The lock-in - Celeste Fontaine

Yara Espinosa runs the record shop her uncle left her on Sixth Street, Miami Beach, and answers every hard question with another question. She keeps his rules, his photos on the wall, his shelf of records that only get played after midnight.

Everyone who walks in tells her it's so good she kept it exactly the same. She has stopped being able to tell whether she stayed for love or for guilt.

Priya Nair has spent eleven years on tour making other people sound like the record. Home is a storage unit off I-85 in Atlanta with a couch she has never sat on. She ducks into the shop for one album before a show, the hurricane closes the causeways, the show is cancelled, and the steel comes down with her inside.

One night. Candles from a hurricane kit, a battery amp, a whole shop to play through while the storm leans on the building. They trade records and true things until midnight, when Yara breaks her uncle's rule for a stranger. Then the storm turns north at three, the all-clear comes at four, and nothing holds them there anymore except the one question neither of them has asked.

A complete f/f romance lived in a single night, told hour by hour from the warning to the sunrise. Very short, very hot, and finished before your ice melts. Explicit open door, consent spoken out loud, ending earned. For adult readers.

Night two of Neon hours: one city, one night per book, a new couple every time. Each book stands alone. The city keeps score.