The cup was already hers—he'd left it on her side of the shelf three weeks ago and neither of them had mentioned it. White, chipped at the lip, the kind of object that accrues meaning by not being discussed. She drank from it now because not drinking from it would have been a statement.
Past eleven. The overhead strip had gone amber an hour ago, the building's polite suggestion that they should be gone. The charging shelf hummed behind them, a row of neural cuffs and haptic gloves glowing thin blue. Someone's rice had scorched at dinner and the smell still clung to the cold.
Tomás took the cup without asking. She watched his hands—the broad knuckles, the careful way he tilted the kettle, like a man rationing his own size. He filled it to exactly where she liked, just below the chip. He'd noticed where she liked. That was the thing she couldn't put down.
"Your cuff," he said. "When you've been at it all day, your temple—" He stopped. Folded the dishtowel in half, then in half again.
She touched the damp hair there. "It runs warm."
He looked at her mouth when she spoke. He'd been doing that for a week, since something had shifted in how he carried himself around her—some weight he'd picked up and didn't know how to set down.
She turned toward the window, the fogged industrial glass, the cold pressing off it in a sheet. Behind her she heard him draw breath, the shape of her name forming.
He didn't finish it.
They stood there, very close, steam rising between them, and said nothing—the most exact thing either of them had ever managed.
