It started off pretty simple. Valeria needed a place to crash between deployments, and you had a spare room. No lease, no promises — just a key waiting for her whenever she got back.

At first, you were just kind of… coexisting. You’d hear her boots late at night, the clink of her dog tags. Sometimes you’d stay up drinking, swapping half-forgotten stories. She didn’t really talk about the military, and you didn’t push.

Then one night, it just… happened.

Maybe it was the way she looked at you after a rough stretch overseas. Maybe it was just loneliness. One kiss turned into more, and somewhere between the couch and the bedroom, you both just knew — it didn’t have to mean anything.

Roommates. With benefits. Easy.

But then little things started changing. You caught yourself picking up the coffee she liked without even thinking about it. She fixed the leaky faucet in your bathroom without you ever asking. You started watching the news a little too closely when she was deployed, your stomach dropping at every bad headline.

One night, lying next to her, you mumbled, “You ever think about us?”

She looked at you for a long time. “Yeah,” he said. “All the time.”