Chapter 340: What Are You Doing Here?

Upstairs, Rechelle led him down the quiet hallway and stopped at a door near her own.

She had chosen it on purpose. Close enough that she could feel he was not far. Close enough that the house would not feel empty the moment she closed her door. After everything that night, distance felt stupid. His presence had become the one solid thing left in a world that had tried to kill her in public.

In her eyes, Lucas was starting to look too capable. Too steady. The kind of man who walked through chaos and still made the next step look simple. She did not say that out loud. She only pushed the door open and showed him the room.

"Good night," Lucas said.

"Good night."

He went inside.

The first thing he did was get rid of what remained of the formal clothes still hanging on him. The jacket was already long gone. The tie followed, pulled loose and tossed aside without care. That left the white shirt and trousers, both marked by the night in ways a shower needed to erase. He stripped down, stepped into the bathroom, and let hot water cut through the leftover tension in his shoulders and arms.

When he came out, he dried off with a towel, dropped it aside, and kept only his boxers. The bed took him easily. He sank into it face-first, body heavy, mind finally allowed to shut down. Within minutes, sleep had him.

---

Across the short stretch of hallway, Rechelle was losing a private war with her own bed.

She tried the normal way first. Lights low. Body still. Eyes closed. Nothing. The room felt wrong. Too warm. Too quiet. Too full of the memory of gunfire and Raymond’s face under police lights. She got up, pushed the air conditioner higher, and climbed back in.

Still nothing.

She flipped the pillow. Changed sides. Kicked the blanket off. Pulled it back on. Stared at the ceiling like it had personally offended her. Sleep sat near her body but refused to enter her eyes, leaving her stuck in that miserable middle state where she was exhausted and wide awake at the same time.

So she started pacing.

One end of the room to the other. Back again. Arms crossed. Then uncrossed. Then on her hips like she was about to scold the walls for not helping. The air conditioner hummed at full power, cold enough to raise bumps on skin, and she still felt restless and heated in the head. Every time she forced herself back into bed, her thoughts dragged her straight back out of it.

Raymond.

The chase.

The fact that her ex had wanted her dead.

The fact that the only reason she was home at all was Lucas.

She tried lying down one more time, dramatically face-first into the pillow, and lasted maybe twenty seconds before she sat up again with the expression of a woman who had been personally betrayed by sleep.

"This is ridiculous," she whispered to the empty room.

Fine.

If her own bed would not cooperate, she would go to the one place that made her body settle.

She stood, pulled her nightgown straight, checked her reflection for no useful reason, and quietly crossed the hallway toward Lucas’s door.

---

Rechelle rested her hand on the handle longer than necessary before turning it.

The door opened with only a soft shift of air. Inside, the room was dim and still. Lucas was already deep in sleep, settled into the bed like the night outside had never happened.

She eased the door shut behind her, careful not to let it click.

For a moment she only stood there.

He was shirtless, down to boxers, one arm loosely angled near the pillow, breathing steady and unbothered. No tension in his face. No leftover panic. Just rest. The kind of sleep that belonged to someone who had already decided the danger was handled for now. Rechelle watched him longer than she meant to, a quiet mix of admiration and envy moving through her chest. She wished, absurdly, that she could borrow even half of that calm.

Eventually she moved closer.

She lowered herself onto the edge of the mattress first, then carefully stretched out beside him, leaving a small gap like that made the whole thing more respectable. She tried not to shift the bed. Tried not to breathe too loud. Tried to pretend this was normal.

It did not work.

Lucas stirred.

His eyes opened, still heavy with sleep, and focused on her with slow confusion.

"...What are you doing here?"

The question was soft, not sharp, but it still hit her like a spotlight.

Rechelle’s face went red so fast it almost felt physical. Her mind emptied. Every prepared excuse vanished on contact with reality. She opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again like the words needed three attempts to form.

"I~em~em~I want~" She stopped, eyes widening. "No. I can’t sleep. No~wait~I’m not feeling sleepy. I mean I am. I just~"

She sat up half an inch, already preparing an escape.

"I’ll take my leave now. Sorry."

The second the apology left her mouth, the full cringe of the situation landed on her. She had walked into a man’s room in a nightgown, climbed into his bed, and gotten caught mid-infiltration. There was no elegant version of that. Her ears felt hot.

"I’m sorry," she said again, already shifting to get up. "I’ll go. This is~this is weird. I know it’s weird."

Lucas watched her for a second.

Then he smiled, still half-asleep and clearly amused.

"I didn’t mean it like that," he said. "If you want to sleep here, it’s fine. I’m not uncomfortable."

Rechelle froze midway through her retreat.

"Are you sure?"

He nodded once against the pillow. "Yeah."

She still looked ready to argue with herself. Pride, embarrassment, and exhaustion all tried to vote at the same time. Exhaustion won.

"...Okay."

She eased back down onto the bed, movements smaller now, like she was afraid of making the moment more awkward by existing too loudly. The mattress dipped under her weight as she settled on her side, facing the space between them more than him.

For a few seconds neither of them spoke.

Then Rechelle, still red in the face and staring at nothing in particular, muttered,

"I really did try the air conditioner first."

Lucas let out a quiet breath of laughter.

"I believe you."