The door closes behind him with a quiet click.
The bedside lamp is on. He must have left it that way when he came out to wait for me. Soft golden light spills across the guest room, catching the rumpled sheets from last night, the go-bag in the corner, his tactical watch on the nightstand.
Last time, the light was already off. I'd made sure of it, walked through the door and hit the switch before I could think about it, before he could see me.
I cross to the lamp and reach for the switch.
Click.Darkness.
Better. I can work with darkness. I can hide in shadows, let him feel instead of see, and keep some part of myself protected.
Behind me, footsteps. Then a click.
Light floods back.
I spin around. "Cole—"
"Leave it on." His voice is rough, final.
"I don't—" My arms cross over my stomach automatically, defensive. The tank top is thin enough that I might as well be naked already. He can see almost everything in this light. The soft curve of my belly that won't flatten no matter how many salads I eat, the body that carried a child and survived a marriage and isn't twenty-two anymore.
"Angelina." He says my name like it's a complete sentence. "I want to see you."
"I don't look like I did in college."
"I don't want the woman from college." Another step closer, and now he's near enough that I can feel the heat radiating off his body. "I want you. This you. The woman who sentences traffickers without flinching and braids her daughter's hair and checks the locks three times before she can sleep."
Adrian used to turn the lights off. From the very beginning. Our first time together, every time after. He said it was more romantic, more intimate. I believed him for longer than I should have, told myself it was about atmosphere and mood.
It wasn't until years later that I understood. He didn't want to look at me. Couldn't stand the sight of my body even before pregnancy changed it, even before I gave him reasons to criticize. The darkness was never about intimacy. It was about erasure.
Something cracks in my chest. Dangerous and terrifying and maybe inevitable.
I unfold my arms.
Choice made.
My fingers find the hem of my tank top. I pull it over my head in one smooth motion before I can second-guess myself.
His jaw tightens. Hands fisting at his sides like he's physically restraining himself from reaching for me.
I stand there in the lamplight, bare from the waist up, soft belly on display, the stretch marks visible like silver threads telling the story of growing Chesca, keeping her safe when everything else was falling apart.
Cole's eyes travel down my body. Slow. Deliberate. Taking inventory.
Then he exhales like he's been holding his breath for seven years.
He's looking at me. Really looking. And he's not disappointed.
Heat floods low in my belly. He's looking at me, imperfect and real and nothing like what he remembers, and hewantsme anyway. I can see it in the way he's holding himself, restraint visible in every locked muscle.
"Your turn." My voice comes out steadier than I expected.
He strips his shirt off in one smooth motion.
The scar through his eyebrow is the same, a kendo accident, junior year. I remember tracing it with my thumb in his dorm room, asking if it hurt, kissing it when he said not anymore.
Everything else is new.