(Ridge)
I sat next to her for a while after she closed her eyes, her hand still resting on mine like she expected it to stay there, and I didn’t move it because there was no reason to, not when everything was finally quiet and there was nothing pulling me away from this room. The sounds outside carried through the walls, voices and movement and doors opening and closing, the kind of normal that didn’t ask anything from me, and for the first time in a long while I just let it be that way without thinking about what came next.
My phone vibrated in my pocket, once, then stopped, then started again a second later like whoever it was wasn’t going to let it go, and I knew before I even reached for it that it was something I had been waiting on whether I admitted it or not. I eased my hand out
