CHAPTER 7: The Morning After

She woke up and knew exactly where she was. No foggy confusion, no blinking at strange walls. Just the solid weight of Damien’s arm across her waist, the unfamiliar slant of light through his curtains, and that smell—his smell—that she’d stopped pretending she didn’t like days ago.

She stayed still for a while, letting herself just be there.

Outside, London was already awake. Traffic grumbled past, a distant alarm kept beeping, the usual low hum of the city carrying on like nothing had changed. It was strangely comforting.

Damien was still asleep, breathing slow and deep. She turned her head carefully and looked at him. Really looked. He was on his back, one arm around her, the other relaxed at his side. His face was softer in sleep, all that quiet intensity switched off. She let herself stare longer than she probably should have.

Then she studied the ceiling.

Okay, she thought. Not a big revelation. Just… acknowledgement. Something real had happened. And here she was, lying in his bed the next morning, her own flat three metres away across the hall.

She checked in with herself—carefully, the way she would with a client—and realised she felt… fine. Not fake fine. Actually fine.

That was new.

She slipped out of bed quietly, gathered her things, and padded to the kitchen. The coffee was exactly where it always was. She made two cups without overthinking it, then stood at the window watching the street below. People already rushing somewhere, heads down, earbuds in, Tuesday marching on.

She heard him before she saw him—that familiar, unhurried way he moved through the flat. He appeared in the doorway in grey joggers and an old t-shirt, hair messy from sleep. When he saw her standing at his counter with coffee already waiting, something in his face eased. Like a knot coming undone.

He didn’t make it awkward. That was the part she’d been bracing for—the big morning-after talk, the what now conversation. But he just walked over, picked up his mug, and stood beside her at the window.

They watched the street together.

“You made it right,” he said, nodding at the coffee.

“I know how you take it now,” she replied.

“Yeah.” He took a sip. “You do.”

It wasn’t really about the coffee.

The maintenance text came through at half ten.

She was on the sofa pretending to read a client file when her phone buzzed. She read the message twice.

Hi Ms Reyes — works are complete. Apartment is ready whenever you’d like to return. Keys at reception.

She set the phone face-down on the cushion and stared at the same paragraph in her file until the words stopped making sense.

Damien was in the bedroom on a call—she could tell it was Coach Marcus by the focused tone of his voice. The sound had become familiar so quickly. She stayed where she was, phone burning a hole in her pocket, and didn’t move.

He came out at noon, took one look at her, and headed straight to the kitchen without a word. Fifteen minutes later he set a plate of lunch on the coffee table in front of her, then got his own and sat at the other end of the sofa.

They ate in comfortable silence.

Halfway through, he said quietly, eyes on his plate, “Maintenance called you.”

It wasn’t a question.

“How did you know?”

“You’ve been somewhere else since half ten.”

She poked at her food. A bus rumbled past outside.

“The apartment’s ready,” she said.

He nodded slowly. “Okay.”

That was it. No pressure. No so what are you going to do? Just okay, like he really meant it.

She looked at him. He kept eating.

She looked back at her plate.

She didn’t pick up the phone. Didn’t call reception. Didn’t go pack her bag.

Instead she tucked her feet under her on his sofa and went back to her file.

Neither of them said anything more about it.

But they both knew.

That evening, while he was in the shower, she moved her toiletries from the temporary spot on the shelf to the cabinet underneath. She did it quickly, without making it a moment. When he came out, she was already back on the sofa.

He didn’t check the cabinet.

But later, when he sat down beside her—closer than he needed to, his shoulder warm against hers—she was pretty sure he already knew anyway.

He always knew.

She let herself lean into him just a little.

He didn’t turn it into anything. Didn’t push, didn’t ask, didn’t make her say it out loud. That was the thing she kept coming back to—how good he was at giving her space to move at her own pace, without pretending he couldn’t see what she was doing.

She was a therapist. She knew exactly how rare that kind of patience was.

On the TV, something played that neither of them was really watching. Outside, the city kept shifting into evening, grey and steady and completely unbothered.

Inside, a woman who had spent three years carefully building her safe little life had quietly decided to stay somewhere she hadn’t planned to be.

She didn’t say it.

She didn’t need to.

The toiletries in the cabinet said enough for now.

End of Chapter 7