Lucas wakes up slowly.

He knows he hasn’t been asleep for that long - an hour at best - because his post-work naps, if he takes them, are never that intense. Plus, Planet Earth is still playing and he’s still got Sarah under his arm. Her feet are back curled beneath herself and she’s deep in his side and breathing even now; he can just see her face, sees that her eyes are closed, and realizes she’s asleep too.

His thumb moves against her dress, stroking lightly. She sighs, shifts a little, but doesn’t wake.

Damn it. He just had to go get Sarah as a roommate. He couldn’t have found some grease ball on Craigslist. Just had to listen to John, had to find this funny, smart, beautiful woman. And now he’s in too deep - now he’s laughing with her, cuddling with her, now he never wants to go out again so that he has a reason to sit here on this couch and hold her against him.

Because he’s a big sap and she’s here, so pretty and comfy and small against him, Lucas’s got his other arm, stitches and bruises and all, involved in this mess. He’s lifting it and bringing it over and his fingers are sliding her hair away from where it’s caught against her neck, all so he doesn’t have to move his other hand from where it rests on her waist. It gives Lucas a beautiful line of sight across her neck, over her collarbones, to where her pale skin swells and then disappears under the dress, and then beyond. He gently wraps his hand around her slim bicep, thumb on the outside.

Her skin is cold to the touch and he suspects that either the A/C has kicked in or the heat from the oven has faded, so he leans his head against the back of the couch, closes his eyes, and rubs her arm slowly, nearly absentmindedly, only faintly aware of the soft press of her right breast against the back of his knuckles.

When Sarah stirs some unknown amount of time later, he stills his hand.

“Sorry,” Lucas apologizes, whispering as quietly as he can, like if he barely says it and she barely hears it, it means it barely happened.

But she does. “It’s okay,” she breathes, reaching one of her hands up to settle over his. “You don’t have to apologize. It feels nice.”

“Oh,” Lucas says back, feeling dumb.

Sarah gently unwinds herself from his hands. She looks a little pink when she sits up, he notices. “I better go check on my dough,” she says in what almost seems like a regretful tone. “How’s your ankle?”

“Hurts,” he admits. “I should probably take another painkiller.” He lifts his foot off the table and wince when it finds the floor.

“I can get them,” Sarah offers, but he declines.

“I have to pee too, but thanks anyway, Sarah.” Lucas makes an exaggerated show of groaning as he stands, but his bones do hurt a little; god, he really needs to find a better line of work than one that’s going to crush his body by the time he’s forty.

Sarah is still peering at him with concern. “You sure you’re okay, Lucas?” she asks, her fingertips delicately touching his injured bicep.

“Right as rain, Sarah.” He opens his arms for a hug, hoping it’s not too forward, like he didn’t just spend the last hour and some with her in his arms already. “Thanks for taking care of me.”

Sarah steps in and lets Lucas fold his arms around her. “I didn’t do anything,” she says, voice muffled against his chest.

She feels really good against him. Clearly, he’s given up his vow from earlier to not touch her as much. He’ll start again after his leg is better, he figures. Right now, he just wants a hug, and she fits so well and smells so good and she’s so soft, and it’s honestly impossible not to want to run his palms across her bare upper back when she’s wearing this dress. Which he does, only half-ashamedly, but she makes a happy-sounding noise into his shirt and hugs him back just as tightly.

“Well, there’s always that sponge bath, Sarah,” he says, cutting the tension with a joke when he finally manages to pull back from her.

Sarah’s eyes dance as she laughs. “Play your cards right with your take-out choice and we’ll see,” she teases, then disappears into the kitchen.

He’s a goner.