“You warm enough?” he asked.
“Mmmhmm.”
He pulled me closer anyway.
I let myself settle into him. Let my body rest. Let my mind stop negotiating. I realized, somewhere between one breath and the next, that I wasn’t bracing anymore. I was already in.
We made love slowly. Not urgent. Not desperate. Just present. The kind of closeness that doesn’t demand—it stays. And afterward, tangled in his sheets, I stared into the quiet and realized I wasn’t afraid of loving him again.
I was afraid he might not love me back the same way.
I stirredbefore him the next morning, blinking into the soft light. His arm rested heavily across my waist. Familiar. Protective. Easy.
His phone buzzed on the nightstand.
Once. Then again.
The name read:Tiana.
I didn’t touch it. Didn’t react.
But something inside me stilled. I waited.
He cracked an eye open. “You okay?”
“Your phone’s been buzzing.”
He saw the name. Exhaled.
“I’m not seeing her anymore,” he said.
“But you were.”
“From time to time.”
“You mean fuck,” I said calmly.
He nodded. “Yeah.”
I let the honesty sit. It didn’t wound me the way it might have once.
Because we hadn’t promised anything.
“Okay,” I said.
“That’s all?”
“Would you prefer a scene?”
I for damn sure didn’t want to talk about my “not anymore” names.
He studied me. “No. I just don’t want you pretending you don’t care.”
I turned toward him. “I care enough to wonder what this is. Whether I’m standing in something real… or just passing through.”
“You’re not passing through,” he said. “You never were.”
My chest tightened.
