Riley woke to a rectangle of morning sun on the wall, the light falling across the faded paint like a blade laid flat. He blinked at it, his eyes adjusting, the warmth of the beam reaching across the room to touch his bare shoulder.
His phone was on the nightstand where he'd left it. The screen was dark, but he could feel the weight of it from here, the pull of whatever waited on the other side of that black glass.
He reached for it. The sheets shifted around his waist. The rectangle of sun held steady on the wall, patient, indifferent to whatever was about to change.
The phone lit under his thumb. One notification.
Jasmine: Six hours, giant. I'm ordering extra pork.
He read it twice. The words were light, playful—that was Jasmine's whole thing, the brightness she threw at everything like confetti. But the number sat in his chest differently. Six hours. Six hours until he was sitting across from her at a ramen shop on Fourth Street, alone, a date he'd agreed to, a date the whole group had agreed to, a date Inde had proposed.
He set the phone down. Picked it up again. Read the message a third time.
Extra pork.
He let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. The rectangle of sun hadn't moved. The ceiling above his bed was the same ceiling it had always been—a little cracked, a little yellowed, a water stain in the corner that looked vaguely like a question mark.
He stared at it. The warmth of last night's texts—Inde's goodnight, his smile in the dark, the sense that something had settled between them—was still there, somewhere beneath his ribs. But it was curdling. Turning into something heavier, something that pressed on his chest like a weight he couldn't name.
He sat up. The sheet fell to his waist. The air in the apartment was cool, the kind of cool that comes with early autumn mornings, and he felt it on his skin like a question he wasn't ready to answer.
He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and stood. His feet found the worn carpet, the same worn carpet where they'd all sat for game night, where Jasmine had stretched her long legs out and Jessica had leaned into his shoulder and Natalie had shuffled cards with that quiet focus of hers. Where Inde had pressed her hand to his chest and kept it there.
He walked to the window. The blinds were half-closed, the way he'd left them last night, and he pushed one slat aside with his finger. Morning light fell across the parking lot outside. A car was pulling out, someone heading to work or class or somewhere that wasn't here, and he watched it go, feeling the strangeness of being still while the world moved around him.
Six hours.
He let the slat fall back into place. Turned. The apartment was quiet—the refrigerator humming its low hum, the pipes settling somewhere in the walls, the sound of his own breathing filling the space like it was the only thing that mattered.
He moved to the living room without deciding to. His feet took him there, past the kitchen counter where the coffee maker sat cold and empty, past the couch where they'd all piled in for spin the bottle, past the spot on the floor where he'd broken down crying with Inde's arms around him.
He stopped in the middle of the room. The sun was coming through the window here too, a wide rectangle of light falling across the worn carpet, and he was standing in it. The warmth touched his bare chest, his shoulders, his face, and for a moment he just stood there, letting it.
His phone was still in his hand. He hadn't put it down. He looked at the screen again—Jasmine's text still there, still waiting, still six hours away—and then he locked it and set it on the kitchen counter face-down, as if that could make time slow down.
He rubbed his face with both hands. His jaw was tight. He hadn't noticed until now, but his shoulders were tight too, the way they got before a swim meet, that coiled tension that meant his body knew something his mind hadn't caught up to yet.
He took a breath. Let it out. The rectangle of sun held steady on the carpet, and he was still standing in it, and nothing had changed, and everything had changed, and he didn't know what to do with his hands.
The knock came soft. Three taps. The rhythm he already knew.
His head lifted. His heart did something complicated—a skip, a stutter, a settling—and he was moving before he'd decided to, crossing the living room in four long strides, his bare feet silent on the worn carpet.
He reached the door. His hand found the handle. He paused for half a second, his thumb pressed against the cool metal, and then he opened it.
Inde stood in the doorway.
She was wearing his gray Henley. It hung past her thighs, the hem skimming her knees, the collar slipped slightly off one shoulder in that way that made his chest go tight. Her hair was loose, falling dark and straight past her shoulders, and her dark eyes were fixed on his face with that quiet intensity he was still learning how to hold.
She had a coffee cup in each hand. Steam rose from both, curling into the morning air, and the smell of it reached him—dark roast, the kind he drank black, the kind she'd noticed he ordered at Mike's diner the morning she'd stayed over.
He looked at her. She looked at him. The silence held between them, full of everything they hadn't said yet, and then she tilted her head slightly, the corner of her mouth lifting in something that wasn't quite a smile.
"Figured you'd need fuel," she said, her voice low and warm, "before you go charm Jasmine."
The coffee cups stayed in her hands. She didn't move to hand one over. She just stood there, in his doorway, in his shirt, holding two cups of coffee like it was the most natural thing in the world, like she belonged here, like she'd always belonged here.
He opened his mouth. Closed it. The words were somewhere in his chest, but they were caught on something, tangled in the warmth of seeing her, in the weight of what she was offering—not just the coffee, but the moment. The way she'd come here, early, without being asked. The way she was looking at him now, patient and steady, asking nothing but giving everything.
He realized he was still standing in the doorway, bare-chested, in nothing but the sweatpants he'd slept in. He hadn't thought about it until now—hadn't thought about the way the morning light was falling across his shoulders, the way his swimmer's build was visible in the open door, the way her eyes had dropped to his chest for half a second when he'd first opened the door.
She didn't look away. Didn't pretend she hadn't noticed. Her eyes came back up to his, steady, unashamed, and she held out one of the cups.
"Here." Her voice was soft, but there was something underneath it—something that might have been a question, might have been an offer, might have been both. "Before it gets cold."
He reached for it. His fingers brushed hers as he took the cup—warm, callused, the hands of someone who did things without talking about them—and the touch lingered for a moment longer than it needed to.
The silence held.
She was still looking at him. Waiting. The question she hadn't asked was alive in the space between them, and he could feel it pressing on his chest, asking him to answer something he wasn't sure he knew how to put into words.
She'd said before you go charm Jasmine, and the words were still hanging in the air, light and easy, but he could feel the weight underneath them. She was giving him permission. She was also asking him if he needed it.
The coffee was warm in his hand. The sun was falling across both of them now, spilling through the open door, catching the dark of her hair and the gray of his Henley and the steam still rising from the cups.
She waited.
And the silence held, full of everything he still needed to say.
He looked down at the coffee cup in his hand. The ceramic was warm, ordinary, a thing he'd held a thousand times before. But it felt different now—heavier, like it was carrying more than just coffee. Like it was carrying the fact that she'd remembered how he took it. That she'd woken up early, made the trip to his apartment, stood in his doorway in his shirt, because she knew he'd need fuel before a date with someone else.
The Henley had slipped a little further off her shoulder. Just a fraction, barely noticeable—the kind of shift that happened when someone moved their arm, adjusted their weight. But he noticed. He noticed the way the fabric hung on her frame, soft and worn and familiar, the collar stretched from the times he'd pulled it over his own head. It smelled like him. He wondered if she'd worn it on purpose, or if she'd just grabbed it this morning because it was there, because it was hers now as much as his.
The steam from her cup rose between them, curling in the morning light, and he watched it for a moment—the way it twisted and dissolved, the way it was here and then gone, the way it left nothing behind but the memory of warmth.
"You didn't have to," he said. His voice came out rougher than he'd expected, still thick with sleep, or maybe with all the things he hadn't said yet. "Come all this way. I could've—"
"I know." She said it simply, without emphasis, like it wasn't a point she needed to make. "I wanted to."
He looked at her. The morning light caught the dark of her hair, the curve of her jaw, the fine lines at the corners of her eyes that came from a lifetime of watching, of seeing, of holding things in her chest that she never quite let out. She wasn't pushing. She wasn't asking. She was just there, in his doorway, holding the moment like it was something fragile and precious and worth keeping.
He lifted the cup to his mouth and took a sip. The coffee was hot, dark, bitter in the way he liked it—no sugar, no cream, just the raw edge of the roast. It was the same way he'd ordered it at Mike's diner, the morning she'd stayed over, the morning she'd watched him drink it and then filed the information away without saying anything.
She must have noticed. She must have remembered.
The warmth spread through his chest, and he let it settle there, let it mix with the other warmth that was already living beneath his ribs—the warmth of seeing her, of her standing here, of her having noticed the small thing and turned it into this.
"It's good," he said. His voice was steadier now. "Thank you."
She tilted her head slightly, that small gesture she had, the one that meant she was listening to more than just his words. "You didn't sleep well."
It wasn't a question. He felt the accuracy of it land somewhere in his chest, the way she'd seen something he hadn't said, the way she always seemed to see.
"I slept fine," he said. Then, after a beat: "Eventually."
Her mouth curved. Not quite a smile, but close. "Eventually."
He shifted his weight. The floor was cool under his bare feet, the worn carpet soft and familiar. He was still standing in the doorway, half in his apartment and half out, the morning air touching his bare shoulders, the sun falling across his chest. He should probably put a shirt on. He should probably say something that made sense.
Instead, he lifted the coffee cup again. Took another sip. Let the warmth hold him steady.
"Jasmine's text came in this morning," he said. The words were out before he'd decided to say them, and he felt them land in the space between them, a weight he was giving her to hold. "Six hours, she said. She's ordering extra pork."
Inde's expression didn't change. She just looked at him, her dark eyes steady, the steam from her own cup rising and dissolving between them.
"She's excited," Inde said. "That's good."
It was. He knew it was. Jasmine was the one who'd claimed first dibs, the one who'd picked the spot, the one who'd been bright and forward and unmistakably clear about what she wanted. And he wanted to be excited too. He wanted to feel the lightness that Jasmine always seemed to carry, the way she threw herself into things without hesitation.
But standing here, in this doorway, with Inde's warmth in his hand and her patience in the space between them, the excitement felt distant—like something he was supposed to feel but couldn't quite reach.
Her gaze held his. The silence stretched, comfortable and waiting, and he could feel the shape of it around them—the shape of her presence, the shape of what she was offering without asking for anything in return.