They didn't talk about it.
That was the thing Sophie kept turning over during the drive — not what had happened, not the belt buckle or the wall or the specific quality of his breath against her collarbone, but the absence of words afterward. How they had simply pulled apart, eventually, not because either of them decided to but because the silence of the hallway had slowly reassembled itself around them until it felt like a third presence in the room. Julian had straightened his shirt with the quiet efficiency of a man recalibrating from the inside out. Sophie had found her bag where she'd dropped it on the floor. She had rebuttoned his top button without quite deciding to, her fingers brushing his collar, and he had gone very still and let her, and then they had looked at each other for
