The scent of jasmine tea and toasted rice fills the kitchen as the city outside our penthouse windows sleeps.
We stayed up late last night, eating sushi, drinking chilled white wine, and intentionally talking about anything other than the club. We talked about books, about the mountains, about quiet places along the coast where the ocean pounds against jagged rock and the air smells like salted pine.
We laughed at little things, letting the wine loosen the sharp edges of our fear, wrapped in the temporary safety of our penthouse sanctuary. But beneath every word, beneath every touch and quiet laugh, was the invisible countdown ticking away toward sunrise.
Neither of us truly slept when we finally went to bed around two.
We lay tangled under the duvet, but sleep was a restless, shallo
