The rain had been steady all evening, the kind that tapped against the windows like impatient fingers. The apartment was dim, lit only by the warm glow of a single lamp on the side table. A blanket, meant to cocoon me, had slipped halfway to the floor, leaving my toes cold and forgotten.

But I didn’t notice. Not with the book clutched in my hands. Not with the lump in my throat threatening to undo me.

By the time I turned the last page, I was a wreck. My mascara had bled into gray streaks along my cheeks, my nose was raw from tissues that kept piling up on the coffee table, and my chest ached in that hollow, post-book kind of way. The characters felt like friends, family even, and now one of them was gone. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair, and I was ugly-crying into the story as if my tears could rewrite it.

That’s when the door banged open.

I startled so hard the book nearly flew from my lap.

“Niko?” My voice cracked on his name.

He appeared in the doorway like a storm himself, hair tousled, shirt half-buttoned, eyes wild. His chest rose and fell in quick bursts as if he’d sprinted the whole way up the stairs.

“What happened?” His voice was sharp, cutting through the quiet. “Are you hurt? Who do I kill?”

My sob turned into a hiccup. I shook my head and jabbed a trembling finger at the book in my lap.

His gaze followed, confusion settling across his features. “The… book?”

I sniffled, tears spilling fresh down my face. “He died, Niko. He died and she’s all alone now and it’s so, so unfair!”

For a moment he just stared at me, as if trying to make sense of the situation. Then the tension in his shoulders softened. His eyes, dark and stormy seconds ago, shifted into something warmer, quieter. He walked toward me, slow and careful, like approaching a wounded animal.

When he crouched at my side, the couch dipped slightly from his weight. He held out a hand. “May I?”

I blinked at him through swollen eyes before letting him take the book. He cradled it with a kind of reverence that made my throat tighten. To him, it wasn’t silly or ridiculous, it was sacred because it mattered to me.

“Okay,” he said at last, clearing his throat. “Which fictional man do I need to fight? I’ll find a way. I’ll resurrect him just to punch him.”

A watery laugh bubbled out of me, mixing with another hiccup.

“There she is,” he whispered, brushing a strand of damp hair off my forehead. His hand lingered, thumb grazing my temple with maddening gentleness. “You’re not allowed to cry without me anymore. It’s in the vows. I checked.”

“We’re not married,” I sniffled, though my lips twitched despite myself.

“Technicalities.” He leaned in to press a kiss to my hairline, his lips lingering. “I take my job seriously.”

And just like that, the dam inside me broke again, not in sobs, but in something softer. The kind of tears that came from being seen, from being cared for in a way so steady it knocked the air out of me.

He tucked the blanket around my legs properly, pulling it up to my chin. Then, without asking, he climbed onto the couch, fitting himself behind me like he’d been built to fill the empty spaces I didn’t know existed. His arm curled around my waist, solid and grounding, and his hand found mine beneath the fabric.

“You’re warm,” I murmured, pressing back into him.

“You’re freezing,” he countered. “I could feel it from the doorway.”

Silence fell, but it wasn’t empty. It was filled with the rhythm of his heartbeat against my back, the faint scent of his cologne, spice and cedar, and the occasional creak of the old couch as we shifted closer. My breathing evened out, matching his without meaning to.

“You scared me, you know,” I said after a while, voice muffled. “You came in like there’d been a break-in.”

His chest rumbled with a low laugh. “You scared me first. I heard you crying from the hall.” His lips brushed my temple again. “What was I supposed to think? My girl’s sobbing, my instincts go to fight mode.”

I smiled into the blanket, warmth blooming in my chest. My girl.

“You’re ridiculous,” I whispered.

“Mm,” he hummed, tightening his hold around me, “and yet you love me.”

I didn’t answer right away, too busy tracing circles with my thumb along the back of his hand. Finally, I tilted my head just enough to look at him. His face was inches away, softened by the lamplight. There was no mockery in his expression, no impatience. Just tenderness, the kind that made my throat ache all over again.

“You make it very hard not to,” I said softly.

Something flickered in his eyes, something unguarded and almost shy. And then, in a rare act of restraint, he didn’t kiss me. He simply smiled, small and certain, and pressed his forehead to mine.

“Good,” he whispered. “Because I don’t intend to stop.”

The storm outside rattled the windows, but inside, cocooned on the couch with him wrapped around me, it felt like the world had stilled. The grief of the book was still there, sharp and unfair, but it was dulled by his warmth, softened by the steady weight of his arm.

Eventually, he took the book again and flipped it open.

“Read to me,” I whispered.

He kissed my temple once more, then began in that low, steady voice of his. The words weren’t his, but the comfort was, threading through every syllable until the story felt less like an ending and more like something we were sharing together.

And somewhere between his voice and the rain, I drifted into sleep, safe, warm, and held.