Safe With Him

“You forgot your mail again.”

The voice came low and rough from the darkness of the hallway, startling Lena so badly she nearly dropped her keys. She turned, heart hammering, to see the outline of a man standing just outside the glow of her apartment’s flickering porch light. Roman. Her neighbor from across the hall.

He held out a small stack of envelopes between two fingers, his knuckles scraped raw.

She hadn’t even heard him approach. “Thanks,” she managed, taking the letters without touching his skin. The paper was warm from his hand.

Lena hesitated before sliding the chain lock into place behind her, fingers lingering on the cold metal. Through the narrow gap, she watched Roman’s retreating back, the deliberate way his shoulders moved, like he was consciously restraining his own strength even in something as simple as walking away. His shadow stretched long and distorted down the hallway before disappearing into his own apartment without a sound.

She exhaled, pressing her forehead against the door. The envelopes in her hand smelled faintly of cigarettes and something metallic. Blood, maybe. She tossed them onto the kitchen counter without looking, where they landed next to yesterday’s unopened pile. The sink dripped in the silence. Three-fifteen AM glared from her microwave.

Sleep was impossible now. She filled the kettle too full, water sloshing over the edges as she set it on the stove. The blue flame hissed to life. Outside, rain blurred the city lights into smudges of color against her window. She traced the condensation with a fingertip, following a droplet’s path down the glass until it vanished into the sill.

A soft thud came from the hallway. Not footsteps, something heavier, like a body sliding down a wall. Lena froze, hand suspended midair. Silence. Then a quiet, controlled exhale that carried through the thin walls. She turned off the stove and approached the door, pressing her palm flat against the wood.

Her fingers curled against the door’s peeling paint. The exhale came again, sharper this time, clipped at the end. Lena knew that sound. She’d made it herself last winter when she’d sliced her thumb open on a can lid, biting back a whimper in her empty kitchen. Pain, restrained.

The chain lock rattled when she slid it free. The hallway air smelled of wet concrete and the sharp tang of iodine, someone had mopped the linoleum recently and missed a spot. Roman sat slumped against the wall opposite her door, one knee drawn up, his head tipped back. A fresh cut bisected his eyebrow, leaking red down his temple. His fingers pressed a wad of gauze to his ribs, the white fabric already blooming crimson.

He didn’t look at her. “Go inside.”

Water dripped from his hair onto his collar. Lena crouched, keeping the door open with her foot. “You’re bleeding on the carpet.”

Roman’s throat worked as he swallowed. “It’s seen worse.” His voice was gravel, strained at the edges. The gauze slipped slightly, revealing a glint of something metal embedded near his ribs. A bullet, maybe, or shrapnel. Lena’s breath caught. He noticed, of course. His fingers twitched to cover it again, but not before she saw the dark ink curling up from beneath his collar. A tattoo, maybe. Something intricate.

The hallway light flickered. Lena reached for the gauze before she could think better of it. Roman caught her wrist, his grip firm but not painful. His palm was calloused, warm. “Don’t.”

“You’ll stain the hallway,” she said, and her voice didn’t shake. A lie. The pulse in her wrist jumped against his fingers.

Roman exhaled through his nose, a sound almost like amusement. He released her. “Get me a clean towel, then. And whiskey, if you have it.”

Lena hesitated for only a second before turning back into her apartment, leaving the door ajar behind her. The whiskey was in the back of her cupboard, untouched since her ex had left it there months ago. The towel she pulled from the linen closet still smelled faintly of lavender detergent. Roman hadn’t specified whether he wanted the alcohol for drinking or disinfecting, so she grabbed both the bottle and a half-empty box of bandages from under her sink.

When she returned, Roman hadn’t moved except to tilt his head toward her approach. His eyes tracked the whiskey bottle first, then the towel. Lena knelt beside him, the cold linoleum seeping through her pajama pants. Up close, she could see the way his breathing was measured, too measured, like he was counting each inhale to keep it steady. The gauze had darkened to burgundy where it pressed against his side.

He reached for the whiskey first. The cap twisted off with a crack, and he took a long swallow without wincing, throat working. Then he poured a careful stream over the gauze before peeling it away. Lena bit the inside of her cheek at the glimpse of torn flesh beneath, glistening and angry. Roman’s fingers hovered over it, steady despite the blood smeared across his knuckles. “Tweezers,” he said, not looking up.

She fetched them from her bathroom, the metal cold in her palm. Roman took them without comment, his fingers brushing hers just long enough for her to feel the heat of his skin. The hallway light flickered again as he worked the metal fragment free with clinical precision. It dropped onto the towel with a muted clink. Lena exhaled without realizing she’d been holding her breath.

Roman wiped the blood away with the clean edge of the towel, then pressed it firmly to the wound. His other hand reached for the whiskey again, but Lena intercepted it, her fingers wrapping around the bottle’s neck. “That’s enough,” she said.

Roman’s fingers loosened around the whiskey bottle, his gaze lifting to hers. There was something unsettling in the way he looked at her, not threatening, but intensely focused, as if every blink, every breath she took was worth cataloging. “You’re not squeamish,” he observed, his voice low. A statement, not a question.

Lena tightened her grip on the bottle. “You’re not drunk.” She matched his tone, deliberate. The hallway smelled like iodine and rain now, the whiskey’s sharp scent cutting through the metallic tang of blood.

His mouth twitched, just once. Then he leaned his head back against the wall with a quiet thud, exposing the line of his throat. A drop of rain slid from his hair down to his collarbone, disappearing beneath the fabric of his shirt. “Bandages,” he said, and closed his eyes.

Lena hesitated, then set the whiskey aside. She tore open the box of bandages with more force than necessary, the crinkling plastic loud in the quiet hallway. Roman didn’t flinch when she pressed the clean gauze to his side, his ribs rising and falling steadily beneath her fingertips. His skin was warm, almost feverish. She smoothed the edges of the bandage down carefully, avoiding the dark ink peeking out from his shirt. It looked like script, foreign, maybe. Or old.

Lena’s fingertips lingered on the edge of the bandage longer than necessary, tracing the faint ridge of scar tissue beneath it before pulling away. Roman exhaled through his nose, the sound almost imperceptible, but she caught it—caught the way his jaw tightened briefly before relaxing again. The hallway light flickered once more, casting shadows that made his eyelashes look impossibly dark against his cheekbones.

“You should go back to your apartment,” he said without opening his eyes. The words were quiet, but firm. An order, not a suggestion.

She didn’t move. Instead, she studied the bloodstains on his shirt, the way the fabric clung damply to his shoulders. “You’re shivering.”

Roman’s fingers flexed against his thigh, but he didn’t respond. The silence stretched between them, broken only by the distant hum of the building’s ancient heating system and the steady drip of rain against the hallway’s single window. Lena watched a droplet trace its way down the glass, blurring the reflection of their silhouettes, her crouched beside him, his head tipped back against the wall. Strangers, technically. Neighbors in the loosest sense. And yet.

Lena reached for the discarded towel, wringing rainwater from the hem where it had pooled in her lap. The fabric smelled of iodine and Roman, something earthy beneath the blood and whiskey. She hesitated, then pressed it to his temple where the cut still seeped slow and stubborn. His breath hitched, just once, before evening out again.

“Missed a spot,” she murmured. The words came out softer than she intended, almost lost beneath the creak of pipes in the walls. Roman didn’t open his eyes, but his fingers twitched where they rested against his thigh, smearing a faint red streak across the denim.

The hallway light buzzed ominously overhead. Lena watched the pulse in his throat—slow, deliberate, before dragging her gaze away to the bloodied towel in her hands. She should leave. Should stand up, walk back into her apartment, and slide the chain lock home with finality. Instead, she folded the towel into a neat square, pressing the cleanest corner to his knuckles. Roman’s hand turned beneath hers, his fingers uncurling like a question.

Rain tapped against the window at the end of the hall. Lena counted each droplet, waiting for him to pull away. He didn’t. His palm lay open against hers now, calluses rough against her skin. A shiver traced down her spine, unrelated to the draft seeping through the thin walls.

Roman’s fingers curled slightly, just enough to catch the edge of her wrist where her pulse jumped beneath his thumb. Lena didn’t pull away. The silence between them thickened, broken only by the erratic tap of rain against glass. His breathing had evened out, but she could see the tension in the tendons of his neck, the way he held himself perfectly still, as if any movement might betray something.