The door swings shut behind me, click-soft, and the staircase’s sigh fades into the close’s damp echo, and the street air hits clean and cruel, an early morning cold that bites the lungs awake, and somehow the herringbone coat’s suddenly too thin against the wind that’s been waiting all night, and I pause to watch the Square, soft-lit no more, side-eyed still breathing its leafy dark, trees muttering low, pavements slick with frost that remembers every footfall, and there, leaning on the wall next to the door, shadow-slender, coat collar up, breath white in the air like small prayers, a woman, and she turns her head slow, and her eyes catch the diffuse light, the kind of light that bleeds from a sky not yet decided on day, grey-gold haze that blurs edges, turns faces into suggestions.

     “Where’ve you been?” she says with that smoke-soft curling voice, and her accent’s familiar but fogged, like a song heard through a closed door. “What took you so long?” The words land like a hand reaching out in the dark, and I squint, drunk still, drunk deep, the whiskey-hum and wine-noise swirling in the skull, and I can’t make her out clear, because her features dissolve in the haze: her hair dark and loose, or maybe tied back, her lips curved in that half-smile or maybe not, her eyes sharp or soft, who can say with the light playing tricks, and the drink playing worse. Róisín. Has to be. The laugh-shade from before, the smoke-trail warmth, the position in the room that belonged without trying, it fits, it pulls, it insists, but unclear, totally unclear, could be anyone, no one, a ghost the city coughed up for one last mercy.

     She grabs my arm then, sudden, sure, her fingers lock around the elbow through the herringbone, and I notice how firm her grip is, but not cruel, the kind that says come-with-me and means it holy. Pulls me forward. Into the early morning. The light diffuses further, the sun’s not risen but hinting, the buildings still squared and stern but now softened at the edges, streetlamps blink-blink fading their tired gold. I stumble once, legs still staircase-sore, but her pull steadies, and my arm’s locked in hers like a vow whispered in the small hours. Salvation, feels like salvation, heavenly intervention, almost holy, the way the cold recedes where her hand touches, the way the night’s weight lifts slow, like a saint’s hand on a sinner’s shoulder saying enough-now, enough-hesitation.

     We move, along the streets, no destination named, no map needed, the city threads us through itself, thorugh narrow and slick alleyveins, past pubdoor lungs still shut tight but exhaling last night’s malt ghost. Her pace is steady, and mine catches up, arm in arm now, locked close, two bodies brushing accidental-on-purpose, and there’s this undercurrent humming low: the heat of her palm through wool, the sway of hips syncing without words, the breath that comes white together, mingling in the air like secrets shared skin-close. So tender, the way she doesn’t look back but knows I’m there, the way the pull softens to a guide, fingers loosening but not letting go, thumb tracing small absent circles on my sleeve, and underneath, the want curls slow, erotic holy: the light catching the curve of her neck, the imagined press of body under coat, the salvation turning flesh-warm, pulse-quick, a drag that promises more than streets, more than morning.

     She doesn’t let go. I don’t ask who. And I go, arm locked, believing, still becoming, and now the night snaps shut behind us, and the streets open ahead, and whatever choice I almost made slips quietly into the light, forgotten, forgiven, finally.