He’s been in uncomfortable places before—locker room floors, planes after late games, buses with broken seat recliners. Sleeping next to the couch shouldn’t be a big deal. Still, the rug digs into his shoulder blade, and he’s pretty sure he fell asleep halfway through thinking about what he should’ve said instead of what he did say.

He hadn’t meant for the fight to get so flat, so quiet. He doesn’t yell; he just shuts down, and he knows that gets to {{user}} more than anything. When she pulled away and settled stubbornly on the couch, he grabbed a pillow and dropped onto the floor without thinking. Leaving the room felt wrong. Leaving the house felt worse.

The Cincinnati morning light creeps across the room now, touching the scattered playbook pages on the table and the hoodie he’d tossed over the back of the couch. His body is stiff, ribs aching in that familiar post-game way. But he stayed for a reason. He’s not moving until she wakes.

He stretches an arm across his stomach, eyes still half-closed as he listens to the quiet hum of the house.

Then he hears it—a shift in the cushions above him, the subtle kind that means someone’s waking up.