Elliot did not sleep.

He lay beside Roman on top of the covers, staring at the ceiling. Roman's breathing had settled an hour ago, but Elliot's mind remained in the study.

The photographs. The jacket. The unfinished letter.

Roman had protected him from the falling light, kept pieces of his life for eight years and written a confession he never sent.

Elliot slipped out of bed and returned to the study.

The cardboard box remained open beside the desk. He knelt and spread its contents across the floor.

The program from their university production of The Seagull came first. Elliot's name had been circled in blue ink.

Inside, Roman had underlined Elliot's scenes and written notes in the margins.

His monologue is on page twelve. He'll pretend he isn't nervous.

Elliot ran his thumb over the faded handwriting.

Next came the script he had lost during junior year. His own frantic notes covered the pages, but Roman's smaller handwriting appeared near several difficult scenes.

Give him time. He'll find the moment if everyone stops rushing him.

Elliot closed the script.

He had spent years believing Roman watched him to find weaknesses. It had never occurred to him that Roman might have been trying to understand him.

Beneath the script lay a poster from Elliot's student film. The screening had taken place in a half-empty theater, and Elliot remembered sitting alone in the back row after the credits.

The poster was worn along its folds. Roman had kept it anyway.

There were ticket stubs from small plays Elliot barely remembered and a newspaper review of Low Winter. Roman had marked one sentence praising Elliot's performance.

The old jacket rested at the bottom.

Elliot remembered waking in the university library with it over his shoulders. He had carried it around for a week, hoping its owner might ask for it back.

Roman never did.

A photograph slipped from one of the pockets.

It showed room 314 during their final year. Elliot sat cross-legged on the floor, laughing at someone outside the frame.

Roman stood behind him.

He was not looking at the camera.

"You're going to wear a hole in the floor."

Elliot turned.

Roman stood in the doorway with his injured arm secured in the sling. His face looked pale in the dim light.

"You should be asleep."

"So should you."

Roman crossed the room and lowered himself carefully beside the box.

"You went through everything."

"Yes."

"I told you to throw it away."

"You didn't mean that."

Roman looked at the photograph in Elliot's hand and said nothing.

"You were looking at me."

"I usually was."

The quiet admission hurt more than a dramatic confession would have.

Elliot placed the photograph on the floor. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I tried."

"You waited until graduation."

"I kept thinking there would be a better time."

"There wasn't."

"No."

Roman did not defend himself. That left Elliot with nowhere to put the anger.

He picked up the old script. "You rejected that audition."

Roman nodded.

"You wanted the role."

"Not enough to take it from you."

"You wouldn't have been taking anything. If they preferred you—"

"They didn't know you yet."

Elliot looked at him.

"I asked them to let you read," Roman said. "That was all."

The memory shifted beneath Elliot's feet. For eight years, he had treated that audition as proof that Roman could enter any room and leave with whatever Elliot wanted.

Roman had been the reason Elliot entered the room at all.

"What about those women who kept asking me for your number?"

A tired smile crossed Roman's face. "Most of them approached me because they wanted to know whether you were single."

"That isn't true."

"It happened often enough that I stopped finding it funny."

"You gave them advice?"

"I thought you liked them."

Elliot stared at him. "You were helping people ask me out while you were—"

"Yes."

"That's incredibly stupid."

"I was twenty."

"You're still stupid."

Roman's smile faded, but some warmth remained in his eyes.

Elliot looked down at the box. "You weren't planning to become an actor."

"No."

"Then why did you?"

Roman rested his good arm across one raised knee. "You disappeared after graduation. Your number changed. Nobody would tell me where you had gone."

"That doesn't explain becoming famous."

"I thought if my face appeared in enough places, you might see it."

Elliot waited for the punch line.

Roman looked exhausted rather than amused.

"You changed your entire life because I blocked your number?"

"I made my own choices."

"That is not a denial."

"No."

Elliot's throat tightened.

He had seen Roman everywhere: magazine covers, billboards, award ceremonies and trailers playing before Elliot's own failed auditions. Each appearance had felt like another reminder that Roman had won.

Roman had only been trying to make himself impossible to miss.

"I hated you," Elliot said.

"I know."

"I thought you took everything from me."

Roman's attention settled on the photograph between them. "You didn't know."

"I never asked."

"You wouldn't have believed me."

Elliot could not argue with that.

Roman reached for the box, but Elliot caught his hand.

"What are you doing?"

"Putting it away."

"No."

Roman stopped.

"I'm keeping it," Elliot said.

Roman's fingers shifted inside his. "The box?"

"All of it."

For a moment, Roman forgot to hide what the answer did to him.

Elliot released his hand and began returning the photographs to the box. Roman helped with his uninjured arm.

They went back to the bedroom when the city outside had fallen silent.

Elliot adjusted Roman's pillows and checked the edge of his bandage.

"You've looked at that three times," Roman said.

"You have twenty-two stitches."

"They haven't multiplied."

"Go to sleep."

Roman moved toward the far side of the bed, leaving space beside him.

Elliot hesitated before lying down.

This time, he went beneath the covers.

They remained several inches apart, staring into the darkness.

"You're staying?" Roman asked.

"I'm already in the bed."

"That wasn't what I meant."

Elliot understood. He was not ready to give Roman the answer he wanted, but leaving no longer felt possible.

"I'm here tonight."

Roman accepted that.

Elliot woke sometime before dawn with his head near Roman's shoulder.

Roman slept beside him, his face softened by exhaustion. Elliot moved closer and rested his head carefully against him.

Roman's good arm circled Elliot's waist without waking.

Elliot froze.

Then Roman's fingers loosened against his back.

"Don't leave again," he whispered.

Elliot lifted his head, but Roman's eyes remained closed.

"Roman?"

There was no response.

Elliot settled against him once more. For the first time in weeks, he slept without dreaming about cameras, contracts or falling lights.

Morning arrived through gray curtains.

Roman was awake when Elliot opened his eyes. His arm remained around Elliot's waist, though his hold had relaxed.

"You stayed."

"I said I would."

Elliot studied his face. "You talked in your sleep."

Roman's hand went still.

"You asked me not to leave again."

A flicker of embarrassment crossed Roman's face. He started to withdraw his arm, but Elliot caught his wrist.

"I'm not leaving today."

Roman watched him.

"Tomorrow might be complicated," Elliot continued. "The studio, the footage, the rest of the shoot—I don't know what happens with any of it."

"You don't have to decide now."

"I know."

That was the difference. Roman was not asking Elliot to reward him for the sacrifice or return eight years of feelings overnight.

He was simply waiting.

Elliot leaned forward and kissed him.

The contact remained soft and brief. No cameras recorded it. Nobody waited to call cut.

Roman did not chase him when he pulled back.

"That wasn't practice," Elliot said.

"No."

"It wasn't for the show."

Roman's eyes moved over his face. "I know."

Elliot rested his forehead against Roman's.

"I don't know how to do this."

A small smile touched Roman's mouth. "Neither do I."

"You expect me to believe you've never had a serious relationship?"

"I've dated."

"That wasn't my question."

Roman glanced toward the window.

The silence gave Elliot his answer.

"All this time?" he asked.

Roman's thumb moved once across Elliot's wrist. "There wasn't anyone I wanted enough."

Elliot kissed him again before Roman could turn the confession into another unfinished sentence.

They stayed in the apartment that day.

Roman called Dana and requested another day to recover. Elliot sent Mara a message claiming he had caught a fever. She replied with a single skeptical question mark.

They ate takeout on the couch and watched a terrible action movie neither of them followed.

Roman's arm rested around Elliot's shoulders. Elliot leaned against his chest, listening to the steady beat beneath his shirt.

There were still cameras waiting outside, a studio determined to separate them and eight years of mistakes neither of them could repair in one morning.

For once, Elliot let those problems wait.

When Roman's fingers found his, Elliot held on.