While she slept peacefully beside him, Sebastian carefully untangled himself from her warmth, slipping from the bed with practiced caution. The last thing he wanted was to wake her. A glance at the clock revealed it was only 2:00 a.m.

He already knew she'd complain if the room reeked of cigarettes by morning, so he stepped out onto the balcony instead, just as he always did after nights like this. It had become a ritual neither of them ever acknowledged.

The cigarette glowed between his fingers as he stared into the darkness.

Sebastian didn't know what to call whatever existed between them.

She had been there when he was at his worst—when grief had hollowed him out and left him stumbling through life like a ghost. She was the one who dragged him back from the edge every time he got too close to drowning himself in alcohol. A colleague. A friend. His closest friend, perhaps.

But friends didn't end up tangled together in bed several nights a week.

Friends didn't look at each other the way she did when she thought he wasn't paying attention.

Friends certainly didn't keep coming back after being pushed away over and over again.

The problem was that Sebastian had forgotten how normal people handled feelings. Anything deeper than anger, guilt, or grief felt foreign to him now. Love felt even more impossible.

Was he capable of loving anyone anymore?

After Lily's death, something inside him had shattered. Then his wife's disappearance had finished the job. Maybe there was nothing left to give. Maybe whatever part of him had once known how to love had died alongside them.

He never let himself think about it for long.

The cold night air bit at his skin, but he welcomed it. The chill kept his thoughts sharp. The cigarette kept them quiet.

For a while, only silence accompanied him.

Then he heard the balcony door slide open.

Sebastian didn't turn around. He simply exhaled a stream of smoke into the darkness, already knowing it was her.

His jaw tightened slightly.

No matter how many walls he built between them, somehow she always found her way through them.

"What are you doing up?" he asked, his gravelly voice cutting through the night.

The question sounded indifferent, but it wasn't. It never was when it came to her.