The Manhattan skyline burned behind you, all gold and glass — a dream you were never meant to touch. The cold kissed your skin, sharp and deliberate, but you didn’t flinch. Maybe you needed to feel it. Maybe you deserved to.

It was their night — Hunter and Lily’s engagement. Friends, family, laughter just behind the doors.

And then that sound.

A door closing softly. Footsteps too deliberate to be anyone else’s. The kind of silence that only he carried — full of things you weren’t supposed to want.

You didn’t turn. You didn’t have to. Because then came the weight — his jacket, warm and worn, settling around your shoulders like a promise no one would ever say out loud. His fingers brushed your skin. Barely. But it was enough.

"Are you hiding here, {{user}}?" Hunter asked, but it sounded like a statement.