The sheet corner cut into her shoulder when she moved—tucked so tight she had to fight it. Her dress was gone. Someone had hung it over the chair, the velvet still dark with rain. The slip underneath was hers, at least. Someone had left her that.
Her throat was sand. The water on the nightstand sat exactly where she would have reached for it, if she could have reached for anything. She didn't touch it. She didn't know whose hands had poured it.
The lamp was still on. The room had the thin, hollowed-out feeling of hours past midnight. Rain drummed the windowpane—steady, unhurried, a sound that expected nothing from her. The air filter hummed beneath it, a white noise she'd never noticed in her own apartment. She didn't own an air filter.
She pushed up on one elbow and saw him.
Sebastian stood in the doorway with his arms folded and his weight settled back on his heels, like he'd been there a while. The wire-rim glasses caught the lamplight. Behind them, his eyes were winter—not cold exactly, but watchful. Patient in a way that made her skin prickle.
He didn't speak. He was waiting.
Her pulse kicked. She knew this game—the silence you filled because the silence was unbearable, and the second you started talking you'd handed over something you couldn't get back. She'd played it a hundred times with men who wanted her off-balance. But his stillness wasn't a tactic. It was just how he stood.
"How long was I out?" Her voice came out cracked, scraping. She hated it.
"Six hours. Maybe seven."
"You changed my clothes."
"You were soaked. The dress would have ruined the quilt." He said it like that was the obvious priority—the quilt, not her. She almost laughed. Her silver nose ring caught the light when she shook her head.
She should have said something sharp. Something about how she didn't remember asking to be rescued. But the rain kept falling, steadying the room, and the sheets smelled like cedar, and her body was still sinking into the mattress like it had been waiting years for permission.
She let the silence stretch another few seconds, testing. He didn't fill it. His arms stayed folded, the cuffs of his white button-down rolled once, twice—exact. The glasses caught her stare and threw it back.
“The quilt,” she said. “You said the dress would’ve ruined the quilt. Not me. The quilt.”
His head tilted a fraction. “The quilt was my grandmother’s. Hand-stitched. You can’t replace a quilt.”
“And me? Can you replace me?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t decided.”
She laughed—a short, cracked sound that scraped her throat raw. “Fair. At least you’re honest about it.” She pushed herself higher against the headboard, the movement sending a dull ache through her shoulders. The slip strap fell. She didn’t catch it.
He didn’t look away, but he didn’t step forward either. “You passed out in the alley behind The Velvet. Two blocks from your apartment. Head against a dumpster. It’s supposed to freeze tonight.”
The details landed like small stones. She remembered the cold brick. The smell of garbage. The way her knees had just—given. “So you scooped me up like a stray cat.”
“Something like that.”
“And the water?” She flicked her chin toward the nightstand. “Part of the rescue package?”
“You’re dehydrated. Your voice will be shot tomorrow if you don’t drink something.” His voice stayed level, but something shifted behind his eyes when he said your voice. Like he’d heard her sing. Like it mattered to him that she could do it again.
She reached for the glass just to stop him looking at her like that. Her hand shook. Water sloshed against the rim before she got it to her lips. It was cold and clean and exactly what her body wanted, and she hated how grateful she felt for it.
“Why do you have an air filter?” she asked when she’d swallowed. “You some kind of germaphobe?”
“I like clean air. It’s predictable.” He said predictable the way most people said necessary. Like it wasn’t a preference; it was survival.