Chapter 137
Nora's POV
I must have fallen asleep.
When I woke, the room was dark, the floor lamp casting a warm circle of light across the carpet. Outside the windows, the sky had gone fully black. I blinked at the ceiling for a moment, disoriented, then turned to the side.
Julian was at the desk across the room, head bent over a stack of folders. He didn't look up immediately. I watched him drag a pen across something, flip a page, and then go still—like he'd registered the change in my breathing before I'd said a word.
He turned.
"Awake?" He was already setting the pen down, already moving around the edge of the desk toward me. He crossed the room and crouched in front of the couch, bringing himself level with my face, and pressed the back of his hand to my forehead. "How do you feel?"
"Much better," I said. My voice was rough with sleep.
Something in his expression loosened. He didn't move his hand immediately, just let it rest there for another second before pulling back. "Good." He stood. "I ordered dinner. Should be here soon."
---
It arrived ten minutes later.
He laid it out on the coffee table—chicken broth, a grilled chicken salad with the dressing on the side, sliced whole wheat bread, a bowl of roasted vegetable soup, and a glass of warm water with my cold medicine already placed beside it.
I stared at the spread. This wasn't takeout grabbed in a hurry. Every item was deliberate. Soft. Easy on a recovering stomach.
He picked all of this out specifically.
I didn't say anything. I just sat forward and picked up the spoon.
We ate in a silence that wasn't uncomfortable. The soup was good, warm all the way down, and I felt the residual headache starting to loosen its grip.
"What do you do when you're not working?" Julian said.
I looked up. He was watching me with the same calm attention he gave everything, like the question was completely natural.
"Read," I said. "Listen to music. Watch movies." I paused. "Sometimes just...nothing. Stare at a wall."
One eyebrow lifted. "Stare at a wall."
"Zone out. Total mental blank." I wrapped both hands around the warm water glass. "When things get too full up here—" I tapped my temple—"being able to think about absolutely nothing for ten minutes is basically a luxury."
He was quiet for a moment.
"You can come here," he said. "When you need that."
My spoon stopped halfway to the bowl.
I lowered my head and took a long sip of broth and told myself the warmth in my face was the steam.
Before I realized it, the soup bowl was empty, and I'd brought up the movie.
"There was one I kept meaning to see," I said, without really thinking about it. "Got pushed back twice because of work. Never made it."
Julian looked up from his plate. "Do you want to watch it now?"
"Now?" I glanced at the window. Full dark, the streetlights just visible past the glass. "I mean, the theater would be—"
"We'll watch here." He stood, and his hand found mine naturally, no hesitation, and he walked me toward the living room like we'd done this before.
My pulse did something I chose not to examine too closely.
He settled me onto the couch. He had a folded blanket, which he passed to me without comment. I pulled it around my shoulders and watched him move to the far wall, where he pressed something on the smart panel.
A projector screen descended from the ceiling.
The room lights dimmed. The hearth threw everything in soft orange relief.
"Too bad we don't have popcorn."
Julian stopped what he was doing. He picked up his phone, typed something, and set it back down without a word.
"What did you just—"
"Delivery," he said, smiling slightly. "It'll be here soon."
---
The door buzzer went off eleven minutes later.
He came back with a bucket of caramel popcorn, still warm, the smell of it cutting straight through the room.
The movie was a thriller—tight pacing, decent enough plot—and somewhere around the forty-minute mark I realized that the distance between us on the couch had decreased by roughly half without either of us acknowledging it.
I held out the popcorn bucket. "You should have some."
"I don't eat sweets."
"You're missing out. Empirically. Sugar triggers dopamine. It's literally science."
The corner of his mouth pulled slightly. He turned to look at me, and in the dim projection-light his eyes were dark and unhurried. "Then you eat it," he said, his voice dropping just low enough to pull the air out of the room. "And I'll have you. Same result."
The bucket tipped.
I caught it, barely. Heat flooded my face in a full rush. "You can't just—"
He reached out and wrapped one arm around my shoulders, drawing me against his side in a single unhurried motion, and the protest died completely. "What I mean," he said, against the top of my head, voice still carrying that trace of quiet amusement, "is that I get something from you that lasts longer than sugar."
I didn't say anything. I ate my popcorn and stared at the screen and was very aware of every point of contact between us.
The credits rolled at exactly ten.
I stretched both arms over my head, a full, unself-conscious stretch, and let out a breath. "That was really good. I'm annoyed I missed it in theaters."
"Given your schedule," he said, tone perfectly dry, "the odds of you making any specific showtime are statistically close to zero."
I laughed. It felt good to laugh. "Okay, but—silver lining. If I hadn't gotten sick, I wouldn't have watched it at all." I turned to look at him, grinning. "So thank God for the fever."
His expression shifted. The warmth didn't leave his eyes.
"Don't say that," he said quietly. His arm tightened around me, pulling me back against his chest, and he rested his chin on top of my head. A long pause. "I'd rather you be perfectly healthy and have no time for me at all."
The room went very still.
He wasn't asking for something. He was telling me what he wanted. The whole shape of it—the future it assumed, the space it asked me to occupy—landed somewhere underneath my ribs and stayed there.
I didn't say anything. I didn't need to.
---
The projector had gone to its standby screen, casting barely any light. The only sounds were the soft pop of embers and both of our breathing.
"There's something else," Julian said, low and deliberate, "that releases dopamine."
I knew what was coming. I could feel it in the way his hand had stilled in my hair, the careful tension in his chest beneath my shoulder. I looked up anyway.
"What?" My voice came out smaller than I intended.
His head dipped. His breath crossed my cheekbone first. Then his lips found my forehead. Then the bridge of my nose. Then the corner of my mouth. And then he stopped, right there, waiting.
He's asking.
I closed the last inch myself.
The kiss started soft—tentative—and then his hand slid to cup the back of my head and it wasn't careful anymore. I felt one arm come around my back, pulling me closer, and I went without resisting. He tasted like black coffee, bitter and clean.
My fingers found his hair and curled in.
He made a low sound against my mouth and his hold tightened.