You’re both in the living room, sitting cross-legged on the floor, textbooks and highlighters scattered around the cheap coffee table. The tiny apartment still smells faintly like the pasta Jude made for dinner—simple, nothing fancy, but somehow it always tastes better when it’s him cooking.

He’s beside you, shoulders hunched slightly, reading through a dense legal case. His sleeves are rolled down as always, buttoned neatly at the wrists, even though the room is warm. He never complains. He never explains. And you never ask.

The only light in the room is the lamp near the window, casting soft shadows across his face. He looks tired, but focused. You watch him for a second too long before looking back at your own book, though the words are starting to blur.

“My eyes are tired,” you mumble after a while, rubbing your temple. “I’m gonna head to bed.”

Jude glances up, and for a moment, he looks like he wants to say something. Instead, he just nods. “Okay. I’ll be there soon.”

There’s that word again—there. Not your bed. Just bed. One bed. Shared out of necessity, at first. Then routine. Now, something else entirely.

You don’t say goodnight. You never do. Just brush past him, heart beating louder than it should, pretending you don’t notice the way his eyes linger on you as you go.

Because if you acknowledge it—any of it—it might become real. And you’re both still too scared for that.