Then her head tips sideways and lands on my chest.
Fuck.
I feel her hair tickle my collarbone, smell smoke and something darker. My heartbeat kicks hard enough I'm sure she can hear it hammering against her ear. I tell myself it's just comfort. Same as always. Nothing new.
My hand drops from the couch back to her upper arm—slow, careful, like I'm defusing a bomb. My thumb finds thesoft skin just above her elbow and traces small circles there. Absent. Innocent. The kind of touch that means nothing.
Except it means everything.
She sighs—this tiny sound that goes straight to my cock—and nestles closer.
I keep my eyes locked on the screen and start counting backwards from one hundred so I don't do something catastrophically stupid like turn my head and bury my face in her hair. Or slide my hand lower. Or pull her onto my lap and finish what seventeen years of wanting has built up to.
She's right here, tucked against me like she's always belonged there. Knees pulled up, eyes fixed on the screen like we're watching a baking show instead of a man getting his insides rearranged.
"How the fuck can you watch this and be this calm?"
She doesn't answer. Just that faint, knowing smile.
"Like... the guy literally had his guts pulled out."
"There are worse things."
I know exactly what she means. I've seen the way she stares into empty corners like someone's standing there. I've sat in psychiatrists' offices with her, heard her plead for a diagnosis so she could take a pill and quiet whatever hunts her. Every test came back clean. No diagnosis. No pill. Just my little Alena, and the ghosts that follow her like shadows she can't shake.
When the credits roll, I ask, "Bed?"
"Bed."
We brush our teeth—her toothbrush, her things, her scent threaded into my place like she belongs there. Which, in truth, she does. I have just as much of me scattered through her home. We live together in two houses.
A few minutes later, we're in bed. She slides under the covers first, hair spilling across my pillow. I follow, close enough to feel the heat coming off her skin, far enough to pretend that's enough.
She pulls out her phone and opens that puzzle game she loves.
"That's bad before bed—"
"I know. Sleep."
I pluck the phone from her hand and drop it into my nightstand drawer. Same routine every night. She exhales, rolls onto her side, and within minutes is gone. She always sleeps fast, like she's running from her own thoughts.
I drift not long after—until I feel it. Her body pressed against mine, then the sudden jolt.
She jerks awake, eyes wide, staring at the corner like someone's there.
The room chills. Frost creeps across the window.
Whispers.
I'm on my feet instantly, wrapping my arms around her. She fits against me like she was carved for it—soft curves shaking, my hands spanning her back, heartbeat slamming against hers. She trembles so hard it feels like her bones might rattle loose. Whatever she saw in her sleep—whatever came for her—would have killed me outright.
I pull her tighter to my chest, press my lips to her hair and hold them there—longer than necessary, breathing her in. Smoke, cold night, that dark undercurrent only I seem to sense. My hand slides down her back, palm flat against her spine through my hoodie, steadying her shakes.
She doesn't pull away. If anything, she leans into my palm like it's the only solid thing in the room.
"Baby, please... I'm here."
But she keeps shaking. I hate how helpless I feel when they take her.
