My breath catches in my throat. "You're drunk."
"Very drunk," he agrees, almost cheerful about it.
"But not blind. You have the most distracting eyes. Like dark chocolate with little flecks of gold that catch the light. Makes a man want to do stupid things."
"Stupid things?" The question slips out before I can stop it, breathless and wanting.
"Like this," he whispers, and his hand comes up to cup my cheek with callused fingers that are surprisingly gentle.
For a moment, we're frozen there on the metal staircase, his thumb tracing the line of my cheekbone while his eyes search my face like he's memorizing every detail.
Time stops.
The cold Montana air, the harsh security light, the metal grating beneath us, it all disappears until there's nothing but his touch and the way he's looking at me.
My heart hammers against my ribs so hard I'm sure he can hear it, and every rational thought in my head is screaming at me to pull away, to run, to protect myself.
But I don't want to. God help me, I want him to kiss me. I want to know what it would feel like to be kissed by someone who looks at me like I'm worth something. Like I'm not just another problem to be solved or complication to be managed, but something precious he's afraid to break.
"Lucy," he breathes my name like a prayer, and his face starts to move toward mine.
I should stop this. Should remember that he's drunk and I'm practically homeless and this is exactly the kind of complication that gets people like me caught. Should remember that caring about someone means giving them the power to destroy you.
But when his lips are just a breath away from mine, when I can feel the warmth of his skin and see the way his eyes have gone dark with something that has nothing to do with alcohol, I forget every lesson I've learned about keeping my distance.
"Colt," I whisper back, his name a confession.
He leans closer, and I can almost taste the promise on his lips—
And then he sways.
The whiskey finally catches up with him, gravity wins, and the spell shatters like glass.
I catch him before he can fall, my hands fisting in his jacket as he steadies himself against me, solid and warm and suddenly too heavy.
"Sorry," he mumbles, blinking hard as reality crashes back in. "Thought... you're so young, and I'm such a fucking mess."
The disappointment that crashes through me is so sharp it steals my breath. But underneath it lurks something even more dangerous.
Relief that I don't have to make a choice I'm not ready for, relief that I can keep pretending this is just a job and not the first time in a long time that I've wanted to stay somewhere.
"Come on," I say, forcing my voice to stay steady even as my hands shake. "Let's get you inside before you freeze to death out here."
He lets me help him up the rest of the stairs, leaning on me more than he probably needs to but not more than I want him to. His weight feels good against my side, solid and real in a way that terrifies me. At the top, he fumbles in his pockets for his keys, cursing under his breath when they slip through his fingers like water.
I catch them before they can fall through the metal grating to the asphalt below. "Here, let me."
His apartment is exactly what I expected and somehow worse. Sparse, functional, with the kind of carefullymaintained emptiness that speaks of a man who's given up on making a home.
A leather couch that's seen better days, a coffee table buried under veterinary journals and empty beer bottles, a kitchen that looks like it's never been used for anything more complicated than reheating takeout.
It's the home of someone who's just surviving, not living.
"You don't have to—" he starts, but I'm already guiding him toward what I assume is the bedroom, his arm draped over my shoulders.
"Yes, I do," I tell him firmly. "You can barely stand straight."
The bedroom is as bare as the rest of the apartment. Just a queen-sized bed with rumpled navy sheets and a dresser with nothing on top. No photos, no personal items, nothing that speaks of a life beyond work and solitude.
