I don’t remember how the conversation turned into dinner. Or how dinner turned into me sitting on his couch, tucked into a throw blanket with a glass of wine and a crime doc we both pretended not to already know the ending to.
What I remember is this: I fell asleep mid-sentence, and when I woke up, groggy, annoyed, disoriented... There was a hoodie draped over me that smelled like him, a glass of water on the table, and him asleep in the armchair across the room.
He’d let me take the couch.
He hadn’t gone to his bed for comfort.
He stayed by my side.
And I don’t know why that mattered. But it did.
The first kiss happened four days later.
It was one of those damp late-spring nights where the rain smelled like cut grass and earth, the kind of night that makes the air feel heavy. I was outside the shelter after midnight, waiting for a late delivery of emergency supplies. Harlan had shown up again, no sirens, no uniform. Just jeans, boots, a shirt that hugged him just right and thatsame quiet gravity I was slowly learning to lean into instead of away from.
We weren’t talking about anything important. Just... nothing. The kind of nothing that feels like air after being underwater for too long.
Then I said something, I don’t even remember what, and he laughed. That low, gravel-soft sound that always hit deeper than it should.
I turned to look up at him, not realizing how close we were, and he looked down at me like I was something he’d been waiting on for a long time.
And just like that, we weren’t talking anymore.
His hand was on my jaw, gentle but certain. His mouth on mine, slow at first, like he wasn’t sure I’d let him stay. But I didn’t pull away. I leaned in. I pushed up onto my tiptoes. Let the fire curl through my belly until it felt like the only thing holding me upright.
When he finally broke the kiss, his thumb brushed my cheek.
“You ok?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I whispered. Perfect.
The wordlovehovered sharp and bright in my chest, reckless and uninvited. I bit it back hard enough to taste copper.
Time seemed to fly by with him; work was still heavy and all-consuming, but I found that I also enjoyed being wrapped up in him.
Some nights, we didn’t talk at all.
We’d end up in the small kitchen at his place, me barefoot in one of his old t-shirts, him making grilled cheese like it was some sacred ritual. We’d sit on the floor, backs against the cabinets, legs tangled, laughing about nothing and everything.
Once, I caught myself watching him cut a sandwich in half, of all things, precise, careful, and the thought came unbidden:This is what safe looks like.
And it terrified me. Because I wanted more of it.
Other nights, we talked too much.
About work. About the system. About how the weight always finds you, even when the day is done.
“I feel like I’m always holding back the tide with a teaspoon,” I told him once, eyes fixed on a crack in his ceiling.
“You are,” he said. “But somehow you still manage to hold it back.”
Sometimes, there was no talking at all, just the hum of a box fan in the window fighting off June heat, my head on his chest, his hand tracing idle circles on my arm.
Once, half-asleep, I almost whispered,I love you.The words brushed the back of my teeth, hot and terrifying. Instead, I kissed his shoulder and buried my face there until the urge passed.
One night, I told him the truth.
About survivor rage. How it eats you alive if you don’t give it somewhere to go.
