Or mostly asleep.
His bare head tips back, beard messy, one boot planted on the floor and the other stretched out in front of him. His leather cut is still on. His thick tattooed arms are folded across his chest, but one hand rests close to the knife at his belt. Even asleep, he looks like violence taking a break.
He also looks uncomfortable as hell.
The chair is too small for him. His shoulders are too broad. His long legs are angled awkwardly. There is a folded hoodie bunched behind his neck like he tried to make a pillow out of it.
He stayed.
The thought lands too hard.
I grip the edge of the door.
He stayed outside a locked door all night and did not make me owe him for it.
That isn’t a thing I know how to hold.
His eyes open.
Fast.
Not sleepy. Not soft. One second, he is out. The next, he is looking straight at me like his body heard the hinge before his brain did.
I jump.
He sits up. “Easy.”
“I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“You didn’t.”
“You were asleep.”
“Resting my eyes.”
“In a chair?”
“I’m talented.”
His voice is rougher in the morning. Deeper. Scraped with sleep and irritation. It shouldn’t make my stomach dip.
It does anyway.
I look down the hall because looking at him feels like standing too close to a fire with wet clothes on. “Did anything happen?”
He studies me for a second before answering. “No.”
“Jeremy didn’t come back?”
“No.”
“The police?”
“No.”
“August slept.”
“That ain’t a question.”
