“That sounds lazy.”
“It was romantic when you did it.”
“How?”
“You would turn off every light except the green one in the hall.”
His eyes moved toward the glow beyond the living room.
“And then?”
The question was cautious.
I put down the phone.
“Then you would come back to bed.”
His attention remained on the lamp.
“Did we sleep in the dark?”
“Not always.”
“Because of me?”
“Sometimes you had nightmares in Denver. You slept better with a small light on.”
Noah’s fingers tightened in the blanket.
“I had nightmares then too?”
“Not often by the time you came here.”
“Did you know why?”
“Some of them.”
He looked at me.
I could have told him about the coworker who cornered him outside a bar. About the boyfriend who called affection weakness and used silence as punishment. About the night Noah admitted he had spent years sleeping lightly because he never trusted the man beside him to remain kind.
That history belonged to him.
I would not hand it over while he was tired and vulnerable simply because he asked one broad question.
“You told me when you were ready,” I said. “You can ask again when you feel stronger.”
His expression suggested he understood the boundary even if he disliked it.
“Fair.”
The order confirmation appeared.
“Forty minutes.”
Noah looked toward the hallway.
“I should see the rest of the apartment before I fall asleep again.”
