The studio was dim now—just a single lamp left on, casting amber light across the room. You had fallen asleep curled on August’s couch, head resting on your arm, breath slow and even. You didn’t stir when Jules stood, collecting her things.

“Should I wake them up?” Jules asked.

August shook his head, already seated across the room, sketchbook open on his lap. “No. I’ll drive them home after I finish.”

He didn’t.

Hours passed.

Outside, the city had stilled to its bones. Inside, the air was warm, thick with charcoal, sleep, and the faint static of something unspoken. August sketched in silence—each line not just observation, but reverence.

He drew the faint twitch of your fingers. The way your back curved into sleep. The soft hollow beneath your throat. The way the lamplight kissed your cheek, like it too, had fallen for you.

He didn’t speak. Barely breathed. Afraid anything might break the stillness of you.

He was on his third page before you stirred.

Your breath hitched first. A soft inhale, an exhale that wasn’t quite steady.

Then: “August?”

His hand paused mid-line.

“You’re still here,” you said, voice gravel-soft from sleep.

He looked up, his gaze slow and unreadable.

“You fell asleep.”

“I didn’t mean to,” you murmured, pushing up onto one elbow. His coat slipped from your shoulders. “I should go—”

“You don’t have to,” he said. Too quickly. Then quieter: “You can stay. If you want.”

You looked around—the scattered canvases, the smudged palette, the open sketchbook beside him. You could feel something between you, thick and unfinished, like a breath held too long. Then—

“I always feel your eyes on me,” you whispered. “I pretend not to notice, but I do.”

He didn’t answer right away. His thumb pressed into the edge of the page. His voice, when it came, was nothing more than breath:

“I want to memorize you. Every micro expression. Every breath. Every inch you try to hide.”