She was gone before he finished speaking.
He stood alone in the library, breath unsteady, his hands still curved as though they held her face. The memory of her warmth lingered in his palms. The near-touch of her lips haunted his mouth.
So close. So impossibly, unbearably close.
He followed her.
Of course he did.
***
Thomas sat upright in his bed, tangled in the bedclothes, crying with the broken, breathless sobs of a child dragged unwilling from nightmare. Lorraine was already beside him—had gathered him close, her voice low and steady as she murmured the familiar assurances:You are safe. I am here. I am not leaving.
Dominic paused in the doorway. The old instinct rose—the urge to remain apart, to observe, to let her manage what he had long believed beyond him.
He set it aside.
He crossed the room and sat upon the edge of the bed. Thomas looked up through his tears, startled, and Dominic reached out, placing a careful hand upon the boy’s head.
“I am here as well,” he said, his voice rough. “You are safe, Thomas. We are both here.”
Thomas’s face crumpled anew—not with fear this time, but with something deeper. Relief, perhaps. Or the simple, overwhelming recognition of presence long hoped for.
He reached for Dominic with one arm, while the other remained fast about Lorraine’s neck.
And so they stayed—the three of them, tangled together in the narrow bed, holding fast.
Lorraine’s gaze met Dominic’s over Thomas’s fair head. In the dim light, her eyes were luminous, filled with all that had nearly been spoken, nearly done.
Soon,his said.
Soon,hers returned.
Thomas’s breathing steadied. His grip slackened as sleep reclaimed him. Still, neither Dominic nor Lorraine moved at once.
When at last they eased him back against the pillows and stepped into the corridor, the chill of approaching dawn brushed Lorraine’s bare arms. Without thought, Dominic shrugged off his dressing gown and set it about her shoulders. It swallowed her slight frame, still warm from him.
She drew it close and looked up.
“We should—”
“I know.”
“Tomorrow—”
“Yes.”
They did not move.
The corridor stretched silent in either direction. His hand came to rest at her waist—not urgent, not claiming, merely there, warm through the fabric. A touch that promised and restrained in equal measure.
“Soon,” he murmured. The word was roughened with want, weighted with all that had been left unfinished.
She covered his hand with hers. Held it there—one breath, two, three.
“Soon,” she echoed.
Then she turned and walked toward her room, his dressing gown trailing behind her like a shadow of him, and Dominic watched her go with the certain knowledge thatsoonhad become the most important word in the English language.
