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“If you want me to.”
“I want to know.” Her voice is steadier now.
“I don’t need details. But I want to know when it’s done.”
“Then you’ll know.”
Kira’s breath catches. A single, ragged inhale that she tries to swallow back. Her eyes shine in the low light, and for a second I think she might cry, but she doesn’t. She just sits there, with her hand on my face, and the silence between us fills with everything we’re not saying.
“I have more questions,” she finally says. “But not tonight.”
“Whenever you’re ready.”
She nods, and something passes between us—an understanding, maybe, or just the relief of having survived another conversation without breaking. I’ll take either one.
“Thank you,” she breathes. “But for now, I want to go to bed. Well, if you’re…”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I reassure her when she trails off. “Let’s go to bed.”
We leave the kitchen and get ready for the night. While she’s in the bathroom, I strip and slide beneath the covers. When she appears in the doorway, I catch a glimpse of her naked body before she switches off the light and climbs in beside me.
As soon as she’s settled on her side, I slide my arm around her and pull her back against my chest. She fits against me the way she always does—the curve of her ass snug against my hips, her spine aligned with my sternum, my forearm crossing her waist. Her hair smells like her and whatever shampoo she uses, and I greedily breathe it in.
“Why did you call me?” I ask.
Her body goes still against mine. Not tense—just attentive, the way an animal freezes when it hears a sound it can’t place.
“You barely looked at me when I left,” I continue. My voice is quiet in the dark. “Told me you didn’t care where I was going. Then you call because the penthouse feels wrong without me. I’m trying to understand the math, baby.”
She’s quiet for so long I think she might have fallen asleep. Then her hand finds mine where it rests on her stomach, and her fingers curl around my bandaged knuckles with a gentleness that makes my chest ache.
“I tried to sleep,” she says. Her voice is so low I have to strain to hear it. “After you left. I laid on the couch for hours. Closed my eyes. Counted. Did all the things you’re supposed to do.” A pause. “The apartment was too quiet, and I kept thinking I heard you in the hallway. But then I’d remember you weren’t here, and it was like… like the air changed. Got thinner. Harder to breathe.”
She squeezes my hand.
“So I called you.”
Something hot and possessive uncoils behind my sternum. It’s not pride, exactly. Something darker, more fundamental—the satisfaction of being necessary. Of occupying a space in her life that can’t be filled by anything else, not even grief.
I tighten my arm around her waist. Pull her closer until there’s no space between us, until I can feel every breath she takes as a movement against my chest.
“Next time,” I say, “just say that. ‘Come home, I can’t sleep without you.’”
She makes a sound—not quite a laugh, something softer, worn at the edges. “You’d have come home if I’d said that?”
“In a heartbeat.”
She’s quiet again. I can feel her thinking, the slight tension in her shoulders, the way her breathing hitches when she’s turning something over in her mind.
“I’m sorry about before,” she says. “When you left. I didn’t mean it. I was just… empty. Everything felt like too much, and the easiest thing was to feel nothing at all.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yeah.” I press my lips to the back of her neck, just below her hairline. Her skin is warm. “I’ve been empty before. I know what it looks like.”
She relaxes by degrees. First her shoulders, sinking back against my chest. Then her spine, the rigid line of it softening until she’s molded against me. Her hand stays curled around mine, her thumb tracing idle circles over the edge of the bandage where it meets skin.
