I woke before Alexander did.
That, in itself, was unusual.
This morning, I lay still and listened to his breathing.
Slow. Uneven. Not the cadence of a man who had slept well, but of one who had crossed a line and hadn’t yet decided what it meant.
His arm was draped over my waist, heavy in a way that was both grounding and unfamiliar. The contact was unguarded.
That frightened me more than distance ever had.
I stared at the ceiling and catalogued sensations the way I always did when emotion threatened to overwhelm me: the warmth of his skin, the weight of his hand, the faint ache that reminded me my body had been very much involved in what we’d done.
The thirty days had shifted overnight.
Not visibly. Not loudly.
But irrevocably.
Carefully, I slid out from beneath his arm. He sti
