Color blooms across her cheeks.
I clear my throat and step back instinctively. “Sorry. I—uh. I was just… cooling off.”
She huffs a weak laugh, the sound thin but real. “It’s fine. I just—”
She trails off.
I wait.
She shifts her weight, fingers twisting together in front of her. A nervous habit I’ve only ever caught in the quiet moments, never in the field, never when anyone else was looking.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she admits.
Of course she couldn’t.
“Nightmares?” I ask gently.
She nods.
“Same,” I confess.
That earns me a small, surprised smile. Not because she didn’t know. Because I said it out loud.
I move inside and grab a T-shirt from the back of the chair, tugging it over my head before she can look too long. Not because I mind.
Because I do.
Because her eyes on me feels dangerous in a way bullets never have. Because every second she stood there looking at me like that, in that shirt, with her hair damp and loose around her shoulders, I was one bad decision away from making this night even more complicated than it already is.
When I turn back, she’s stepped farther into the room, standing near the edge of the bed like she’s not sure she’s allowed to be here. The lamp by the nightstand throws soft gold across one side of her face, leaving the other in shadow. She looks wrung out. Beautiful. Fragile in all the ways she hates being seen, though even now there’s steel under it.
“You okay?” I ask.
She shrugs. “Define okay.”
“Fair.”
Silence stretches.
Not awkward.
Heavy.
Loaded.
The kind of silence that doesn’t feel empty. It feels crowded with everything we haven’t said for weeks. Maybe months. Maybe years, if I’m honest enough to hate myself for it.
“I didn’t mean to come bother you,” she says softly. “I just… after tonight, I didn’t want to be alone in my head.”
Something twists low in my chest.
“You’re never a bother,” I say immediately. “You know that.”
Her gaze lifts to mine, searching harder than I’m ready for.
“Do I?” she asks quietly.
The question lands with more force than it should. Because she means now. Because she means after the distance, after the silence, after every time I chose command over honesty and expected her to understand anyway.
