Lena quivered, the echo of her nightmare still heavy in her memory, pressing down like a weight, her ribs painfully constricted. “She does that sometimes. Finds people who need her. I guess she thought I needed company.”
David studied her for a beat too long. His dark eyes swept over her face, cataloging details she didn’t want him to see—thesleepless shadows, the tension bracketing her mouth, the way she held herself like she might shatter if she relaxed.
“Did you sleep?” he asked.
“Not much.” The admission scraped out of her throat. She hesitated, then stepped aside, pulling the door wider. “Come in.”
He handed her a mug as he crossed the threshold. “Chamomile with honey. No lemon—you don’t like it.”
She gave him a wary look, wrapping both hands around the warm ceramic. The heat seeped into her palms. “You’ve been spying on my tea habits?”
“I read the staff breakroom order logs,” he deadpanned. “It’s riveting stuff. Very enlightening. Did you know Walter orders three pounds of Irish whiskey-flavored coffee creamer every month?”
A reluctant smile tugged at her lips. The gesture felt unfamiliar, as if her face no longer remembered how. It faded almost as quickly as it came.
David followed her to the comfy seating area by the garden windows. She sank into the cushions of a loveseat, and he joined her on the opposite side, close enough she could smell his soap—something clean and cedar-scented—and the faint ozone tang that clung to him when he’d been working with his tablet.
She blew on the steam curling from the mug, watched as the vapor danced and dissolved. The chamomile smelled like safety. Like being small and cared for. The honey beneath it was sweet and golden, and when she sipped, warmth spread through her chest.
“You look like you fought a hurricane and lost,” David said.
“Sounds about right.” She took another sip, letting the heat soothe the rawness in her throat. “Just a bad night. Old ghosts.”
“Chester?”
She shook her head then nodded, the motion slow and weary. “Yes, but not just him. Before him.” Her fingers tightenedaround the mug. The words sat heavy on her tongue, but she forced them out. “Losing Dad. Getting sent away. The nights where I thought… if I disappeared, no one would notice.”
The silence that followed stretched between them like a held breath, thick and waiting. Outside, a gull cried, distant and mournful.
David leaned closer, setting his own mug on the side table with a clink. He didn’t touch her. Didn’t try to fix her with platitudes or hollow reassurances. He stayed near enough for his body heat to warm her, solid and real, anchoring her to the present.
“I’d notice.” His voice was low, roughened at the edges. “I’d notice if you were gone.”
Lena’s throat worked around something unsaid—gratitude, or longing, or the intense ache of being seen when she’d spent so long invisible. She nodded once, letting the words land, to settle into the bruised places inside her.
For a moment, neither of them moved. The room shrank, the air between them charged with something fragile and new. His breathing, slow and steady, and the faint rustle of fabric when he shifted his weight, combined to calm her pulse.
Her phone buzzed on the end table, shattering the quietude. A staff ping—standard morning check-in. The screen lit up with a preview:
Good morning, team! Reminder: inventory review at 9 am.
She exhaled and set her mug down, the porcelain clicking against the tile. “I should head in. I’m sure there’s a mountain of paperwork waiting to kill my soul.”
David nodded but didn’t move, his gaze still fixed on her face. His eyes were dark in the morning light, warm and intent.
As she passed him, he reached out—a brush of his fingers at her elbow, barely there. The contact sent a small jolt through her, electric and grounding all at once. “You don’t have to pretend with me,” he said. “Not about this. Not ever.”
She stopped. Looked up at him. His face was so open, so earnest, it hurt to look at. And for a breath, her armor cracked—the sunny mask she wore, the walls built brick by careful brick over years of learning that no one stayed.
“I know,” she whispered. Her voice was thin, threadbare. “But it’s a hard habit to break.”
“Then we’ll work on it,” he said. As if it were that easy. As if she weren’t a collection of jagged pieces that might cut him if he got too close. “Together.”
Her chest tightened, a strange ache blooming there—not pain, exactly, but something unfamiliar. Something dangerously like hope.
She didn’t trust herself to speak, so she only nodded again. And when his hand slipped away, the absence chilled her.
Chapter 25
