"Yeah, I get it," Ben assured her quickly, though he hadn't actually picked up on her subtext at all. Staying the night, to him, meant intimacy, and while he was surprised that she was so inclined he was hardly going to argue with her. And they'd both been alone long enough, hadn't they? He hadn't visited her bedroom since the middle of December, which, while only three weeks ago, felt like an entirely different lifetime. If they were going to start over, though, there was no reason to keep suffering silently across the hallway from each other. Ben, at least, had been laying awake at night feeling restless and anxious, and this would be an outlet for all of that frustration if nothing else. She must have been feeling the same thing.

He moved his thumb along the side of her hand, looking up to meet her eyes. After a moment of quiet, he moved in to kiss her slowly and tentatively.