The afternoon had gone quiet in the way that only happened after a morning like theirs.
Sophie was on the couch with her laptop, legs tucked under her, the cream top replaced by one of Ryan’s hoodies that she’d found and put on without asking, which he’d noticed and said nothing about.
Her hair was still slightly disheveled in a way that no amount of finger-combing had fully resolved.
She was working though. Genuinely working — he could tell the difference between Sophie performing productivity and Sophie actually in it. The latter involved a specific kind of silence, the occasional quiet exhale, the way her fingers moved on the trackpad with small decisive clicks.
Ryan was at the kitchen table with his own laptop, going through emails, checking in on so of the administrative things Sophie had set in motion. The afternoon light had gone long and golden through the window. Outside the city moved at its usual pace, indifferent as always.
It was a strange kind of dostic, he thought. Strange but not uncomfortable.
Sophie closed the laptop with a soft click and looked up.
"Done for the day," she said.
Ryan glanced over. "Mm. You did well today."
The corner of her mouth moved. "In what aspect."
"All aspects."
She smiled at that — the private one, instead of the devious one — and pulled the hoodie sleeves down over her hands. Ryan shifted back to his screen.
"How’s the team looking?" he asked, without looking up. "Presentation’s in a few days."
Sophie pulled her knees up to her chest. "Good, actually. Really good." She seed mildly surprised by her own assessnt. "Everyone’s locked in. Like properly locked in — nobody’s coasting, nobody’s waiting for soone else to carry it." She paused. "I think it helps that they’re all smart enough to know what they’re coming back to if this doesn’t work."
"Nothing like the mory of a terrible job to focus the mind."
"Exactly. Nobody’s making compromises." She shifted slightly, wincing in a way she tried to make subtle and didn’t entirely succeed at. "Danny’s been going insane on the technical architecture — he sent eleven voice notes yesterday before lunch, Iralis responded to all of them with actual written analysis, and Mike told them both to seek help."
Ryan smiled at the laptop screen.
"Liam’s been quietly doing the most work of anyone," Sophie continued. "He doesn’t say much in the group chat but every ti he does contribute sothing it’s the thing everyone needed soone to say. He’s going to be important."
"And Iralis?"
"Terrifying in the best way. She found three problems with Danny’s initial frawork that he hadn’t seen, explained exactly why they were problems, and had suggested solutions before he’d finished reading the first ssage." Sophie shook her head. "She’s going to be the reason this company doesn’t embarrass itself technically."
Ryan closed the laptop. Leaned back. "Good."
"You seem pleased."
"I am."
Sophie smiled, then looked down at her own hands, the hoodie sleeves pooled around her wrists. The comfortable quiet settled back for a mont, the city outside doing its thing.
Then she said, without looking up: "Do you really like her."
Ryan didn’t pretend not to know who she ant.
"I do," he said.
Sophie nodded once, slowly. Still looking at her hands. "If you two end up together—" she started, then found the specific words she wanted, "—how does this work. What happens to us."
The question sat in the room.
Ryan was quiet for a mont. He got up from the table, went to the kitchen, and opened the cupboard above the fridge where he kept the whiskey — a decent bottle he’d bought when the bank balance started looking less terrifying.
He poured a glass, unhurried, letting the silence have its space.
He thought about Emma. Three years of a relationship that had a shape and a label and a set of expectations and had turned out to an nothing to the other person involved. How he’d structured his entire sense of stability around sothing that was quietly being dismantled the whole ti.
He didn’t want to do that again.
Beside the system was clear – monogamy didn’t align with it’s purpose.
He picked up the glass and walked back toward the couch.
Sophie was still sitting the sa way — knees up, hoodie sleeves down, watching him cross the room with an expression that was trying to be neutral and wasn’t quite getting there.
He stopped in front of her. Standing while she sat, close enough that she had to look up at him.
He looked down at her for a mont, just that, and then his hand moved to her face — palm against her cheek, thumb tracing the line of her jaw.
Her eyes closed imdiately. Like a reflex she couldn’t help. Her hands, resting on her knees, curled slowly inward. Her bottom lip caught briefly between her teeth.
Ryan watched that happen.
He moved his thumb to her lip. She opened her mouth slightly and let it in, the way she always did, and he felt her exhale against his hand.
"After the last relationship I was in," he said, his voice quiet and even, "I’m not playing this ga the normal way anymore." He paused. "That’s not what I want."
He looked down at her face — eyes still closed, the hoodie too big on her shoulders, her hands clenched now on her knees.
"I want you, Sophie." He said it simply, without decoration. "Your mind. Your soul. And your body." A beat. "And whatever I have with anyone else — it doesn’t change that. It doesn’t touch that."
Her hands tightened slightly.
"I’ll make your dreams happen," he said. "Not just what you’ve talked yourself into settling for. I’ll give you everything you want."
He could feel her breathing had changed. Could see it in the small movent of her shoulders under the hoodie, the way her jaw had softened under his palm.
"What do you want, Sophie?"
The question stayed in the air for a mont.
Her brow drew together slightly — like soone reaching for sothing true rather than sothing easy. The silence lasted long enough to be real.
Then she said, quietly: "I want to be yours." She opened her eyes and looked up at him. "I want to be your favorite."
Ryan looked at her for a mont.
The smile ca slowly.
"Good girl," he said.
Sophie’s eyes held his, sothing in them settled and warm and entirely without the façade she wore for the rest of the world.
Ryan’s thumb moved gently against her cheek.
She leaned into his hand.
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