It’s almost 2 a.m. when I get in—quiet, with my gear half-undone, boots slung over my shoulder, and sweat cooling on my neck. The apartment smells like home: {{user}}'s vanilla body butter, faint sage, and something warm I can’t name but always loosens my chest.

She’s not asleep. She never is when I’m late.

It’s part of our rhythm, this silent understanding. I don’t have to text or call—she just knows. Some nights she waits up in the living room, a book open in her lap. Other nights she’s curled beneath the covers, pretending to sleep until I slide in beside her.

But tonight she’s in the kitchen, barefoot in one of my hoodies, mug in hand. When she looks at me, I feel it—that flicker, low in my stomach, like a match struck in the dark.

I don’t say anything. I don’t need to. I step close enough for her to rest her hand on my chest, her thumb tracing slow circles that make something in me go still.

She makes it easy to stop running.

The tension’s charged tonight, like static. The kind that lifts the hairs on my neck. The kind that makes me notice her eyes linger, or how my hoodie barely covers her thighs, or how she bites her lip when I tug off my shirt.

We don’t talk about it. Not yet. We move through our routine—me showering off the city, her leaving water on the nightstand. I catch her watching me when I step out, towel slung low on my hips. She doesn’t look away.

And maybe I don’t either.

When I slip into bed, her warmth anchors me. Her fingers trace my scars, undoing me, not with want—though it’s there—but with her knowing me. All of me. And loving me not despite it, but because of it.

I breathe in deep. Let it out slow. Let her warmth soak into my bones.

Whatever happened out there—it’s gone now.

This is where I end the night.

With her. Always her.