The click of the apartment door echoed louder than usual.
Hriva stepped inside first, letting the soft light from the hallway spill in before flipping on the lamp near the entryway. A warm golden glow filled the space, brushing gently against the edges of the sofa, the framed prints on the walls, and the throw blanket still draped where she'd left it earlier that morning.
Jake followed behind her, closing the door with care.
Neither of them said anything.
Hriva walked straight toward the kitchen, slowly kicking off her shoes as she went. Her movements were quiet but distant. As if she were gliding through someone else's space, not her own. Jake stood near the door a moment longer, watching her disappear behind the counter.
He shrugged off his jacket and hung it by the hook. Then he took a step forward.
"Hriva."
Her back was to him. She reached into the cupboard, pulled down two glasses, and opened the fridge.
Jake waited.
"Water?" she asked, without turning.
"Sure," he replied, even though he didn't care for it right now.
She filled both glasses and slid one across the counter toward him. He caught it before it tipped.
"Talk to me," he said gently.
She took a sip of her water instead. Her eyes didn't meet his.
Jake placed his glass down without drinking. The quiet stretched too far between them.
"I'm not trying to start anything," he said. "I just... I noticed something tonight. Something shifted."
Hriva placed her glass on the sink edge with a little too much force. Not slamming. But enough to make it sing against the metal.
"Maybe you're overthinking it."
Jake exhaled slowly. "Am I?"
She still wouldn't look at him. She crossed her arms and leaned back against the counter, eyes fixed on the kitchen tile.
Jake stepped closer, but not too close.
"You shut down the second we got in the truck."
"I told you I was tired."
"I've seen you tired," he said, quieter now. "That wasn't tired. That was something else."
Hriva's jaw tightened.
Jake watched her closely. "You don't have to pretend with me. If something bothered you... say it."
She looked up sharply then.
"What do you want me to say?" Her voice didn't rise, but it came faster. "That I didn't enjoy watching my best friend bat her lashes at you all night? That I didn't like the way you smiled back?"
Jake blinked, caught off guard. "What?"
"You heard me."
His brow furrowed. "Mira? You're upset about Mira?"
"No," Hriva snapped, stepping away from the counter. "I'm upset because I felt like I was the only one who noticed."
Jake's voice dropped. "There was nothing to notice."
"She touched your arm."
"She touches everyone's arm."
"She doesn't touch mine like that."
Jake gave a short laugh, one that lacked any humor. "So now we're counting gestures?"
"No," she said, turning fully toward him. "We're counting presence. Energy. Vibe. Whatever you want to call it. She was playing with a line and you didn't even blink."
Jake rubbed a hand through his hair. "Because I didn't see it that way."
"Well, I did."
They stared at each other for a long moment. The hum of the refrigerator was the only sound between them.
Jake's voice lowered again, calmer now but no less firm.
"So why didn't you just tell me that in the car? Instead of giving me the cold shoulder and pretending it was nothing."
"Because I didn't want to seem... ridiculous," she admitted, and suddenly her voice cracked slightly. "Or insecure. Or dramatic."
Jake stepped closer. "I wouldn't think any of that."
"You say that now."
"I mean it."
She looked away again, her fingers folding over each other.
"I just didn't like it," she said quietly. "It wasn't even what she did. It was that I felt invisible. Like I was sitting right there and still somehow not... there. Like I could vanish and no one would've noticed."
Jake's expression softened. He took a breath, reaching out to touch her arm. She let him.
"You were the only person I was looking at," he said. "Even when I laughed, even when I smiled... it all came back to you."
She blinked, her throat tightening.
"It didn't feel like it," she whispered.
Jake pulled her into him slowly. His arms wrapped around her with care, like he was afraid she might break if he moved too fast. Her hands rested against his chest, but they didn't pull him closer yet.
"I can't control how other people behave," he murmured into her hair. "But I can promise you... you're the one I'm choosing. Always."
There was a silence. Then a breath. Then two.
She finally melted a little against him.
"I'm sorry," she mumbled.
"You don't have to be," he said. "You just have to let me in."
She nodded against his chest, and he pressed a kiss to the crown of her head.
The moment was tender, but not fully mended. Something had cracked, not broken, not ruined, but opened. The first sliver of tension. The beginning of something more real than all the sweet moments before it.
They stood there in the kitchen for a while longer, wrapped in silence that was no longer sharp, but still unresolved.
And outside the window, the night carried on, cool and quiet, unaware that something inside them had changed just slightly.
Enough to echo into whatever came next.