The light poured thick through the east-facing windows, pooling in corners and resting on surfaces in a soothing hand. It poured softly over the beige couch arm, shrouding the woman stretched across it in golden light. Hannah read, folded-up legs in an easy curve, ankles crossed in a loose X, black tights thick and unbroken, sipping and emitting the morning sun like velvet. Her feet landed on them in a shaft of light as her feet moved slightly—twitching, one knee bobbing gently as she read.
Sam had entered the room ten minutes before with a book in his hand—one that he would not remember the title of later. He'd planned to read it, maybe even lose himself in it. But his eyes had dropped elsewhere.
On her.
Especially her legs.
Especially her feet.
They moved on mid-air, the interior of soles slanting inwards, the slightest tilt in one foot that would tip over occasionally with some imponderable shift in her mind or temper. The fabric of her tights was perfect, concealing all, revealing something else. Her calmness. Her composure. Her trust. The infinitesimal twitch of her toes as she absorbed a new sentence. The even, measured cadence of her breathing.
Sam remained quietly there, book open but not turned, his eyes absorbing every minute, involuntary movement. He was twenty-four, younger than Hannah by over a decade, and yet somehow felt the less experienced one, the one still taking an educated stab at the rules. There was something in her presence—still, attentive, closed up—that made him feel like an intruder in her space, even now, even in this sunny room that neither of them owned but both held like troops in a demilitarized zone.
He did not mean to touch her.
But he did.
Only a graze, at first—his fingers following the curve of her calf, where the light of the sun warmed the tights and the flesh. She didn't shift. Not a twitch, not a pause in reading. He froze, watching her breathing, for the slightest irregularity in rhythm. Nothing.
So he did it again.
Slower this time. More certain. The silky resistance of the fabric on his fingertips, the soft give of her muscles beneath. Her toe dangled loosely, as if lifting from one fantasy to another.
Did she know?
He could not say. That was the maddening part.
He debated shouting out her name. Debated meeting her eyes with his, seeking recognition, for some spark that she had felt it. But fear reasserted itself. Not the fear of combat—fear of disappointment. Of being dismissed. Of the magic breaking.
Because Hannah was something different.
Older. Calmer. More intentional about everything she did. She did not wander; each page turn had its rhythm, each breath its beat. She was not carefree. She was not even aware, he thought, of the place she occupied in his head. Or maybe she was, and worse. Maybe she had been all along.
Her foot shifted once more, the light catching a crease not there a second ago, then vanishing as the tights smoothed out again. His fingers trembled, still poised just a breath apart.
He touched her ankle again.
And again, nothing.
Or was it?
Her fingers went stiff at the edge of the page. Just for an instant. Barely at all. Then she turned it, and went on reading.
Sam sat back, pounding heart quiet, book all but abandoned in his lap. He watched her legs lift just a little higher up off the ground, the soles of her feet angling in toward each other like closing parentheses over a secret he wasn't sure he was supposed to see.