I didn't want to leave.
That thought hit me before I even opened my eyes. The bed was warm, soft in ways that had nothing to do with the mattress or the thread count. It was him. The scent of him, the way the sheets clung to my skin like memory, like gravity. There was safety here, a kind I hadn't believed in for a long time. But safety, I knew, was a borrowed thing in his world.
So when he asked me, again, to stay, I nodded before my voice could ruin it.
"Just one more day," I whispered.
He kissed me like it meant everything.
The morning passed like smoke. He pulled me onto the couch and tangled us together like we belonged there. We didn't speak much. He worked. I watched the city drift by through the window, a kaleidoscope of strangers, glass, and cold gray light. Sometimes I caught him staring. Like he was memorizing something he thought he might lose.
Midday brought rain.
It started as a murmur on the glass. Then a tap. Then a hush that settled over everything like a held breath. James stood behind me at the window, arms circling my waist.
"You okay?"
I nodded.
He kissed the curve of my neck, lingering. "Then let's get out of here."
I blinked. "What? Now?"
"Now."
He didn't tell me where we were going. Only helped me dress, handed me a jacket, and took my hand like it was the most natural thing in the world. The elevator ride was silent, save for the soft hum of tension threading between us. In the car, he drove without music, his eyes flicking to the rearview mirror more than once.
"Are we being followed?"
His jaw clenched. "Not anymore."
I didn't ask.
We ended up in the hills. Somewhere quiet. Wet leaves clung to the ground, and the trees arched overhead like ribs. James parked the car beside a half-forgotten trailhead and got out without speaking. I followed, the cold biting at my ankles.
The trail curved up and around, winding through moss-covered stone and thick undergrowth. I stumbled once, catching myself on his arm.
"You don't hike, do you?" he asked.
"I walk in straight lines. Mostly on pavement."
He smiled, and it wasn't cruel. It was real. The kind of smile I hadn't seen from him before.
When we reached the top, the world opened.
A lookout, quiet and gray, stretched over the city below. Buildings softened by mist. Roads gleaming like veins. James stood beside me, silent.
"You come here often?"
"When I forget why I started all of this."
I turned to him. "And do you remember?"
His voice dropped. "When I look at you."
He kissed me like the words were too fragile to say twice.
Later, we sat on a bench beneath the pines. The scent of wet bark clung to the air, and fog had started to bleed through the undergrowth. I pressed my shoulder to his, drawing warmth. He didn't speak at first. Just watched the skyline like it owed him something.
Finally, he said, "You're not afraid of me anymore."
"Should I be?"
"Yes." His answer was too quick. Then quieter, "But not for the reasons you think."
"Then tell me."
He took a long breath, as if weighing what could be said. "I didn't grow up soft. I didn't grow up safe. Every piece of who I am was carved out of necessity. The control, the silence, the violence. They weren't choices, not at first. They were shields. And now? Now they're just...what's left."
I leaned into him. "I don't want you soft."
His hand found mine, fingers interlocking. "You don't know what you're asking."
"I know how I feel when I'm with you."
That earned me another silence. Not cold. Not distant. Just...full. Like there were too many truths between us to pick just one.
Then he kissed the back of my hand. A motion too gentle for the man who'd choked me breathless and left me craving more.
"Come on," he said. "Let's get back before the rain turns into something worse."
We walked back down the trail slower than before, neither of us in a hurry to leave that space. That quiet. That rare, fragile piece of something real.
When we got to the car, he opened the door for me. Just that. No words.
But everything in his eyes said, I'm trying.
Back at the apartment, the air felt heavier, not with dread, but with a kind of quiet inevitability. We moved through the space like dancers who had learned each other's rhythms. No tripping, no missed steps.
He poured me tea.
He asked me if I was warm enough.
He watched me drink like I might vanish.
When he reached for the thread around my neck, it wasn't to tighten it.
It was to lift it, reverently, over my head and place it down on the table between us.
A gesture.
A question.
And when I looked into his eyes, I realized I was the one who needed to answer it.
I reached out and touched the thread. Not to take it back, but to feel the heat it still carried from his hands. It trembled faintly under my fingers, like it wasn't ready to be still. Like it remembered every time he'd used it to remind me who I belonged to.
But now it was mine.
I looked up at him. Not for permission. For presence. For honesty.
James didn't speak.
He simply waited, and I realized that silence could be a kind of devotion too.
I rose from the chair, slow. Deliberate. Crossed the space between us until the table was behind me and all I could see was him.
"I don't need it to know where I stand," I said. "But I want to give it back. When it means something more."
His hand reached up and brushed my jaw. The touch was light, reverent, a prayer more than a claim.
"I never wanted to break you," he said.
"You didn't."
His gaze flickered. "Then what am I doing?"
I stepped into him, resting my forehead against his chest.
"You're helping me remember what it feels like to want something. To want someone. Not because I'm scared. Not because I'm alone. But because I finally get to choose."
He wrapped his arms around me slowly, like holding something he didn't know how to keep without damaging. We stood like that, no heat, no urgency, just contact. A different kind of tether.
He kissed the top of my head.
"I can work with that."