Pain tightened beneath my ribs.
Noah looked down.
“I don’t remember sharing a bed with you. I don’t remember wanting you there. But every time I woke, something felt wrong.”
“The bedroom may still feel unfamiliar.”
“It wasn’t the room.”
He pressed his fingertips to his temple and shut his eye.
“I kept reaching across the mattress.”
I struggled to draw breath without making the effort visible.
“For the lamp?” I asked, offering him an escape.
His eye opened.
“For you.”
The toaster sprang up with a sharp metallic snap.
Noah flinched so hard the table shook.
I crossed the kitchen, silenced the coffee machine before its timer could beep, and dimmed the overhead fixture. When I returned, his shoulders had risen almost to his ears.
“Can I help?”
His gaze dropped to my hands. “How?”
“Your neck.”
“What about it?”
“You’re holding it as though you expect the ceiling to fall.”
He considered, then nodded.
I moved behind him slowly, leaving him time to reconsider. My fingertips settled at the base of his skull, carefully avoiding the healing scar.
The muscles beneath his skin were rigid.
“You’ve been braced like this for hours.”
“I know.”
I worked my thumbs along the right side of his neck, using steady pressure rather than the deep strokes he had preferred before the accident.
Noah’s head bowed.
A low sound escaped him.
Not pain.
Relief.
The sound struck me with dangerous intimacy.
