The evening had dissolved into something neither of them had planned.
That was how it always went with Rebecca — the hours had a specific quality around her, the particular ease of someone who moved through time without tracking it, who talked and listened and refilled glasses and told stories with the unhurried warmth of a woman who had decided the present moment was sufficient. Liam had noticed it when they were together and he was noticing it now — the way an hour became two without either of them marking the transition.
He was sitting on the edge of the bed. She was beside him. The room had settled into the specific, lamp-lit quiet of a late evening, the kind that made the outside world feel distant and slightly irrelevant.
He picked up his phone.
Nine PM.
"Becca." He looked at her. "It's nine. It's late."
