This was home, in its way.
After an hour, she shifted. Her foot found the ground, her leg stretched along the cushion, and her knee knocked gently against mine. She didn’t apologize. She just let the contact stay, building by half-inches as if the entire universe was holding its breath.
She wasn’t asleep—her hands fidgeted too much, working at the hem of her hoodie, the sleeve, the elastic at her wrist. Once she rubbed at the inside of her elbow, and I caught a flash of childhood scar, neat and white, the kind that doesn’t come from a fall. She noticed me noticing, and let her hand drop.
“What’s it like?” she said, voice near-whisper.
I scanned the window, then her, then the floor. “What?”
“Knowing there’s a bomb under the table. Waiting for it to go off.”
I considered that. “It’s not the bomb I worry about. It’s the man who put it there.”
She exhaled, almost a laugh, but not quite. “You think too much.”
“Not enough,” I said, then paused, because that was truer than I meant it to be.
Another minute, another hour. The moon angled over the trees, casting a shifting grid of light through the blackout curtains. The house made a slow, aching sound—settling, expanding, or maybe just remembering its own violence. She turned, and this time her shoulder pressed into the sleeve of my jacket, the edge of her glasses digging into my jaw.
She said nothing, and neither did I. It was the kind of silence you only get with people who have seen the worst of the world and are still unconvinced it’s finished with them.
After a while, she lay her head back, turning to face me. Her eyes were shadowed, unreadable behind the thick lenses. “You ever get close to anyone?” she asked.
“No,” I said, because it was easier than the long answer.
She pursed her lips, like she didn’t believe me, or like she did, and it scared her. “Me neither.”
I shrugged. “Not your style?”
“Never had time. Or a reason.” She hesitated, then, “It’s always been easier to work with code than people.”
I looked at her, really looked, and let the words fall. “You’re more than code.”
She tensed, as if I’d offered her a diagnosis instead of a compliment. “That’s the scariest part.”
For a long time, I watched the window. Then I watched her, and I wasn’t sure which was more dangerous. I could feel her pulse through the hoodie, a stutter under my hand where it hadsettled against her upper arm. I wanted to pull her in, or push her away, or maybe both.
Her hand moved up, found my shoulder, and then her fingers dug into the seam of my jacket like she was trying to hold on during a crash. I let her, because it felt right, and because there was nothing else in the world that made sense just then. I slid my arm around her, slow, not wanting to startle. Her whole body stiffened, then relaxed into the shape of me.
We stayed like that, breathing. The air in the house was thin and mineral, and her hair smelled faintly of burned solder and pine. She shifted again, the arc of her movement deliberate. Her face turned up to mine, and the moonlight caught the edge of her glasses, a cold gleam.
She squinted, trying to focus. “I can’t see you,” she said, almost shy.
“Want me to fix that?” I asked, and she nodded.
I reached up, careful, and slid her glasses off. The frames clicked as I folded them, the sound sharp and small in the dark. Her eyes, unshielded, were something else—large, dark, rimmed with circles that spoke of sleeplessness and too many hours at the screen. She blinked, uncertain, and I found myself grinning.
“You’re beautiful,” I said, low and rough.
She made a sound I’d never heard before—a tiny, uncertain whimper, like a modem catching sync. Her hand tightened in my shirt, and the next thing I knew, her lips were on mine.
It was awkward at first—she led with too much teeth, not enough strategy, but she corrected fast. I let her push and then pulled back, letting her find the rhythm. She tasted like cheap vodka and anxiety, and I couldn’t get enough. My hand found her jaw, fingers tracing the line of her neck, and her whole body shivered.
She gasped when I broke the kiss. “Sorry,” she blurted, but her eyes said she wasn’t.
I shook my head. “Don’t be.”
She smiled, barely, then kissed me again, slower this time. I matched her pace, and for a second, the world was only breath and contact and the low pulse of hunger building under my skin.
