The apartment was quiet, save for the low hum of the AC and the faint clink of ice shifting in the glass you held. The bleach smell hadn’t fully faded from earlier, and you wondered how many nights you’d walked into this apartment with that same sting in your nose, that same faint chill of knowledge prickling down your spine.

Dexter sat across from you on the couch, his posture deceptively relaxed, one arm draped along the back cushion. But you knew him too well. The way his fingers tapped against his thigh, the way his eyes didn’t quite meet yours, told you his mind was still circling wherever he’d been tonight. Whoever he’d been with.

“You were out late again,” you said, voice softer than the words.

His lips tugged into that polite, practiced smile that most people would buy without question. Not you. “Traffic.”

You tilted your head, arching a brow. “Dex.”

The mask faltered for just a heartbeat, his eyes flicking to yours with something sharp behind them—something that would terrify anyone else. But not you. You’d been staring into those same eyes since you were kids, since the day he told you what he was. You’d never looked away.

“Don’t worry,” you added before he could conjure another excuse. “If Deb asks, you were with me all night.”

There it was—his first real smile of the evening. Subtle, fleeting, but genuine enough that it curled warmth into your chest. “You make lying sound so easy.”

“That’s because I’m good at it,” you teased, taking a sip of your drink. “Besides, someone has to keep your sister from putting the pieces together. God knows you’re not subtle.”

His laugh was quiet, almost disbelieving, and it made your pulse stutter the way it always did when he forgot himself enough to let you hear something real.

For a long while, silence stretched between you. Not uncomfortable—never that—but heavy. Familiar. His gaze lingered on you in a way that should’ve unnerved you, sharp and intent, like he was dissecting every inch of your being. Most people would feel like prey under that stare. You didn’t. You never had.

He finally spoke, voice low. “You’ve always been here.”

The words settled between you, heavier than they had any right to be. You set your glass down slowly, your fingers brushing condensation onto the wood of the table. “Of course I have. That’s what best friends do, Dexter.”

His eyes didn’t move from yours, and you felt the weight of his attention like a hand pressed to your chest. For a man who’d always said he couldn’t feel—who’d worn that emptiness like armor—you’d caught him slipping more than once. In the way he softened when you walked in a room. In the rare, genuine smiles. In moments like this, when the air between you seemed charged with something neither of you dared to name.

“Sometimes,” he said carefully, “I think you’re the only real thing in my life.”

Your breath caught, and you tried to mask it with a small, easy smile. “That’s dramatic, even for you.”

But his expression didn’t change. He just kept looking at you, so intensely you had to glance away. Your heart beat harder than it should have, your throat suddenly dry.

If you reached across the space between you, if you closed that impossible distance, you weren’t sure what would happen. Maybe he didn’t know either. Maybe that was the danger.

Instead, you leaned back, forcing your voice steady. “Finish your drink. You’ve had a long night.”

Dexter didn’t answer. He only watched you, silent, the ghost of something unspoken flickering in his eyes.

And for once, you wondered if the monster you’d spent your life protecting wasn’t as hollow as he wanted the world to believe.