The night’s already thinning out by the time you leave. Voices fading behind you, the last of the laughter spilling out onto the street before the door shuts and swallows it whole. Birmingham sits in that in-between quiet, where the smoke lingers low and the world feels like it’s holding its breath.

Thomas falls into step beside you without asking.

It’s not unusual. He’s done it before. Not for everyone, but for you, it’s never been questioned. There’s an ease to it, something unspoken.

The pavement stretches on, damp underfoot, streetlamps cutting the dark into narrow pieces. He moves like he always does. Measured, quiet, every step placed with intention. But there’s no urgency in it tonight. No edge of business waiting at the end of the walk.

There’s no urgency in him tonight. No sense that something else is waiting, no pull toward the next deal, the next problem, the next thing that needs his hand on it. He moves with you, not ahead, not guiding, just matching your pace with a kind of quiet precision that feels less like habit and more like intention.

You’ve seen every version of him. Sharp and untouchable, dangerous in a way that makes people look away too quickly. You’ve seen the control, the precision, the way he bends things until they fit. And still, he lets you walk beside him like none of that needs to be acknowledged.

Like you’re not something to manage.

The city hums low around you, distant and unimportant. His world—sharp, dangerous, always demanding—feels far off for once, like it’s been set aside without him having to force it there.

Because he isn’t holding it tonight, he’s holding this. Not physically. Not in any way that can be pointed to or named, but it’s there, but in the way he adjusts to you without thinking, in the way he lets the silence stretch instead of filling it with control.

You’ve always stood beside him easily. Never asked for more than he could give. Never pushed, never demanded.

He’s given you something he doesn’t give anyone else. Consistency, the kind that doesn’t falter or shift. It doesn’t disappear when things get difficult or dangerous or inconvenient.

Your door appears sooner than either of you would choose. You slow. He does too. And then you stop and he doesn’t leave.

There’s a stillness that settles between you, something heavier than the quiet of the street, something that feels like it’s been building long before tonight. He doesn’t step back into himself, doesn’t put distance where it belongs.

He stays close. Close enough that it feels deliberate. Like leaving would be the unnatural thing.

There’s no hesitation in him when it comes to most things. No second-guessing, no wasted time. But here he lingers. Not uncertain, but unwilling.

If it were up to him, he’d keep going, keep following, keep standing at your side, keep choosing this quiet, unremarkable kind of closeness over everything else that waits for him in the dark.

Not obligation. Not habit. Something closer to devotion—unspoken, unpolished, but absolute in the way he doesn’t turn away from it.

Even if, in the end, he has to.