She was still asleep when he found her earring on the nightstand — a small gold hoop, no larger than the tip of his thumb.
He turned it over once and set it back down. As if returning it made no claim on anything.
From the kitchen he listened to the sounds of her waking: the soft collapse of the mattress, bare feet on wood, the pause at the bathroom door. He'd learned her rhythms in one night, which felt like too much to know and not nearly enough.
She came out in his t-shirt. She hadn't asked. He hadn't offered. It had just become hers in the dark, and now it was morning and she was wearing it.
"There's bread," he said. "If you want."
"I should probably —" She stopped. Let the sentence hang.
He didn't finish it for her.
She sat at the counter instead, and he cut the bread because it was something to do with his hands. Outside, the city was already loud with itself, indifferent, which helped.
She ate standing. He stood too, on the other side, and they talked about nothing — the building, the street, a thing she half-remembered from the night before that made her laugh low and private, a sound he wanted to catalog.
When she went back for the earring, he watched her put it in. One side, then the other. Her chin tilted up, the small deliberate motion of the clasp.
She picked up her jacket.
"Thank you for breakfast," she said. It was toast. He didn't correct her.
The door closed softly. He stayed where he was for a moment, then looked at the nightstand.
The other earring was still there. He hadn't known. He should have checked.