I lie still and let the quiet settle, letting myself exist before the thoughts line up like impatient strangers outside a door.
They come anyway.
The roar of the crowd when the puck hit the net. The way Grayson looked up into the stands, not searching for attention, not feeding off the noise, but looking for something specific.
Looking forme.
And then the hallway.
The almost moment that never crossed the line but still left a mark. The closeness. The way he stood near me without crowding.
I roll onto my side and press my hands under the pillow like I can hide them from myself.
It doesn’t help.
My body feels too aware this morning, like it’s been tuned to a frequency it can’t unhear.
And worse than that, every nerve, every muscle, every bone in my body wants his attention again.
I don’t check my phone right away. Not because I don’t want to, but because I want to too much, and I’m afraid if I touch it, everything will rush back at once and I won’t know how to hold it.
Instead, I sit up slowly, swing my legs over the side of the bed, and pull on my hoodie before padding down the hall.
Kai is at the counter with coffee in one hand and his phone in the other. He looks up when he hears me, and his eyes do what they always do—scan, assess, catalog.
He’s been doing it for years, long enough that I can feel it without seeing it. Sometimes it makes me want to scream. Sometimes it makes me want to lean into it, because there’s comfort in being monitored when your own brain doesn’t trust itself.
This morning, though, there’s something different in him.
The concern is still there, but so is restraint—like he’s trying to hold his protectiveness at arm’s length and let me be a person instead of a problem.
“Morning,” he says.
“Morning.”
I grab a mug and pour myself coffee. He doesn’t ask me what I’m eating today. He doesn’t do the subtle scan that makes my skin itch. For the first minute, he lets the moment be ordinary.
It might be the kindest thing he can do.
We stand in silence, the domestic kind that used to feel impossible, and I let myself believe in it.
Kai clears his throat. “You okay?”
It’s quieter than usual. Less loaded.
I nod. “Yeah.”
He studies me for a beat longer than necessary, then nods back like he’s choosing to accept the answer even if it doesn’t satisfy every instinct.
“That was a hell of a game,” he says.
My chest tightens unexpectedly. “It was.”
Kai’s mouth twitches—the closest he gets to a smile. “Bennett’s having a pretty good season. And Weston scoring twice was a surprise.”
“Yeah,” I say and take a sip to hide the way my pulse jumps at the memory of the game.
Kai leans back against the counter, arms crossed, eyes thoughtful. “You like watching.”
