“I’m an engineer. Close enough.” His knee pressed against mine, and neither of us moved away. “Don’t make me regret not letting you suffer alone.”
“Too late. You’re stuck with me now.”
This time, he did smile, small and tentative and devastating in a way I wasn’t prepared for. His eyes held mine for a beat too long.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “I guess I am.”
He arranged the heating pad over my shoulder with careful precision. When he finished, he didn’t retreat to the other end of the couch. He stayed close, his side warm against mine, his hand finding mine again, like it belonged there.
We sat like that in the quiet apartment, not talking, just breathing together. The heating pad did its job—the tight muscles in my shoulder loosened, the worst of the pain settling into something manageable. But I was aware of every place our bodies touched. His shoulder and thigh pressed against mine. His fingers threaded through my fingers.
“You should sleep,” Tanner said eventually. His voice was rough.
“Probably.”
“Your shoulder needs rest.”
“I know.”
Neither of us moved.
“I could—” He stopped. Started again. “Last time you got hurt, sleeping on the couch helped. With the angle. For your ribs.”
My heart was pounding. “The couch is pretty small.”
“I know.”
“We’d have to?—”
“I know.”
I turned to look at him. He was already looking at me, and whatever he saw in my face made his breath catch.
“Just to sleep,” he said. “I just want—” He shook his head, frustrated with himself. “I spent a week convincing myself I didn’t need this, and then I watched you get hit, and I couldn’t breathe. I don’t want to go back to my room and pretend I’m fine with you being twenty feet away when I could just?—”
“Okay.”
He blinked. “Okay?”
“Yeah. Okay.” I shifted on the couch, making room, and held out my good arm. “Come here.”
He hesitated for just a second. Then he was fitting himself against my side, head on my chest, arm carefully across my stomach to avoid my injured shoulder. I wrapped my arm around him and held on.
“This okay?” he asked, the same words from that morning on the couch weeks ago.
“Perfect.”
He let out a shaky breath. His hand spread flat against my ribs, right over my heartbeat. I wondered if he could feel how fast it was racing.
“I’m still scared,” he said into my chest.
“I know.”
“I don’t know what this is. What we’re doing.”
“We don’t have to figure it out tonight.”
“But—”
