Four days passed.
Julian didn't count them at first. The first day slipped by easily enough. Work, errands, the quiet rhythm of a normal life reasserting itself after the chaos of the previous week.
By the second day, he noticed the silence.
Lucian had not called.
Had not appeared, not sent a message that assumed Julian would be home.
Nothing.
Julian told himself that was a good thing.
It meant the situation had resolved itself. Whatever strange orbit Lucian had briefly pulled him into had corrected course. People had strange nights. People made questionable decisions. People moved on.
That was the version Julian repeated to himself.
The third day made it harder to believe.
Not because anything dramatic happened. The opposite, actually. Everything was too ordinary.
