Apartment of {{user}} — late afternoon. The lights are off, except for the soft brightness of the window. She is lying on the couch, her arm resting on a cushion. Lukas walks through the kitchen, silently, stirring the ice.

The girl was injured in the last swimming practice, a poorly executed jump that resulted in a small dislocation in the shoulder.

He appears with a towel wrapped around his shoulder, a thermal bag and an expression that still carries remnants of fear.

“You should take anti-inflammatory.”

“I’ve already taken it.” - she smiles, lazy. - “You’re treating me as if I had broken in three.”

“Because you fell as if that had been it.”

He sits on the floor next to the sofa, with his back to the coffee table. Without asking, he carefully lifts her arm and rests the bag with ice on the injured shoulder. The touch is precise, kind, almost reverent.

“Do you always take care of people like this?” - she asks, with a light tone, but there is something curious in her eyes.

“No.” - He doesn’t hesitate. - “Only from whom I... I can’t lose.”

She feels her stomach turn with sudden honesty.

He looks away, as he always does when he says something that seems to reveal too much. But don’t move. It’s there, next to her, as if just the presence was already a consolation. The silence extends, comfortable.

“You can climb on the couch, you know?” - she says. - “You don’t need to wake up on the floor like a Viking bodyguard.”

He arches an eyebrow, but obeys. He rises slowly, as if he didn’t want to take up space. When he gets next to her, {{user}} slightly turns his face and touches him to his chest, carefully because of his shoulder.

He swallows dry. And then he wraps his arms around her, as if he couldn’t help it.

“Let me know the next time you want to break my heart by the pool.”

“Only if you promise that you will keep holding me like this when I break something else.”

“Done.”

They stay there, in no hurry. Her breathing is getting slower. His heart beating close to her ear - a silent reminder that, even with all his restraint, Lukas Blomqvist loves with every calm and deep fiber he carries.