sy to hide behind old routines and half-truths. And when the past calls and Sy answers on instinct, she risks losing the first woman who never needed her to be a hero—only brave enough to stay. Set against the warmth and rhythm of Norfolk, Virginia, Nobody’s Girlfriend is a steamy, emotionally intimate Black sapphic romance about control, vulnerability, community, and learning that being independent doesn’t have to mean being alone.