Her eyes shine.
“Come here,” she whispers.
I do.
Her bedroom is small. Bare walls. One lamp. A quilt folded at the foot of the bed. A box still unpacked in the corner. It ain’t my room. Not the room where she said goodbye with her body and left before dawn.
This is hers.
Her bed.
Her choice.
Her door.
She turns to me in the low light and lifts her hair, exposing the little crown behind her ear. The skin has healed enough that the black ink looks sharp and permanent.
“I’m scared of this,” she says.
“The tattoo?”
“What it means.”
“Me too.”
“I don’t want to hide it from you.”
“Then don’t.”
She lets her hair fall.
“I don’t want to hide anything from you.”
That hits harder.
I step close. “Then start with what you want.”
Her hands go to my shirt. “You.”
The word never gets old.
Might never.
I kiss her slowly this time.
At first.
Then not slowly at all.
She pulls my shirt over my head and laughs when it catches on my nose. I curse under my breath. She tells me not to wake August.
Clothes come off in pieces.
Not frantic, but not careful in the old way either. Care is still there. Consent is still there. But the fear has less room now. It has to share space with trust, and trust is starting to stretch out like it belongs.
She touches my chest, my ribs, the old scar she saw before. I let her. She presses her mouth there, and something in me opens too fast.
“Amelia.”