(Vaughn)
Ashley left for work before I was fully awake.
I heard the door close. Her car starting in the street below. Then quiet.
I lay there for a while staring at the ceiling.
Last night had gone well. Better than I expected. She had come home guarded the way she always was now and I had not pushed. Had not asked the wrong questions or said the wrong things. Just cooked. Sat with her. Let her feel like things between us were shifting back to something real.
She believed it.
I could see it in the way she leaned into me on the couch. The way she stopped checking herself before she responded to something I said. Ashley was not a complicated person to read. She wanted to be loved and she wanted it from me specifically and that had always been her weakness and my advantage.
I was not p
