“You should’ve woken me up,” I say, liking the way he watches me walk toward him, liking the way he reaches a hand out for mine and tugs me down next to him. The not-for-comfort couch is only improved by the way Reid pulls me so close to him, both of my legs hooking over one of his, absorbing his warmth, one of his arms lifting to come around me.

“I got more sleep than you last night,” he says, leaning in to press a kiss against my temple, inhaling deeply, and there’s that lovely, -shaped tightening around my heart again at how good and natural and easy this feels.

But then the phone he’s still holding pings in his hand, and his head falls back, his eyes closing in frustration.

“You missed a lot yesterday, huh?” I say, and he barely nods, the lines of his face so stark and grim that I can’t help but reach out, trace the tip of my finger from his hairline down his forehead, over the strong slope of his nose and the soft rise of his lips. This face, I think, marveling at it all over again.

He nods again, his jaw clenching.

“It was a bad idea to be unreachable, I guess,” he says.

I set the palm of my hand to his chest, stroking gently, feeling sorry. It’s hard to see this tension up close. In his T-shirt, the patches on Reid’s skin—the one I first saw last week, and another spot on his opposite elbow—are visible, and while it’s a nice gesture to our new closeness, that he’s not compelled to hide them from me, it’s also a stark reminder of what he told me in that bar last night, that his skin flares this way when he’s stressed, and that his job is the primary reason.

“Your job is—” I say, pausing to clear my throat, to blink down at where my hand rests over the steady beat of his heart. “Your job is why you’re leaving New York?”

I see, in my periphery, the way his hand clenches around his phone.

“Yes,” he says, plainly. Grimly. After a long pause, he adds, “I’ve agreed to see something through there. But then—”

“Then you’ll leave.”

It’s not a question, and he doesn’t answer. There’s not really anything to say, not really anything to do but sit quietly for a moment, feeling the beat of his heart against my hand and forcing myself to imagine loosening those sneaky, surprising loops around my own.

“I can go,” I say, after a few quiet seconds where Reid’s phone pings twice more. “If you have to catch up on work.”