The apartment had developed a particular smell by mid-March—coffee, stress sweat, and the faint staleness of air that hadn't circulated properly in days because opening windows meant losing precious heat and neither of them had the energy to deal with being cold.
Luca noticed it when he came home at eleven PM on a Tuesday, his third late night this week, his project team having basically moved into the library for what they were calling "the final push."
The living room looked like a paper bomb had detonated—Noel's capstone research spread across every flat surface, sticky notes color-coding something Luca was too tired to decipher, three empty coffee mugs creating a sad tableau on the coffee table.
Noel himself was at the desk—the chair they'd finally replaced after the wheel incident—hunched over his laptop, shoulders so tense they looked painful.
"Hey," Luca said quietly, not wanting to startle him.
Noel's response was a grunt that might have been acknowledgment.
