MAILAH LOOKED UP AT GRAYSON from the pillows and did not move.
He stood over her for a moment that stretched longer than it should have, his eyes moving across her face with that particular unhurried attention he reserved for things he was deciding about.
Then he reached up and removed his jacket. Folded it. Set it somewhere. The methodical precision of the gesture was so purely, specifically him that something in Mailah's chest turned over.
He sat at the edge of the bed.
Not hovering. Not looming. Just sitting, one knee bent, his weight settled with the patience of something that had existed for God knows how long and understood that moments did not need to be rushed to be taken seriously.
His hand found her ankle first. A light grip, thumb pressing into the arch of her foot with a pressure that was neither clinical nor gentle but somewhere between — the touch of someone who had decided to be thorough about this.
