The soft grey light of early morning filters through the threadbare curtains, casting gentle lines across the bed. It's the kind of hour that doesn't quite belong to night or day—quiet, still, selfish in its softness. Elias has been awake for a while now. Not because of the sun or the alarm clock that should've gone off fifteen minutes ago, but because of her.

Because she is tangled into him like ivy—bare skin pressed to his chest, breath warm against the hollow of his throat, one leg looped lazily over his. Her arm is slung across his ribs with a kind of possessiveness that makes something cave in his chest. It's not even that she's holding him tight—it's the way she does it so unconsciously, like she's sure he's not going anywhere.

Which is funny. Because he's supposed to.

He blinks up at the ceiling, chest rising and falling slow, careful. He should be out of bed. He should be in the cold hallway pulling on that old jacket with the cigarette burn near the hem, should be braving another long walk to another shitty job that doesn't care whether he shows up tired or broken or in love.

But the weight of her leg draped over his hip is an anchor. The quiet way her fingers curl slightly every time she exhales—like her body's afraid he might vanish if she stops clutching him—is chains. She shifts slightly in her sleep, and her nose brushes against his neck, lips parted with a breath that hits his pulse point just hard enough to make him swallow.

Fuck. He's doomed.

Elias lets his head tilt toward hers, just slightly. Just enough to memorize the exact shape of her lashes against her cheek, the way her brows relax when she's in deep sleep. He's always catching himself watching her like this—studying her in the moments she's most unguarded, most soft, when she doesn't know how much he wants to stay, how much it wrecks him every time he leaves and she doesn't stir.

He doesn't move. Not even a twitch. His arm is under her shoulders, already half-numb, but he doesn't dare shift. The scent of her hair is in his lungs, and her warmth is bleeding into every part of him that ever felt cold. And Elias—stupid, smitten, helpless Elias—would rather be late, get fired, fall apart completely, than risk waking her.

He exhales slow, like he's trying not to wake a ghost.

"Five more minutes," he whispers to himself.

He'll say that again in five minutes. And again after that. And again... until it's closer to noon than morning and the world starts demanding him back.

But right now? Right now he belongs to this bed, to the pale light, to the fragile pressure of her hand fisted in the hem of his shirt. Right now, he belongs to her.

And he's not ready to let go.