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They’re in her bed, like usual, wearing only moonlight.
Her head rests on his chest, dark coils twisting over her own shoulders and onto his. His heart thumps its measured beat, a whispered rhythm that’s sending her to sleep. The room, what she can see of it beyond heavy eyelids, is a sterling haze and Alma thinks Mason was made for this light.
None of this is new. They’ve laid just like this before, more times than she’s bothered counting.
But even as she’s drifting off, there’s a novelty to this night she can’t name. Nothing special happened. They haven’t deviated from their usual formula. The sex wasn’t even particularly earth-shattering, but...
Something’s different.
Something is hiding in plain sight and she can’t figure out what it is. It tugs at her, gently, like a hand sliding into hers to guide her toward a place she already knows.
Mason runs a wide, warm palm over her back, pressing her against him a little more firmly. It barely disturbs her sleep-dazed curiosity. Careless, for once, of if it might be too uncomfortable, Alma is content to nuzzle in closer. His fingers rustle into her hair and the touch on her scalp is the final push she needs to drop the musing on tonight’s liminality entirely.
Her exhale is a sigh as slow and easy as Mason’s heartbeat. She’s seconds away from sleep.
“Hey.” Even his whisper rumbles through her.
There’s no way he doesn’t know exactly how tired she is. Alma fights against her drowsiness to answer. “Mm?”
And the mystery she couldn’t solve, so new but so unsettlingly familiar, unwinds itself:
“I love you.”