He was in bed, not asleep yet. Without a word, he lifted the covers. I slipped in, pressed against his side, my still-clammy skin seeking his warmth. He was like a human furnace, all solid heat and strength.
"Okay?" he murmured.
"Yeah."
His arm came around me, tucking me against him where I could feel every breath he took. Within minutes, he was asleep. And there it was—that soft snoring, that gentle rumble that meant safety. My body relaxed incrementally with each snore, muscles unclenching, heart rate slowing, the clamminess fading into normal warmth.
No nightmares came.
This continued for three more nights. The same routine—me insisting I was fine, lasting less than an hour alone before the fear-sweats started, the silent padding to his room, the wordless invitation into his bed. The immediate relaxation when his snoring started.
By the fourth night, I gave up pretending.
After dinner, I went to my cabin, got ready for bed—brushed teeth, washed face, put on the soft pajamas Sophia had brought that covered everything and made me feel safe. Then I walked straight to his house. No pretending to try sleeping alone first. No waiting for the terror-sweats to start.
He was already in bed, reading something on his phone. He looked up when I appeared in his doorway, didn't say anything, just pulled back the covers. I climbed in, settled against him in what had become our position—my head on his chest where I could feel the vibration when he snored, his arm around me, my hand over his heart.
"This okay?" I whispered.
"More than okay."
He set his phone aside, turned off the light. Within minutes, that soft snoring started—that gentle chainsaw purr that meant home.
“You snore,” I announced the next morning, stepping onto the porch with two mugs of coffee like I was delivering a public service announcement.
Liam, sitting barefoot on the steps in yesterday’s T-shirt and sweatpants, didn’t even look up from the tablet in his hands. “No, I don’t.”
“Oh, but you do,” I said, handing him a mug. “Loudly. Enthusiastically. With commitment.”
He finally glanced up, brow lifted. “I do not snore.”
“You absolutely do. Last night, it was like sharing a bed with a very warm, very muscular bulldozer.”
His mouth twitched. “A bulldozer.”
“A comforting bulldozer,” I clarified, taking a sip. “Like a construction vehicle that reads bedtime stories. Or—ooh—like if a grizzly bear got a sinus infection.”
That earned me a real laugh—the deep one that started in his chest and rolled outward. “You’re ridiculous.”
“I’m factual,” I corrected, pointing at him with my mug. “It’s important for your personal growth that you accept this truth.”
“Steph, I don’t snore.”
I set my mug down and held up one finger. “Evidence item one: at three forty-seven AM, you made a noise that shook the pillow.”
He snorted. “No, I didn’t.”
“Evidence item two: at four eighteen, I woke up thinking a motorcycle was idling in the bedroom.”
A slow, warm smile spread across his face—the one that made something low in my stomach tighten in that not entirely unwelcome way. While I had been fine with him saying not yet at the creek five days ago, I was now wondering when.
“And yet,” he said, leaning back on his palms, “you stayed.”
I swallowed, caught completely off guard by how…intimate that sounded.
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “I did.”
He didn’t comment. Didn’t push. Just let the air between us thicken with that soft, growing thing neither of us dared name.
