“I don’t know how.”
“You don’t need to solve it tonight.”
“It matters.”
“I believe you.”
His breathing deepened.
“Ask me about it tomorrow.”
“I will.”
“Don’t let me forget.”
“I won’t.”
He grew heavier against me.
I kept my eyes open.
For a long time, I watched the green light paint a dim reflection across the opposite wall. Rain began again, soft and persistent against the windows. Beneath us, the old building creaked with the tide and sighed as the temperature dropped.
Noah slept through all of it.
No sudden flinch.
No gasp.
His hand remained over my heart as if counting the beats.
Eventually, exhaustion pulled me under too.
When I woke, weak daylight had turned the bedroom gray.
Noah still lay against me.
The air beyond the blankets was cold, but his body warmed my side. His hair tickled my jaw. One knee had shifted close to mine, though even asleep he had protected his healing hip.
For several breaths, I did not move.
Once, mornings like this had been ordinary.
Noah curling into me when winter rain struck the windows. Noah stealing most of the blanket, then denying the evidence. Noah waking before me and complaining that my feetwere cold while sliding his own between my calves to warm them.
I remembered too much.
Some days, memory felt like another injury—one no scan could show and no surgeon could repair.
The man in my arms did not know those mornings.
But he had asked me to stay through this one.
That belonged to now.
Noah stirred.
His hand flexed over my chest.
