Page 143 of Suite 7

“What if⁠—”

“I don’t know what she’s going to do. I don’t know if she’ll forgive us. I don’t know how long it takes or what it looks like on the other side.” His forehead drops to mine. “But I’m not doing this without you.”

I breathe him in. Feel his hands steady on my face.

“Okay,” I whisper.

He pulls me against him, and I hold on.

We stand like that in his living room. Just two people holding each other at the edge of something that can’t be undone.

“Stay today,” he says into my hair. “Not for a scene. Just to be a normal couple before everything changes.”

I pull back to look at him. “We’re a normal couple?”

He nods.

“Okay. Then tell me. What do normal couples do?”

“I don’t know. Order lunch from somewhere bad for us. Argue about what to watch. I’ll probably say something architectural and you’ll make fun of me.”

“That does sound suspiciously like us.”

“Yeah.” The corner of his mouth lifts. “Turns out we’re easier than I thought.”

I look at him for a long moment. The man who knew I was wearing black before I’d even chosen it. Who drove across town in the rain with a specific coffee order he’d memorized six months before he had any reason to remember it.

“Okay,” I say softly. “One normal day.”

His smile is small and real and slightly heartbroken around the edges.

So is mine.

We spent the afternoon as promised. Lunch from a Thai place Kane claims is too greasy, but he eats three portions of it. We have an argument about a documentary that ends in a draw, his hand finding mine on the couch without ceremony, my feet tucked under his thigh like I’ve been doing it for years.

I notice things I haven’t let myself notice before. The way he laughs at something on screen — quiet, private, not performed for anyone. The weight of his hand over mine. Small things. The kind that accumulate without permission and are hard to give back.

At some point I fall asleep against his shoulder. When I wake the light has shifted and he’s still there, reading something on his phone.

“Hey,” I murmur.

“Hey.” He sets the phone down. “Good sleep?”

“Don’t tell me I snored.”

“You didn’t snore.”

“You’re lying.”

His lips twitch. “It was endearing.”

I sit up. Look at him in the late afternoon light. The man that knows how to take me apart and how to put me back together.

“I should go home,” I say. “I have work in the morning.”

He nods and doesn’t argue. At the elevator he cups my face and kisses me, soft and slightly desperate under the surface.

When he pulls back his eyes are serious.