Ihave slept in worse places than this, places where the ground was hard enough to bruise bone and the air was sharp with the kind of smells that never quite leave your clothes. So, a clean hotel room in Detroit with soft lighting and a king-sized bed should not rattle me the way it is. Instead, my chest feels tight in a way that has nothing to do with physical danger and everything to do with the fact that Hazel is a few feet away from me, very real and very close, and there is no way to put distance between us without making it obvious. I listen to the shower, the pouring of the water with the sunlight that is inside it.
It seems like hours that she’s inside there, the steam billowing out of the bathroom as she comes out of the door, the light making her look nearly angelic. I turn my head in case she’s not decent.
“I’m dressed, you’re good,” she says, as she makes her way to the side of the bed where she sits, pressing her hands intothe mattress as if testing its honesty. I cannot stop myself from noticing how the light softens her features, how relaxed her shoulders are despite the situation that has my nerves wound tight. She looks like she belongs here, like she is not bracing for impact or calculating exits, and that alone throws me more than the single bed ever could. I turn toward the window, not because the parking lot is particularly interesting but because looking at her feels like standing too close to a fire. She’s warm, steady, and dangerously easy to get lost in.
I tell myself that I have handled worse. Floors, benches, the inside of a truck with my spine twisted at a bad angle. Sleeping on the floor would be nothing. It would be familiar. Safe. Predictable. What I am not prepared for is sharing space in this way, for lying down beside someone who trusts me without hesitation, without conditions, without needing proof.
“I trust you.”
The words echo in my head no matter how much I try to focus on the view outside, still not having fully looked into her eyes. Trust is not something I am used to being handed so simply. It is not something I feel qualified to carry. It has weight to it, and suddenly I am terrified that one wrong movement, one misunderstood moment, could crack it in half. I’m not an easy person to get to know, I am not someone who openly receives something as precious as trust.
I try to push off the pressure I’ve placed purely on myself. I walk to the little desk where my helmet sits, like a beacon of something I don’t know if I’m ready to face.
“What are you doing, Zack?”
I set my bag down with deliberate care, like the act of being gentle with an object might remind me how to be gentle with everything else. When I pull my phone out, I don’t even read the screen, I just need something to do with my hands—something to keep me grounded while my thoughts settle.Window side. Door side. My logic is automatic, ingrained deeper than conscious choice. If something goes wrong, I wake first. If someone comes through that door, they get me before they ever get to her. These little nuances have been ingrained in every fiber of my being since I was young. I won’t let anything happen to her.
When I finally sit on the bed, I do it slowly, leaving space between us that feels both necessary and painfully noticeable. The mattress dips under my weight, and the awareness of her proximity sharpens in a way that makes my breathing careful, measured. This should not feel like a risk, yet it does. Not because I fear her, but because I fear myself—fear wanting something I am not sure I am allowed to want.
I lie back, hands folded on my chest, staring at the ceiling like it might offer instructions. My body is rigid, trained to stay alert even in comfort—even in quiet. I ask about the light, my voice low, controlled, and when she agrees, I switch it off, plunging the room into shadow that hums softly with distant, ordinary sounds.
In the dark, everything feels closer. I can hear her shift beneath the covers, the faint rustle of fabric, the sound of her breathing evening out as she settles. She smells like soap, and something spicy, warm, and familiar I cannot quite name, and I have to consciously keep myself still, as if movement itself might cross some invisible line.
Time stretches, blurs, loses its shape. I count my breaths the way I always do when sleep refuses to come, trying to anchor myself in something steady.
“Zack?” she whispers.
Every muscle in my body responds instantly, alert and ready, even though there is no threat here. Not the kind I know how to deal with.
“Yeah,” I answer quietly.
“You okay?”
I turn my head just enough to make out the faint outline of her face in the darkness, her expression unreadable but gentle. “I am,” I say, then add after a moment, because it feels important to be honest with her, “just…adjusting.”
She makes a soft sound, understanding without pushing, and that simple acceptance loosens something in my chest. The silence that follows is different now—less tense and brittle—like the room itself has decided to give us a little mercy. I can’t help but wonder how all these moving parts finally met up and brought me to this place, next to this woman who loves so fully without asking for anything in return.
Things like this don’t happen for people like me. I get darkness and being alone, the way you close one door and everything else around you stays bolted shut. I’ve worked so incredibly hard to keep the world out and keep everyone else around me from getting hurt, but somehow all I seem to do is create ruin and heartbreak.
It hits me now that I truly will never be able to have her—have the moments that I want or deserve in this life. I just want to be happy…I guess I never put into perspective how much I never allowed myself to have.
Eventually, without quite realizing when, I roll onto my side, facing the window, my body finally easing into the mattress. She does not move closer, and the restraint in that small choice means more to me than she probably knows, she gives me space without making it feel like distance. And that might be the most careful kindness I have experienced in a long time.
Sleep creeps up on me slowly, surprising me with its gentleness. The last thing I am aware of before it pulls me under is not the hum of the heater or the sounds outside, but the steady rhythm of Hazel’s breathing nearby.
For once, I am not listening for danger.
I am listening forher. Her breath, her sighs.
And somehow, impossibly, it feels safe.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
LOCKSMITH
ZACK
Iwake up warm and feeling unbelievably safe. It’s something that just feels so foreign for me, but something that I could get used to, and that terrifies me. That’s the first thing I notice—not alarm, not instinct, not the sharp edge of awareness I usually surface with—but heat, steady and enclosing, like I have been wrapped in something alive. For a few hazy seconds I stay there, suspended between sleep and consciousness, letting myself exist in it before memory catches up. I know myself, and I know this moment doesn’t need to progress more than it already has.
