I walk back through the morning streets with his key warm against my thigh, the metal still holding the heat from my skin. The air smells like rain and car exhaust, and I pass a woman walking a small white dog who yaps at a pigeon, and none of it touches me. I'm still in the space between his door and this sidewalk, still tasting the pancakes he made, still hearing him say anytime with that soft, private smile.
The apartment building looms up on my left—his building, now ours in some way I haven't named yet. I stop at the bottom step and pull the key from my pocket. It catches the pale February light, just a piece of metal on a simple ring, and I curl my fingers around it until I feel the teeth pressing into my palm.
I don't knock.
The key slides in like it was made for this lock—which it was, obviously, but still—and the latch clicks open with a sound that feels deliberate. Announced.
The door swings inward, and the apartment is dark except for the blue flicker of the TV on mute. Some late-night infomercial is playing, a woman in a red dress smiling at a blender. The sound is off, so it's just her mouth moving, the blue light washing over the walls.
Liam is on the couch. Barefoot. Still in the same gray shirt from breakfast, the one with the small stain on the collar I noticed when he reached for the syrup. His elbows rest on his knees, his hands hanging loose, and he's staring at the TV like it holds answers to questions he hasn't asked.
He doesn't look at me when I drop my bag by the door. The thud of it hitting the floor is the loudest sound in the room, and still he doesn't turn.
I close the door behind me. The latch clicks. I leave my hand on the knob for a second longer than I need to.
"I thought you might not come back."
His voice is low. Rough in a way that makes something in my chest pull tight, like a wire being drawn too fast. He still hasn't looked at me. He's staring at the woman on the screen, her silent mouth forming words I can't hear, and his hands are motionless between his knees.
I cross the room. The carpet is soft under my sneakers, and I count the steps—six, seven, eight—until I'm standing in front of him, my knees almost brushing his. The TV light makes everything look underwater, his skin pale and blue, the shadows under his eyes sharper than they were an hour ago.
He still doesn't look up.
I reach into my pocket and pull out the key. I hold it up between us, let the blue light catch the metal, let it dangle from my fingers like a question he already knows the answer to.
"You gave me this," I say. My voice is steadier than I expected. "I'm not going to waste it."
He finally looks at me.
His eyes travel from the key to my face, and something in his expression shifts—a crack, a release, a closing of distance I didn't realize he'd opened. His jaw tightens once, then loosens. He reaches up, slow, his fingers brushing mine before wrapping around my hand, the key still pressed between our palms.
He tugs.
I let myself fall forward, my knees hitting the couch cushions, my hands bracing on his shoulders. He pulls me onto his lap—one hand sliding to my hip, the other still holding mine, the key cold and warm at the same time against my skin—and I settle across his thighs, my knees on either side of him, my chest inches from his.
His mouth finds my throat before I can speak.
It's not gentle. It's not the soft, searching kisses from this morning. His lips press against the curve of my neck, open-mouthed, hungry, and I feel the scrape of his stubble, the heat of his breath, the vibration of a sound he doesn't quite make. His hand lets go of mine—the key drops onto the cushion somewhere—and both his palms slide under the hem of my shirt, flat against my stomach, his fingers spreading wide like he's trying to anchor himself.
"Liam."
He doesn't stop. His mouth moves up, along my jaw, and his hands slide higher, pushing my shirt up, his thumbs brushing the bottom of my ribs.
"I came back," I say, and my voice is thinner now, catching on the last word.
He pulls back just enough to look at me. His eyes are dark, his pupils blown wide even in the dim light, and there's something raw in his face—something he's not hiding, something he's letting me see.
"I know," he says. "I know you did."
His hands are still under my shirt, warm against my skin, and I can feel his heart beating against my thigh through his jeans. Fast. Heavy.
"I just—" He stops. Swallows. His thumbs trace small circles on my ribs. "I sat here for an hour after you left. Staring at the door. Telling myself you'd be back."
"I told you I would."
"I know." He laughs, but there's no humor in it. "I know. I just—I've never—" He breaks off, looks away, and something twists in my chest.
I reach up and cup his face in my hands. His stubble is rough under my palms, his jaw tight, and I turn his head until he's looking at me again.
"Listen to me." I keep my voice low, soft, the way I used to talk to my grandmother when she was scared of the dark. "I left Maya at that coffee shop. I texted her goodbye. I locked the phone. And then I walked out with you, and I came back here, and I'm going to keep coming back here until you stop looking at me like I'm going to disappear."
His breath catches. I feel it under my hands, the way his chest hitches, the way his fingers tighten on my ribs.
"I love you," I say. "I love you, and I'm not going anywhere."
He kisses me.
It's not like the kiss at the door this morning, soft and searching. This one has teeth. His mouth slams into mine, his hand fists in the back of my shirt, and he pulls me against him so hard I feel the couch shift under us. I make a sound—surprise, hunger, something that's both—and he swallows it, his tongue sliding against mine, his other hand sliding up my spine until his fingers are tangled in my hair.
I taste coffee and something darker. Want. Relief. The edge of a fear he's still holding onto.
I pull back just enough to breathe. "Liam."
"I know." His voice is wrecked. "I know you love me. I know you came back. I just—I need—"
"What do you need?"
He looks at me. His eyes are bright, wet in the blue light, and his chest is rising and falling like he's been running.
"I need you to show me," he says. "I need to feel it."
The words land somewhere deep in my stomach, a pulse of heat and understanding. I know what he's asking. Not just sex. Not just bodies. He needs to feel the weight of my choice in his hands, in his mouth, in the way I move against him.
I lean forward and kiss him again—slower this time, deliberate. My hands slide from his face down his chest, feeling the fabric of his shirt, the heat beneath it. I find the hem and pull it up, and he lifts his arms without breaking the kiss, and the shirt is gone, tossed somewhere on the floor, and my palms are flat against his skin.
He's warm. So warm. His chest rises under my hands, and I trace the lines of his shoulders, the dip of his collarbone, the small scar above his eyebrow that I've memorized by now. He watches me, his hands resting on my hips, his breathing uneven.
I pull my own shirt off.
The air hits my skin, cool against the heat of my chest, and his eyes drop to my bra—black, simple, nothing special—and the look on his face makes me feel like I'm wearing something made of gold.
"Sofia." My name comes out rough, a sound he can't quite control.
"I'm here," I say. "I'm here."
He reaches up and unhooks my bra with one hand—a skill I didn't know he had, and I'm about to say something about it, but then the straps slide down my arms and the air touches my nipples and his mouth is on me before I can form a thought.
His tongue traces a circle around my left nipple, slow, deliberate, and I arch into him, my hands gripping his shoulders. He does it again, and again, until I'm pressing against his mouth, and then he takes me in, sucking hard enough that I gasp, my fingers digging into his skin.
"Liam—"
He moves to the other side, giving it the same attention, his hand coming up to cup the first, his thumb rolling over the wet tip. The sound I make is not a word. It's a breath and a moan and a surrender all at once.
His hands find the waistband of my jeans. He looks up at me, a question in his eyes, and I nod.
We strip each other in the blue light of the muted TV, clothes falling to the floor, the infomercial woman still smiling silently at her blender. His hands on my hips, my hands on his belt, the sound of his zipper, the sound of my jeans hitting the carpet. He's hard when I touch him, his cock pressing against the fabric of his boxers, and I wrap my hand around him through the cotton, feeling the heat, the weight, the way he hisses through his teeth.
He stands up, lifting me with him, and I wrap my legs around his waist. He carries me to the bedroom, his mouth on my neck, my hands in his hair, and when he lays me down on the bed, the sheets smell like him—laundry detergent and sweat and something I can't name. Something that smells like home.
He kneels between my legs, looking at me. The light from the hallway cuts across his face, catching the scar above his eyebrow, the shadows under his cheekbones. He looks like something carved out of the dark, and he's looking at me like I'm the only light in the room.
"Tell me again," he says.
"I love you."
His jaw tightens. His hands find my thighs, pushing them apart, and he lowers himself until his mouth is inches from where I'm already wet, already aching for him.
"Again."
"I love you, Liam."
He kisses the inside of my thigh. Soft. A promise.
"Again."
"I love you." My voice breaks on the last word because his tongue has found me, tracing a slow line from my entrance to my clit, and I can't think, can't breathe, can't do anything but grip the sheets and feel the world narrow to the heat of his mouth.
He takes his time. He explores me like he's memorizing every ridge, every pulse, every sound I make. His tongue circles my clit until I'm gasping, then moves lower, dipping inside me, and the wet sound of it fills the room, mixes with my breathing, with the distant blue flicker of the TV still playing in the other room.
I come with my hands fisted in his hair and his name on my lips, a broken sound that I don't recognize as my own.
He crawls up my body, his mouth finding mine, and I taste myself on his lips. His cock presses against my stomach, hot and hard, and I reach down and guide him to my entrance, watching his face as he feels how ready I am.
"I need you inside me," I say.
He pushes in, slow, inch by inch, until he's fully seated and I feel the stretch, the fullness, the way he fills a space I didn't know was empty. He stays there, his forehead against mine, his breathing ragged.
"I love you," he says. "I love you, I love you, I love you."
Each word is a thrust, deep and deliberate, and I wrap my legs around his waist and let him take me, let him pour every doubt and fear and hope into the way he moves. His hand finds mine, fingers lacing together beside my head, and we move together in the dark, the mattress creaking, the air thick with the smell of us, the sound of my moans and his breathing and the wet rhythm of his body against mine.
He comes with a sound that's almost a sob, his body shuddering against me, his face buried in my neck. I feel him pulse inside me, warm and deep, and I hold him, my arms wrapped around his back, my lips pressed to his temple.
We stay like that for a long time. His weight on me, grounding me. His breath evening out against my throat.
When he finally lifts his head, his eyes are wet again, but he's smiling—a real smile, soft and tired and unguarded.
"You came back," he says. Like he's still testing the words.
"I came back." I reach up and brush the hair from his forehead. "I'll keep coming back."
He rolls off me, pulling me with him so I'm tucked against his side, my head on his chest, his arm around my shoulders. His heart is still pounding, but it's slowing now, settling into a rhythm I can match with my own.
I feel something press into my hand. I look down. The key. He must have picked it up from the couch, brought it with us.
He closes my fingers around it and holds them there, his hand over mine, the key warm between our palms.
"Keep it," he says. "I mean it. Keep it forever."
I curl my fingers around the metal, feel the teeth against my skin, and I think about the word forever and how it used to terrify me. How I crossed an ocean for someone who couldn't say it. How I found someone who says it like it's the easiest thing in the world.
"Forever," I repeat. The word feels different in my mouth now. Heavier. More possible.
He kisses the top of my head, and I press the key against my chest, and the TV still flickers in the other room, silent and blue, playing to an empty couch.