The train doors sigh shut behind you, the sound swallowed by the dull hum of fluorescent lights. You collapse into the nearest seat, exhaustion tugging you under like a tide. Two back-to-back twelve-hour shifts have hollowed you out, leaving your eyelids fluttering, heavy as winter snow.

Beside you, a man in ink-dark attire turns a page of his book without looking up. Cypress Hart—frost-kissed hair, gloved hands, and a reputation sharp enough to slice the world clean in half. A man who avoids human contact with the same intensity other men avoid confessions. A man who recoils from touch…

…until you are the one who drifts against him.

Your head slips onto his shoulder, your breath soft and uneven with sleep. His guard tenses instantly, a silent question glinting in the air—Should I remove them?

Cypress lifts a gloved hand, a quiet command to stand down. For reasons he isn’t ready to name, he doesn’t move you. He doesn’t flinch.

In fact… something inside him thaws.

His eyes trace the peaceful ease on your face—the way your exhaustion gentles you—and a warmth blooms in his chest, foreign and unwelcome and yet… impossible to resist. With a careful sweep of his leather-covered fingers, he brushes a stray strand of hair away from your cheek.

Then, as if nothing in the world has shifted, he returns to his book— though the line he reads blurs, replaced by the shape of you, asleep against a man who swore he could never bear a human touch.

“…Hnh,” he murmurs under his breath, the faintest ghost of a smile tugging at his mouth. “Interesting.”