Liam didn’t leave.

He told himself he would — somewhere between the second and third hour of the night, in one of the brief windows where Rachel lay quiet against his chest and he stared at the ceiling doing the mental arithmetic of a man who had an agenda and a schedule and a list of things that needed doing. He would stay another hour. Then he would go.

He didn’t go.

The night moved the way those nights do when neither person is watching the clock — in stretches, in pauses, in conversations that started about nothing and ended somewhere neither of them had planned. Rachel was different here. Not the careful, slightly self-conscious woman who had opened the door to him that first evening with her arms crossed over her robe. She was looser than that. Easier. Like the evening had unlocked something she’d been keeping on the shelf.

He slept eventually. Deeply, without the usual resistance his brain put up when he was somewhere unfamiliar.

---

The smell reached him before anything else.

Butter. Something savoury underneath it. The faint sweetness of something baked.

Liam opened one eye.

The bedroom was warm with morning light, the curtains doing a poor job of keeping it out. He was on his back, one arm stretched across the empty side of the bed — her side, still faintly warm. He lay there for a moment just taking inventory. His suit jacket was somewhere on the floor. His shoes were by the door. His phone, face down on the nightstand, showed 9:47 AM.

He heard her before he saw her — soft footsteps in the hallway, a quiet sound of something being set down, then a knock on the open door.

Rachel appeared in the doorway holding a tray.

She was in an oversized sweatshirt and cotton shorts, hair pulled back loosely, a few strands escaping around her face. She looked unreasonably good for someone who had slept as little as he had. More than that, she looked — settled. Like a woman who had made a decision about her morning and was entirely at peace with it.

The tray had eggs, toast, a small bowl of sliced fruit, and a mug of coffee that was already producing steam.

"You’re still here," she said.

"You’re observant."

She smiled and crossed the room, setting the tray carefully across his lap as he pushed himself upright against the headboard. He looked down at it and then back up at her.

"You made breakfast."

"I did."

"For me."

"I don’t see anyone else in my bed." She sat on the edge of the mattress, pulling one knee up. "Don’t read too much into it. You looked hungry."

"I was asleep."

"You looked like you’d be hungry when you woke up."

Liam picked up the fork. The eggs were soft, seasoned properly, with a little heat at the back of it that arrived a second after the first bite. He ate without speaking for a moment because the eggs genuinely deserved the silence.

"These are good," he said.

"I know."

"That wasn’t a compliment, that was a factual statement." Liam pointed out.

"I know that too." She reached over and stole a piece of his toast without asking, which he found unreasonably endearing. "You want juice? I have orange juice."

"Coffee is fine. I need to wake up."

She watched him eat with the quiet satisfaction of someone who had made a thing and was watching it land correctly. There was a lightness to her this morning that sat differently than her usual warmth. Her usual warmth had a careful quality — like she was offering something but keeping one hand on it just in case. This was different. This was a woman who had let go of the thing entirely and wasn’t looking for it.

Liam noticed. He didn’t comment on it directly because pointing at a mood was the fastest way to kill it.

"You’re in a good mood," he said instead, keeping it casual.

"Am I?"

"You made breakfast and you’re smiling at the wall."

Rachel looked at the wall, then back at him. "I’m not smiling at the wall."

"You were a second ago. Don’t tell me you’re having flashbacks?" Liam teased.

She took another piece of his toast. "Maybe I’m just a morning person, and not a pervert like you?"

"You were not a morning person at 2 AM."

The smile she had been suppressing broke through completely and she turned her face away, which only made it more obvious. Her hand came up to cover her mouth and she laughed.

"Eat your eggs," she said.

Liam ate his eggs.

They sat like that for a while — him working through the tray, her occasionally stealing from it, the morning light doing what morning light does in a room where the night before was still present in the air. It wasn’t awkward. That was the thing that struck him most. By all practical measures it should have been at least slightly awkward — the unplanned stay, the morning after, the undefined shape of whatever this was. But Rachel wore it easily, like a coat she’d already broken in.

"You know," she said eventually, chin resting on her knee, "you could have knocked."

Liam looked up from his coffee. "I could have."

"Like a normal person," Rachel said, smiling sheepishly.

"Wait? I’m not norma!?" Liam said with an exaggerated gasped.

"You broke into my apartment."

"The door was open in my defense."

"That’s not—" She stopped herself, pressing her lips together. "That is technically true."

"Technically and legally. Case closed!"

"Oh, don’t bring law into my bedroom."

"Too late." He drained the last of the coffee and set the mug down. "For what it’s worth, the burglar angle worked."

Rachel was quiet for exactly two seconds.

"It did not work because of the burglar angle," she said firmly, in the tone of a woman making an important distinction.

"Sure." Liam said.

"Liam." Rachel wanted to defend herself.

"I believe you completely."

She picked up the pillow behind her and hit him with it, which disturbed the tray, which made them both grab for it at the same time, and for a moment they were just two people laughing over a rescued bowl of fruit at ten in the morning like it was the most natural thing either of them had done in a long time.

For Rachel, it probably was.