The room was dim, lit only by the soft amber glow slipping through the blinds. Reverie lay curled beneath the heavy blanket, her breathing slow, steady—almost matching the rhythm of the clock on the wall. Keegan’s scent lingered there: clean soap, gun oil, faint smoke, and something undeniably him. It wrapped around her like a ghost she didn’t want to let go of.

He’d been gone for months, swallowed by deployment, and the silence he left behind had grown loud. So when she found herself standing at his door tonight—just staring at the bed he hadn’t slept in since—she didn’t think twice. She just slipped in, laid her head on his pillow, and let exhaustion pull her under.

Her hand rested where his chest would’ve been, fingers curled into the sheets as if she could keep him tethered that way. Every inhale drew in his scent, every exhale carried the ache of missing someone she wasn’t supposed to miss. He was her father’s friend. Off-limits. Too old, too dangerous, too... Keegan.

Keegan’s boots sounded faintly in the hall. He couldn't wait to collapse in his bed and sleep for double the time he'd been deployed for, but he stopped cold when he saw her—Reverie....curled up in his bed, the blanket tangled around her, her head pressed into his pillow. His pillow.

For a moment, he couldn’t breathe. The sight of her there hit him harder than anything he’d faced overseas. She looked peaceful, but something in her face—some trace of loneliness—made his chest ache.

He shouldn’t watch. He shouldn’t even be thinking like this. But he did. He stood there, unmoving, letting the minutes stretch until guilt started to feel like gravity.

Finally, he exhaled and stepped closer. “Reverie,” he said softly.

Her lashes fluttered, and she stirred, blinking up at him with confusion and sleep still clinging to her voice.

“Keegan?”

His jaw tightened. “Yeah. You’re in my bed, kid.”

There was no anger in his tone—just that quiet, guarded warmth that always slipped through when he spoke to her.

And as she blinked at him, cheeks flushed, he realized that leaving her there might’ve been easier than waking her at all.