Chapter Thirty-Seven #3
Slowly, she shifts. I feel the change in her before I see it, the quiet decision to put space back between us, not in rejection, not in retreat, but in the careful reclaiming of herself.
My hands loosen at her hips, giving her the room to move without fully letting the moment break.
She lifts herself off me slowly, deliberately, her breathing catching once as the movement changes the shape of the silence between us.
I let her go. Don’t reach to stop her. Don’t pull her back down.
She eases herself beside me on the bed, turning slightly onto her back once she settles, her chest still rising and falling in slower, steadier rhythms. The space between us isn’t wide, but it is enough. Enough to think. Enough to feel the weight of what just happened without being swallowed by it.
For a few seconds, neither of us says anything. The silence isn’t empty. It’s full of breath, of heat still caught in the sheets, of the fact that something between us has changed shape and neither of us is pretending otherwise.
Leona is the first to move her head toward me.
Her hair has fallen half across her face, loose and disordered, and she pushes it back with a slow, tired motion before looking at me properly.
There is no panic in her now. No distance either.
Only the kind of awareness that comes after something neither of us can take back.
“You’re staring,” she says, her voice quieter than usual, rough at the edges.
“I know.”
That almost gets a smile from her. Not fully. Just the ghost of one.
“You always answer like that?”
“When the answer is obvious.”
She lets out a soft breath that might have been a laugh on another night, then stares up at the ceiling again.
“That’s annoying.”
“So I’ve been told.”
That gets a real reaction this time, small but there. Her mouth shifts. It doesn’t last long, but I catch it.
The quiet settles again, lighter now, though not light. She keeps her gaze on the ceiling for a second longer before speaking.
“You look less impossible when you’re not ordering people around.”
“I’m still ordering people around.”
“Not me. At least not right now.”
I turn my head toward her.
“That sounded almost disappointed.”
“It wasn’t.”
It comes too quickly to be entirely convincing.
I don’t call it out. Instead I let the corner of my mouth shift just enough that she notices. She does. Of course she does. Her eyes flick toward me, narrow slightly, then soften again when she realizes I’m not going to push it further.
Her breathing has steadied now. The last hard edge of the moment is gone from her body, leaving only exhaustion behind. I can see it in the way she’s sinking into the mattress by degrees, in the way her limbs have lost the last of their guarded tension.
“You should sleep,” I say.
She turns her head toward me again.
“That sounds suspiciously like an order.”
“It’s a suggestion.”
“From you, that usually means order.”
“Then take it as good advice.”
She studies me for a second, as though deciding whether there is enough energy left in her to argue on principle alone. There isn’t. We both know it.
“That’s very convenient for you.”
“Yes.”
This time the laugh does come, soft and brief and worn down by fatigue before it can become anything else. She closes her eyes for a second, then opens them again, fighting it already.
“You’re staying until I fall asleep, aren’t you,” she says.
It isn’t quite a question.
“Yes.”
She doesn’t argue.
That, more than anything else, tells me how tired she is.
Her eyes drift shut again. Open once more. Then shut for longer this time. Her voice, when it comes, is quieter, blurred slightly at the edges.
“You really don’t let go.”
“No.”
There’s no point lying to her now.
Her mouth shifts again, something between resignation and acceptance.
“I noticed.”
The words are softer now, already half on the way out of her. I don’t answer. I don’t need to. I stay where I am, one arm still stretched along the bed behind her, my head turned just enough to keep her in view while the room settles fully around us.
It doesn’t take long.
The resistance goes out of her in stages.
First the effort in her brow smooths out.
Then her breathing deepens. Then her body grows heavier against the mattress, the last of her awareness slipping under without a fight.
When she finally goes fully under, it’s quiet.
No sudden shift. Just the unmistakable stillness of real sleep.
I wait anyway.
Longer than necessary.
I watch the steady rise and fall of her chest. The absence of tension in her face. The way sleep takes years off the guard she keeps wrapped around herself while awake. I stay there until I’m sure, until there is no chance she is only hovering near the surface and will wake the second I move.
Only then do I push myself up.
The room has gone still around her. The air feels cooler now, the earlier heat fading into something duller, heavier. I cross to the bathroom without turning on the lamp, closing the door behind me with a muted click before flicking on the light.
The mirror catches me exactly as I am.
Not softened.
Not settled.
Only reassembled badly.
I brace both hands on the sink and lower my head for a second, letting one slow breath leave me before I turn on the water.
Cold. I let it run over my hands first, then splash it over my face, forcing the shock of it through whatever is left of the heat still sitting too close to the surface.
The water helps. Not enough to erase anything.
Enough to sharpen the edges back into place.
I clean up quickly, efficiently, every movement practiced, controlled, deliberate. By the time I’m done, the version of me that nearly lost the room is gone again. Or buried deep enough to function.
When I step back into the bedroom, she hasn’t moved. Still asleep. Still exactly where I left her.
I dress in silence, not rushing, not lingering. Dark clothes. Clean lines. No sign left on me of distraction, or of what just happened in this room, except perhaps in the part of my expression I can’t see for myself.
Before I leave, I look at her once more.
Then I turn off the bathroom light, cross the room, and step out quietly, closing the door behind me with enough care that the latch barely makes a sound.
I have wanted women before. Protected people before. Taken responsibility for problems that should have belonged to no one and everyone all at once. I know the shape of appetite. I know the shape of duty. I know how to keep those things separate.
This is no longer separate.
That is the problem.
I go to find Willem, the only person I trust to meet me where this has gone without pretending it is simpler than it is.