He did not fill the silence. He waited for her to find it.

"Last night," she said. "Thank you. For…" She made a small movement with her hand that was meant to encompass the drive, the music, the particular and specific mercy of the dark, of not being asked to explain herself, of being taken home in the fullest sense of the word without anyone demanding she account for what home meant. "For not making it into something."

Julian was quiet for a moment.

"It was already something," he said. Simply. Without ceremony.

She looked at him.

He held her gaze, and there was nothing managed in it, nothing professional...