What the cat dragged in

[Marek]

She touched his arm. Just a light squeeze. A thank-you, probably just polite. Brief. But Marek felt it like a hot iron branding his muscles. The skin under his sleeve burned from it, and for a single, wild second, he imagined she could feel his pulse racing through the fabric. The bicep flexed in response, but she was moving past him by then.

Marek blinked. Something inside him rebelled against her leaving so soon. Not anger, exactly, but a sharp, sudden wrongness. Like a tent pole pulled too tight before it snaps. He turned slightly, following her motion with his eyes, his breath catching in his throat. The moment felt unfinished and unbalanced. That was when he noticed her shiver. Only slightly. Just the faintest movement of her shoulders, like wind brushing the tent flaps. But he saw it. He noticed everything about her now. That she hadn’t buttoned her coat. That her fingers were red from the cold. That the bottle, still warm where her hands had been, now lay forgotten in the dirt. That her dress dipped off her shoulder just slightly askew.

Without thinking, Marek shrugged off his own coat. It was heavy, canvas-lined, and worn soft at the collar. It smelled of smoke, metal, and grease. It was a worker’s coat. A man’s coat. He stepped after her, and draped it around her shoulders.

“I saw you were cold,” he muttered, eyes not quite meeting hers. “You shouldn’t be out here in so few clothes. Not... like this. Not after dark”

He stood there, coatless now, watching her from beneath his lashes, hair draped long across his forehead. His jaw was clenched, his breath clouded in front of him. There was a strange stillness inside him. Not peace. Not calm. Something else. Like being on the edge of a frozen lake and hearing it crack.