The soft morning light spilled through the cracked blinds, painting lazy gold lines across Harlan’s bare chest. His arm was slung over me, heavy and warm, hand resting on my hip like he wasn’t ready to let go. Like he never wanted to.
The radiator clinked and hissed in the corner, trying and failing to push enough heat into the old apartment. A draft sneaked in through the window frame, brushing against my face, but his body pressed to mine was its own kind of furnace. I could feel the slow rise and fall of his breath behind me.
Steady. Anchoring.
Real.
Outside, I caught the muffled sound of tires crunching over frost. Early winter. That bite in the air that came before the snow stuck, but after the world already felt bare. Last night’s coat still hung over his chair, dusted with the smell of cold wind, cheap wine, and perfume from the fundraiser.
I lay still, trying not to move. Trying to memorize the feeling of this. Of him. The way his beard scratched lightly against my shoulder when he shifted, the low hum he made when he was still halfway to sleep.
We hadn’t said much after the event. Just gotten into his truck, hands brushing, the silence between us full of something soft. Something brave.
He didn’t ask for permission.
I didn’t offer resistance.
And when we got to his place, it wasn’t about lust or tension or need.
It was just us.
Finally. After weeks of tension, after so much uncertainty.
It was just him and me. Unarmored.
And... the love that had somehow grown between us.
Now, with morning creeping in and the world still quiet, I let myself believe.
I turned slightly, careful not to wake him, and studied his face in the half-light. He looked younger like this. Less weighed down. The lines between his brows were softer. The set of his jaw relaxed. He looked like someone I could trust. Like someone who’d show up. Again, and again. Even when I didn’t ask. Even when I pushed him away.
I let myself get lost in the feel of him grounding me, in the memories of last night.
A few minutes later, I felt his arm tighten slightly around my waist.
“You’re awake,” he murmured, voice rough with sleep.
“I never really sleep the night after events,” I said. “Adrenaline. Uncertainty. Or residual rage. Hard to tell.”
He gave a low chuckle, the sound vibrating against my back. “Wasn’t sure if you’d stay the whole night.”
“Wasn’t sure you’d let me go.”
Later that afternoon, I found Remi in the kitchen, standing barefoot in leggings and one of my old T-shirts, stirring something on the stove that smelled like our childhood. The steam fogged the cold-glass windows, battling the frost crawling in from outside.
She glanced at me over her shoulder. “You have that look.”
“What look?”
“The one that says you got laid and now the world’s slightly more tolerable.”
I barked a laugh, leaned against the counter, and took the spoon from her hand.
She arched a brow. “So?”
I looked down at the steam rising from the pot, then back at her. My best friend. My constant.
“I think I found him,” I said, voice soft. “He’s not what I imagined, he’s grumpy, older, and so set in his ways... he’s not what I would envision as my perfect. But… I think he’s, my forever.”
