The diner smells like burnt coffee and fried eggs, the kind of scent that clings to clothes and hair long after you've left. A ceiling fan squeaks overhead, spinning lazily as if it, too, is barely hanging on. Scottie sits in a vinyl booth beside her brother, while Adebayo, is across from them, chin resting on her hand. A pile of newspapers is spread across the table, their pages smudged with fingerprints and syrup.

Chris flips through the classifieds with an exaggerated sigh.

"Ads, I gotta say, if you're aiming to be Evergreen's next dog-walker, you've got a real shot. This town loves its poodles."

Adebayo glares over her coffee mug, "I'm looking for a real job. Something that doesn't involve poop bags."

Scottie smirks and scrolls through job listings on her phone, "What about a front desk clerk at that sketchy motel off Route 9? The one that probably has more meth labs than guests."

"Pass," Ads says flatly.

Chris grins, "Or you could be a professional arm wrestler. I'd pay to see you crush some dude's hand into pulp."

"Not helpful," Ads groans, leaning back, "Do either of you take this seriously?"

Before Scottie can answer, her phone buzzes. A text from Adrian pops up with a job link:

Nighttime Rat Catcher – Must Supply Own Net.

Followed by a second link:

Professional Mourner – Open Casket Required.

And a third:

Clown School Intern.

Scottie snorts, holding the phone up for Ads to see, "He's really outdone himself this time."

Ads squints, "Is he... trying to get me killed?"

"Probably not," Scottie says, fighting a laugh, "He just has a very... unique definition of career counseling."

Chris looks over Scottie's shoulder, "Wait, wait. Clown School Intern? That one's a keeper. I mean, you already have the natural talent."

Adebayo throws a balled-up napkin at his face, "Asshole."

Scottie excuses herself to the bathroom, stretching her legs as she weaves through the crowded diner. The restroom hallway is lined with faded photos and a cluttered corkboard covered in business cards and flyers: dog walkers, babysitters, psychics.

She isn't looking closely at first. But then her eyes snag on a familiar name.

Dylan Murray

The black lettering blurs as the edges of her vision close in. Her chest tightens, breath catching like a hook. No. No, no, no. The memory slams into her like a freight train, Dylan's warm smile, his laugh, the weight of his body collapsing into her arms the night he died.

Except it wasn't Dylan. It was a butterfly wearing his face. Pretending to love her. Pretending to be him.

Her hands tremble. She stumbles backward, bumping into a waitress carrying a tray of coffee cups.

"Whoa, you okay there, honey?" The waitress asks, steadying her.

Scottie mutters something unintelligible and bolts. She doesn't stop at the booth, just grabs her jacket and keys in one motion and flees through the door.

"Scottie?" Chris calls after her, confused.

But she's already outside, fumbling into her car. Her breaths come too fast, too shallow. The world tilts like a carousel spinning out of control. She forces herself to drive, clinging to the rhythm of the road to stave off the rising panic, but it doesn't work.

Her vision tunnels. Dylan's voice echoes in her head, overlapping with the grotesque memory of the butterfly's alien screech.

How long had he been gone? How long had she been kissing a corpse?

Her chest seizes. She gasps like a drowning swimmer. The car swerves. Tires screech against asphalt.

Then, impact.

Everything goes black.

When Scottie blinks awake, she's slumped against the deflated airbag, the taste of copper on her tongue. A blurred figure leans over her, speaking urgently.

"Hey, stay with me."

It takes a moment for the voice to click. Harcourt.

Scottie's vision clears enough to see Harcourt's face, grim and focused.

"You crashed," Harcourt says evenly, like she's delivering a mission report, "You're okay. Just breathe."

Scottie tries, but her chest still feels locked in a vise.

"D-Dylan..." She rasps, throat raw.

Harcourt helps her out of the car and guides her to the grassy shoulder of the road. They sit side by side, the wrecked vehicle a silent witness behind them. Cars pass at a distance, their headlights slicing the dusk.

For a while, they just breathe together. Harcourt's presence is steady, an anchor in Scottie's storm.

Finally, Scottie speaks, her voice shaking, "I saw his card. At the diner. It, it just hit me. Everything."

Harcourt glances at her, expression unreadable, "Your boyfriend."

Scottie swallows hard, "He wasn't even him. Not for... God, who knows how long? The night he died, I kissed him, thinking it was him. And it was just..." Her face crumples, "A puppet. I didn't notice. How could I not notice?"

Harcourt's jaw tightens. She stares straight ahead, her voice low and careful, "Because you wanted to believe. That doesn't make you weak. It makes you human."

Scottie lets out a bitter laugh, "You sound like you know what you're talking about."

For a second, Harcourt's mask slips. Pain flickers in her eyes, deep, old, well-hidden. She looks away.

"Yeah," She says quietly, "I do."

Scottie wipes her face with her sleeve, "Was he... was Dylan good? At least in the beginning?"

"I don't know," Harcourt admits, "Maybe. Maybe not. But I know you loved him. That part's real. Even if everything else wasn't."

The words sink in, heavy and sharp. Scottie curls in on herself, hugging her knees, "I keep thinking... if I'd just been smarter, if I'd paid attention--"

"No," Harcourt cuts in, firm, "Don't do that. Don't rewrite the past to punish yourself."

Scottie blinks at her. Harcourt rarely shows emotion, but now there's a raw edge in her voice, a fracture.

"You were in love," Harcourt says, "And love makes you blind. Makes you ignore red flags because you want the green ones to shine brighter. I know how that feels."

There's something in the way she says it, like she's speaking to herself as much as to Scottie. A ghost haunts her tone, a man with a strong jaw and a good heart, someone Scottie has never met but whose loss Harcourt carries like a scar.

Scottie doesn't push. She just leans into Harcourt's shoulder, tentative at first. Harcourt goes rigid, then exhales slowly and allows it.

They sit there together, two women bound by grief and betrayal, watching the horizon darken.

"I don't know how to move on," Scottie whispers.

"You don't," Harcourt says, "Not all at once. You just... keep breathing. And one day, it hurts a little less."

—

Harcourt's taillights disappear down the street, twin red commas swallowed by night. Scottie stands in her doorway a beat longer than necessary, keys heavy in her hand, the hall light buzzing like an insect. The apartment smells faintly of lemon cleaner and Adrian's soup from days ago, safe, familiar. She toes off her boots, shrugs out of her jacket, and the room tilts like a boat.

"Okay," She tells the air, steadying herself on the console table, "No."

The dizziness doesn't care about her vote. It comes on fast and total, a gray tide rolling up and over. She fishes for her phone, finds Adrian's name, taps call. The dial tone is a long hallway she can't walk down. The carpet swells under her feet like it's breathing. She opens her mouth and the world closes its eyes.

The phone clatters to the floor.

Dark.

—

When she surfaces, it's to the shape of Adrian's face way too close, upside down at first and then righting itself as her vision snaps into place. He's kneeling beside her on the living room rug, curls a little wild, hoodie half-zipped, glasses slightly askew. His whole expression is a floodlight of relief.

"Oh my God," He blurts, whisper-shouting like the room is a church, "You're not dead."

Her mouth is dry.

"Hi," She croaks.

He exhales all at once and collapses onto his butt next to her, hands hovering an inch from her arms like he wants to touch but is waiting for permission.

"Harcourt called me," He says in a tumble, "She said you crashed and then you were okay and then she drove you home, and she also said, and I quote, if I didn't shut the fuck up, she would chop my dick off and use it to stir her coffee." He squints, "Which is biologically confusing and also a terrible way to make coffee, but very motivating."

Despite everything, Scottie huffs a laugh that sounds like sandpaper, "Sounds like her."

"Also, she said 'You're her person, go.' And then she hung up. So I ran. Which was more like a brisk weird limp because I'm still healing, but I felt fast."

He's rambling, his edges are lit up, but his eyes are steady on her, tracking every flicker of her face. He is a human siren and a lighthouse both.

Scottie realizes she's half-curled on her side on the rug, jacket half thrown over her like a blanket. The room's dim; one lamp is on. There's a glass of water and a bottle of ibuprofen next to her like offerings, "How long was I out?"

"15 minutes," He says immediately, "I counted Mississippis, but then I got stressed I was counting too fast so I switched to elephants and then I did a conversion in my head."

"Elephants are slower than Mississippis," She says, because a small part of her wants to live in that ridiculousness.

"Exactly, so I averaged. I made a graph," He adds, and gestures lamely at his brain, "Mental whiteboard."

She makes herself sit up. The room obeys. He shifts with her, hands still hovering.

"Can I?" He asks, and when she nods, he slides one hand behind her shoulder blades, careful, lifting with her like she's glass.

"Thanks," She says, throat tight. She sips water. It tastes like a decision.

He watches her swallow like it's the climax of a movie.

"Scottie," He says softly.

She sets the glass down and rubs her palms on her thighs. The adrenaline is ebbing, leaving the ache behind.

"I had a panic attack," She says, "At the diner. I saw... Dylan's business card. On the corkboard."

His face changes, not into pity, not quite, into a kind of focus that is oddly gentler than most people's concern. He sits cross-legged beside her, mirrors her posture, palms on his own thighs like they're syncing on purpose.

"Okay," He says, "That makes sense."

She blinks, "It does?"

"Yes," He nods like it's obvious, "Your brain got ambushed by a symbol with a knife taped to it. That's what panic is. Harcourt said you were okay but shook. I could feel the shook through the phone."

The part of Scottie that wants to joke is exhausted. The part that wants to hide is even more tired. She rests her elbows on her knees and stares at the little white pills in the ibuprofen bottle.

"I hate feeling weak," She says.

"You're not weak," He says instantly, like an automatic door opening, "You are a titanium marshmallow."

She turns her head, "A what?"

"Soft in the ways that matter, endangered by open flame, and also you can hold a skewer through you and keep holding shape," He explains, earnest as a kid explaining space, "Strong and squishy at the same time. That's difficult engineering."

It is so absurd and so him her mouth curves, unwilling, "You're a dork."

"Correct," He shifts a tiny bit closer, "Do you want me to sit nearer or farther?"

"Nearer," She whispers.

He leans so their shoulders touch, a careful line of warm. He keeps his hands neutral in his lap, the way he does when he's trying to be the right shape for her. The silence is a place she can breathe.

"I keep thinking about kissing him," She says at last, words small but sharp, "That night. About how long it had been since he... was him. If I missed it. If there were signs and I ignored them because I wanted the green lights to be green."

He nods slowly, eyes forward now, not trapping her with their sincerity.

"You wanted your life to be your life," He says, "That's not a crime. That's a... human-inevitability thing."

She swallows.

"I don't blame you," She adds, fast, as if she's afraid he'll steal the thought away, "For shooting him. I know what he was. I know he was already gone. I know you saved me. But my body doesn't... always know the difference."

"I know," He says, "Bodies are dumb geniuses," He scratches his eyebrow, thinking, "My body doesn't always know the difference between danger and adrenaline. It throws a party either way," He flicks a glance her direction, "Do you want me to be sad with you, or do you want me to be math with you?"

"Math?" She asks, involuntary smile again.

"I can do either," He says, serious, "Sad is sitting still and saying 'yes that hurts' and not trying to fix it. Math is listing the true things until the noise lowers."

She considers.

"Both," She says finally, "In that order."

He nods.

"Okay," He takes a breath and doesn't fill it with words. He looks at the coffee table like it's a horizon and says, simply, "Yes. That hurts."

It breaks something open in her ribcage in the least catastrophic way possible. She huffs a sob and it's not torrential, it's not falling apart, it's more like a seam giving just enough. He stays right there, steady as a post. When she tips toward him, he tilts to meet her. His shoulder is solid. His hoodie smells like detergent and smoke and him.

They sit in it, no rush, no fixes, until her breathing evens and the spikes dull to something rounder.

"Math," She says, when she can.

He nods, "True things. Dylan died. That's awful."

"True," She says quietly.

" The thing in Dylan that wanted to hurt you wore his face at the end. It lied. That's not your fault."

She nods.

" You loved him. That's a good thing you did. It makes you you."

Her eyes burn again, but the shape is different, "Okay."

"I shot a butterfly. I did it because it was trying to kill you and your brother. If there had been a way to extract it without killing, we would have done that. There wasn't. I would do what I did again to keep you breathing," He swallows and adds, less smooth, "I'm not... sorry. But I am sorry it made your heart have to learn this new terrible shape."

"You did the right thing," She says, and it is true enough to put down between them like a tile in a floor.

He nods once, accepting, not triumphant, " Your brain is going to keep getting jump-scared by symbols for a while. Corkboards. Real estate benches. Maybe cereal bowls. That's not weakness; that's your alarm system overcorrecting. It will recalibrate. We can help it recalibrate."

"How?" She asks, hollowed and curious.

"Practice," He says, "And stupid jokes. And snacks. And... being there when it misfires and not yelling at it for misfiring," He squints at the ibuprofen bottle, "We can also give it ibuprofen which is like a tiny apology to your head."

She half-laughs, watery, "Okay."

"And," He adds, softer now, voice like a hand on a door knob he's opening carefully, "you don't have to protect me from your feelings. I can take them. Even if I don't do them the way other people do. I can learn your way."

She looks at him. He's not making eye contact like a challenge; he's offering it like a chair. She takes the chair.

"Sometimes you... talk about killing like it's... fun," She says, picking her way, honest but not cruel.

"It is," He says, unblinking. Then adds, just as honestly, "And I know that isn't a good thing in a lot of contexts. I'm working on using that part of me for things that deserve it. I have... compartments," He taps his chest, "I can put that in one and this in another. You get this one. The... careful one."

She nods slowly, "I like this one."

He brightens, something kid-like slipping through, "Good. He likes you, too."

"Do the compartments have names?" She asks, because apparently she's choosing life tonight.

He considers, "Probably. One day I'll label them with a label maker."

She snorts, "Nerd."

"Yes," He shifts, "Can I hug you now? Full-body, medium pressure, adjustable."

"Yes," She says, and he moves like she hit "play."

He wraps around her with an engineer's attention, arms under and over in a way that anchors without trapping. She tucks into him; he tucks around her; the puzzle clicks. He doesn't sway or pat or narrate. He breathes with her. When her throat tightens, he hums a nothing tune that vibrates against her cheek.

After a while, he murmurs into her hairline, "You fainted in a very elegant way, by the way."

She laughs against his hoodie, "Thank you. I train."

"I could tell. Zero chin drool," He leans back just enough to see her face, "Do you want food? I can make soup. Or toast. Or toast soup which is... bread near a bowl."

"Toast soup sounds disgusting."

"It's avant-garde," He assures, "Michelin-starred in my apartment."

"Toast," She decides, "With... something salty."

"Perfect. I will salt like a man who has learned," He pops to his feet, then remembers she might want him to stay, and looks back down, checking, "Stay or go make?"

"Go make," She says, and when he moves toward the kitchen she adds, "Adrian?"

He pivots, "Yes."

"Stay over?"

His face goes soft around the edges like sugar in warm water.

"I was going to do that even if you said no," He confesses, then backpedals instantly, "I mean, I wasn't. Consent! I would have quietly guarded your door from the hallway like a raccoon."

"Stay," She repeats, amused and aching.

He salutes, then points at the couch, "Blanket fort later. Pillows in a defensive formation. We can make a... safe stupid place."

She nods, "I'd like that."

He disappears into the kitchen and immediately argues with the toaster under his breath. Cabinets open, close. A drawer squeals. He narrates his quest for the right knife like a nature documentary. The sound of bread dropping into slots is the most normal noise Scottie has heard all day.

She sinks into the couch and tugs her jacket over her knees. The panic sits farther away, like a dog moved to the doorway by a kind hand. When Adrian returns with a plate, toast buttered and salted, sliced on the bias like he's fancy, he offers it like a sacrament.

"For the titanium marshmallow," He says.

She takes a bite. Salt and butter fill the hollow places.

"Thank you," She says, meaning the toast and the math and the stupid and the staying.

He sits beside her, not touching until she leans; then he leans back. On the coffee table, her phone is facedown where it fell. He picks it up, checks for cracks, sets it gently by the water.

"Tomorrow," He says, casual like a secret, "if corkboards feel dangerous, I'll steal all the thumbtacks from Evergreen and they'll have to use tape. Which is safer."

"You can't fix it," She murmurs, a warning and a wish.

"I know," He says, "But I can change the peripherals," He tilts his head, "Also, I can sit in diners with you and make faces at business cards until they explode."

She smiles, small and real, "I'd pay to see that."

"Free for you," He says, "Lifetime membership."

They eat toast. He sips her water and makes a face like hydration is suspicious and then drinks more anyway. The lamp hums. The apartment hums with it. He pulls the throw blanket over both their knees like it's a treaty.

"Do you want to talk more," He asks after a while, "or do you want to watch something where nothing bad happens and owls are wrong?"

"Wrong owls?" She asks.

"All my facts will be lies tonight," He promises solemnly, "For balance."

She leans her head on his shoulder, "Wrong owls."

"Wrong owls it is," he says, pleased, and reaches for the remote like a man reaching for the next right thing.

—

Scottie stands a few feet away from Adrian, her chest rising and falling, her pulse a roaring drumbeat in her ears. Adrian is frozen, half-slouched on the couch like a man caught between fight and flight. His wide, dark eyes are trained on her with an intensity that makes it hard to breathe. His hands flex uselessly at his sides like he doesn't know what to do with them.

"Scottie," He says carefully, voice lower than usual, stripped of his usual erratic lilt, "You're... looking at me like you're about to either kill me or kiss me. I'm cool with either, but like, preferably the second one. Less blood to clean up."

Scottie doesn't respond with words. She steps forward, deliberate, like a predator circling its prey, her gaze locked on him. Adrian swallows hard, and his mouth opens, probably to say something ridiculous, but she doesn't give him the chance.

She grabs his face with both hands and kisses him, hard and hungry, and all the air seems to leave the room at once.

Adrian makes a strangled noise in the back of his throat, a mix of surprise and absolute delight. His hands hover in midair for a split second before they crash onto her waist, clumsy but desperate, like he's afraid she might vanish.

"Oh my god," He gasps against her mouth when she finally pulls back for air, "Holy, wow. This is happening. We're doing this. You're, uh, your lips are, wow. I'm usually more articulate but you've, uh, destroyed several critical parts of my brain."

Scottie smirks, lips swollen, eyes dark.

"Good," She rasps, "Shut up."

"I, I can try," Adrian stammers, "but like, historically, my success rate with shutting up is very, very low, "

She cuts him off with another kiss, harder this time, and he groans, melting into it. His nerves are practically visible, vibrating beneath his skin, but there's no hesitation in his response. He kisses her back like a man drowning, like she's the only source of oxygen in the world.

Scottie pushes him backward, and he stumbles onto the couch with a graceless flop. She straddles his lap, pinning him there, and his breath catches audibly. His hands hover again, not quite daring to move until she takes them and places them firmly on her hips.

"Touch me," She whispers, and that's all the permission he needs. His fingers dig into her curves, tentative at first, then bolder as he realizes she's not going to stop him.

"Okay," He babbles, his voice an octave higher than usual, "Okay, wow, you feel amazing, like, statistically speaking you're in the 99.9th percentile of people I've ever touched, which, to be fair, is not a huge sample size because usually people don't let me, uh, not important, focus, Adrian, focus,"

Scottie drags her nails down his chest, and he loses his mind. Literally short circuits. His head tips back against the couch with a groan, and when he looks at her again, his pupils are blown wide.

Then his gaze drops lower. His entire body goes rigid.

"Oh my GOD," He blurts out, hands tightening on her waist, "You're, Scottie, you're wearing, are those, are those the same color as the pink shorts? The shorts that, holy crap, my brain is melting, I'm having a medical event, call a doctor, no, wait, don't, this is, like, the best medical event."

Scottie laughs, low and wicked, and grabs his chin, forcing his frantic gaze back to her face.

"Eyes up here," She commands, and he obeys instantly, gulping like a man standing trial.

"Right, yes, respectful," He says rapidly, "I am respectful. Also wildly turned on, but respectful. Both can exist simultaneously!"

She kisses him again, slower this time, drawing out the tension like a bowstring. His hands roam, reverent now, mapping every inch of her like he's committing it to memory. She guides him gently, showing him what's okay, what she likes. Every time she moans softly against his mouth, he lights up like a kid on Christmas morning.

"You're, uh, you're basically the best thing that's ever happened to me," He says between kisses, his voice cracking with sincerity, "And also the scariest, which is, like, a double win because I find fear very erotic--"

"Adrian," She growls, biting his lower lip just hard enough to make him gasp, "If you don't shut up, I'm going to gag you."

His eyes go wide with glee.

"...Not opposed," He admits, breathless, "Like, at all."

Scottie shakes her head, laughing, and kisses him deeply to shut him up. His nerves start to melt under her command, his body relaxing into hers even as his heart hammers like a jackhammer.

Clothes start to come off, shirts first, tossed carelessly to the floor. Scottie pauses just long enough to take in the sight of him. Adrian is fit, muscles honed beneath the chaotic exterior, and the jagged scar from his recent bullet wound stands out starkly against his pale skin.

"Wow," She says softly, running her fingers over his chest, "You're..."

"Ridiculously attractive?" He offers hopefully.

"Not what I was going to say," She teases, though her smile gives her away.

He beams, then immediately ruins the moment by blurting, "You're even more beautiful than the time I saw two owls fighting over a dead squirrel, and that was like, a very high bar for beauty in my life."

Scottie groans, dragging him back into a kiss to shut him up again. This time, there's no hesitation, no nerves, just heat and hunger and the sound of their breathing tangling together.

Adrian learns quickly what she likes, what makes her gasp, what makes her dig her nails into his shoulders. He's a fast study, eager and obedient, and every touch feels like a vow.

"Scottie," He whispers against her throat, reverent and wrecked, "I, uh, I would literally kill for you, but, like, also, I would do the dishes for you, which is honestly a bigger deal in my book."

She laughs, a real laugh, even as her body arches into his.

"Good," She murmurs, "You're mine, Adrian."

"Always," He promises, and for once, he doesn't feel the need to add anything else.

Scottie keeps the panties on as she slides down on him, soft pink, a private joke that makes Adrian's brain stutter every time he remembers them, and she takes the lead like she was born for it. He's all yeses under her hands, the kind of eager that keeps checking in with his eyes even when his mouth can't keep up.

He's also, very specifically, Adrian.

Which means that somewhere in the rush, his fingers hook at the waistband with a playful, testing tug, half mischief, half question. She meets his gaze; he holds it.

"Okay?" He asks, voice already wrecked, the word a bright, careful buoy in the tide.

Her lips curve, "Okay."

He grins, boyish, unhinged, honest, and gives a deliberate, teasing pull that's more prank than pain, a quick little jolt of sensation that lands squarely in the overlap of ridiculous and hot. She laughs, actually laughs, at how utterly him it is, at how much she likes that it's him, and then the laugh pitches into a breath and the breath into a yes, and the room tilts in the best way.

Everything after that stays in their lane: eager, messy, thoroughly adult, and, above all, agreed upon. They move the way people do when they've had too many almosts and finally get a now, improvised, attentive, full of check-ins and small, delighted sounds that don't need translation. When he gets nervous, he talks; when he talks too much, she kisses him; when she wants more, she shows him where.

And when the crest breaks, when the heat in the room finally finds its bright edge, Adrian's brain blows a fuse in the exact way anyone could have predicted.

"Okay, okay, oh wow, this is, if I die right now, tell my obituary writer that my last word was 'Scottie' but like in cursive, because--"

She slides a hand (gentle, grounding) to the front of his throat, no pressure, just a quiet claim, and kisses him hard enough to erase punctuation. The words dissolve against her mouth. He exhales into her like a man finding oxygen, like relief.

Silence arrives like a blanket dropping over a chair. Heartbeats tick from thunder to drum to hush. For a long moment there's only the soft sound of breath and fabric settling, the low electrical hum of the lamp, the happy hum in bones that get to feel safe and stupid at the same time.

He thunks his head back on the pillow and stares at the ceiling as if trying to memorize the exact coordinates of right now.

"That... was," He says, then abandons language for a shaky hand gesture that implies fireworks, parade, five-star Yelp review,"You're like, if confidence was a person and also extremely pretty."

She snorts, still catching up on air, "You are like if chaos found a heart."

"I have several," He says solemnly, "Compartmentalized."

They're a tangle, legs warm, shoulders slick, those ridiculous pink panties slightly askew and absolutely victorious. His hand drifts to her hip and stops there, tentative until she covers it with her own and presses it down like a stamp. He softens in place, returns to that quiet he has learned for her.

After a minute, he tries again, "So... notes?"

Scottie turns her head on the pillow to look at him. She can't not smile, "You're asking for feedback?"

"I want to get extra credit," He says, earnest, "Also, my brain is doing cartwheels and I need to put it to work."

She pretends to ponder, "Notes: keep doing... that. And that. And the--" she makes a small, nonverbal gesture that would be meaningless to anyone else and makes him beam like he solved a puzzle, "And if you're gonna talk when you're nervous, tell me what you want instead of listing every animal you've ever seen fight."

He winces, "I did start a raccoon monologue."

"You did," She says, amused, "But you were very persuasive."

He perks up, "Because I'm persuasive, or because you like me?"

"Yes," She says, and he practically preens.

He studies her face like it's a map and he's learning routes by lamplight, "New high score. I unlocked an achievement called 'Hot Person Likes Me Back.'"

"Good," She says, mock-stern, "I worked hard for that badge."

"There will be enamel pins," He promises, "And a ceremony."

They lapse into the kind of silence that isn't empty; it's saturated. He shifts onto his side to face her, propping his head on his arm. She follows, tucking in close, palm splayed over the quiet thud of his heart. Up close, he smells like soap and sweat and smoke and something she is embarrassingly ready to call home.

"Can I ask a thing?" He says after a bit, "And you can say no. Or 'later.' Or hit me with a pillow."

"Ask."

He touches two fingers to the hollow at the base of her throat, hovering, not pressing, then lets them fall to her shoulder instead, "The hand-on-throat kiss... okay like that? I liked it. And I liked that you were driving. I just... want to file it correctly."

She holds his gaze.

"I like this," She says, tapping his shoulder where his fingers landed, "And I liked that the way I did it. Light. No pressure. The second it feels like control instead of connection, it's a hard stop."

"Copy," He says, not joking, even his voice goes a shade more precise, "Hard stop. You're the wheel."

"I'll let you borrow it," She says, a smile in her voice, "but I'm not giving it away."

"That's my favorite lease agreement," He says. His hand slips to her waist and stays, not asking for anything but here.

She tugs the comforter up around them and the world outside the couch shrinks to a small country with soft borders. The lamp becomes a moon. Their breath sets the weather.

He can't help it, words rise again, gentler now, like moths instead of Wasps of Anxiety.

"I liked... the pink," He confesses, almost shy, "It made my brain go dial-up. In a good way. It was like... continuity. Like a sequel."

Scottie bites the inside of her cheek to keep from grinning too hard.

"Copy," She says, "You have a colorway."

"I do," He says, dead serious, "It's you."

God, he says things. She reaches up, sweeps an unruly curl off his forehead; he goes very still, pleased in a way that's almost kittenish.

"You can touch my hair any time," He murmurs, "Equal-opportunity policy."

"I'll write HR," She says.

"HR is Eagly," He says, "He will screech-stamp the form."

They lie there and watch each other blink for a while. His thumb draws lazy half-circles at the notch of her waist. The adrenaline's afterglow gives way to the heavier warmth of after, nerves unwinding, muscles telling old stories in new voices.

She thinks of the panic that grabbed her earlier like a collar and dragged; she thinks of the corkboard, the car, the dark. She thinks of how easily she could have kept running. And then she thinks of him, high and bright and ridiculous and tender, and how he sat on the rug like a lighthouse until the tide receded.

"Thank you," She says, simple as a coin.

"For... soup?" He guesses.

"For showing up," She says, "And for letting me be... the driver."

He nods into the pillow, "I like listening to you say 'go," A beat, "And 'stop,'" Another beat, "And 'again.'"

Her laugh is soft enough it might be a breath, "We'll put a pin in 'again.'"

"I have many pins," He says, "Color-coded."

She is very suddenly, overwhelmingly tired, the kind of tired that follows panic and relief and pleasure in a messy parade. She slides closer until her forehead rests at his collarbone. He adjusts without thought, one arm gathering her in, the other rucking the comforter higher. His chest is a warm, even metronome under her cheek.

"Hey, Scottie?" He says, voice almost sleep.

"Mm?"

"If you wake up scared in the night, can you wake me up so I can be stupid until it's better?"

She smiles into his skin, "Deal."

"And if I wake up with murder brain can I poke your shoulder so you can be... you?"

"You like me like this?" She teases, half-drifting.

"I like you like every," He says, and for once he doesn't stack metaphors on top; he just lets it land.

The room dimmers itself around them. The lamp hum becomes a lullaby. Outside, some late car shushes by on the street below; the night returns to its default setting. He kisses her hairline, brief, careful, a period to their paragraph. She returns it by pressing her palm flat against his sternum, a sign stamped into wax: here.

They talk a little longer, and then less, and then they stop. Breathing syncs because it wants to. Gravity handles the rest. In a city where too many doors have slammed, this one stays open, soft as a shoulder, warm as an arm.

They fall asleep like that, naked, tangled, utterly unguarded, his hand resting gentle at her waist, her knee draped over his thigh, both of them held by the common fact of shared heat and chosen trust. And in the dark, if either of them dreams of danger, the other shifts without waking, turns closer, becomes a wall, and the room stays cool, and the fire stays theirs.

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