The director’s office had fully transformed now—supplies stacked against the far wall, the marine radio sitting on the desk next to a half-empty jar of peanut butter. Outside the glass door, the aquarium, life support systems running on autopilot, kept thousands of animals alive in a world that had stopped caring about them.
Sloane stood beside me with her arms crossed, staring down at the couch arrangement like it had personally insulted her.
“It’s almost like I should be issued a juice box before I climb in there,” she muttered.
A laugh slipped out of me before I could catch it. Genuine and unexpected.
“Careful,” I said. “Next step is nap time and finger painting.”
She shot me a glare. “Don’t push it, Callan.”
But the corner of her mouth twitched; for the briefest second, the room seemed lighter.
I grabbed the sleeping bag and opened it and spread it onto the makeshift bed. “Luxury accommodations. Five stars. Ocean view.”
Sloane walked over slowly, still eyeing it like the floor might be the better option.
She wasn’t thrilled.
Neither was I, and not because of the couch.
I rubbed the back of my neck, suddenly very aware of how small this office was, how little space existed between that couch and the other one. How little space would exist between us once we were both lying down?
“Look,” I said, keeping my voice even. “Just for tonight. Until we sort something better out.”
She didn’t respond right away. She sat on the edge carefully, testing whether our engineering would hold, pressing down with both hands like she expected the whole thing to slide apart.
It held.
Her shoulders dropped slightly.
“We’re going to roll off this thing,” she said.
“That’s why they’re pushed together.”
“That doesn’t help.”
I sat on the opposite side, left a deliberate gap between us. Enough space to make it clear—to her, to myself—that this was practical, survival logistics. Nothing else.
The silence settled in fast, and not the comfortable kind.
Not after this morning. Not after the way things had unraveled between us while the world was busy doing the same thing outside.
I stared at the floor, found a scuff mark on the tile, and studied it as if it contained answers.
I didn’t need to be thinking about her right now. Didn’t need to be replaying the way she’d looked in the early light, or the sound she’d made when—
No.
I shut it down hard.
The last thing either of us needed was that kind of complication. Not now. Not on top of everything else.
Sloane shifted beside me.
“You’re being weird,” she said.
I huffed quietly. “Weird?”