“I’m here now.”
“Good.”
His breathing slowed.
I looked into the dark.
Our relationship had become impossible to describe in any ordinary tense.
We had been partners.
We were dating.
He remembered pieces of loving me.
He still asked permission to kiss me.
He slept against my heart as if his body had never forgotten the way home.
Complicated did not mean wrong.
For the first time since the accident, complication felt almost beautiful.
Chapter 18
REID
Noah’s bad mood arrived before sunrise.
He woke beside me with a frown already set between his brows.
I felt it before I opened my eyes—the tension in the body pressed against mine, the stillness where there was usually a sleepy adjustment closer.
“Headache?” I asked.
“Morning.”
“That is not a pain scale.”
“Four.”
I opened my eyes.
Pale light edged the curtains. Noah lay on his back, staring at the ceiling. His left arm rested across his stomach, free of the brace now but still guarded.
“Nightmares?”
“No.”
“Hip?”
“Fine.”
“Memory?”
“No.”
Every answer was short.
