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After a moment he murmured, half amused and half sleepy, “You realise this is extremely domestic.”

“I’m aware.”

“And yet you came back anyway.”

“Yes.”

Quinn sighed softly, already relaxing. “Well, that’s promising.” His breathing slowed gradually as the room settled into stillness.

I held him to me, aware of his warmth, the quiet trust in the way he’d folded himself into my arms without hesitation.

The trust wasn’t what surprised me. It was that some part of me had already made room for him.

Quinn’s breathing slowed as sleep claimed him.

I lay there in the quiet, aware that the most dangerous thing about this night wasn’t what we’d done.

It was how easy it had been to stay.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Max

The attic room was quiet.

Beside me, Quinn slept.

I’d expected to sleep as well. The day had been long, the evening longer, but the moment the lights went out my mind refused to shut down.

Quinn lay on his side facing me, one arm tucked loosely beneath the pillow. The faint light filtering through the skylight traced the line of his cheekbone and the soft rise and fall of his chest.

For a long time I simply watched him breathe, and lying there in the semi darkness, I realised I wasn’t thinking about when this would end. I wasn’t calculating distance or managing expectations or reminding myself of the rules I’d once written with such careful precision.

Instead, I found myself noticing smaller things. The faint crease in the pillow where his cheek rested. The warmth of his leg pressed against mine.

I’d told him my life was compartmentalised, each part of it structured carefully enough that the others never collided.

Quinn had wandered straight through the walls I’d built and treated the whole thing as if it had always been one room. And somehow, the structure hadn’t collapsed. If anything, it felt steadier.

I shifted, careful not to wake him. Quinn made a small sound in his sleep and moved closer, his forehead brushing against my shoulder. His fingers curled around the fabric of my T-shirt, but he didn’t wake. It was as if he was reaching out to confirm I was still there.

After a few seconds Quinn stirred, his eyes half opening. “You’re still here,” he murmured sleepily.

“Yes,” I said quietly.

He studied my face for a moment as if verifying that answer. Then he nodded. “Good.” His eyes closed again almost immediately.

Within seconds his breathing deepened, his body relaxing fully back into sleep.

I lay there listening to it, recalling the simple certainty in that one word.

For most of my adult life, I’d believed closeness came with a cost, that it brought complications and expectations, and even damage. That belief had shaped nearly every rule I’d written for myself.

Yet lying there in Quinn’s bed, his hand still resting against my chest, another possibility occurred to me.

What if the real risk isn’t closeness?

What if the real risk is walking away from something that works?