The street had settled into the kind of quiet that only arrived after midnight when the city had finally stopped pretending it was still doing something productive.
A few cars passed at intervals, their headlights sweeping across the pavement and moving on.
Someone's window was open two floors up and music was coming out of it, low enough that it blended into everything else rather than standing above it.
Liam walked with his hands in his pockets, moving at the easy unhurried pace of someone who had somewhere to be but wasn't in a rush to get there.
Then his phone buzzed in his pocket and he pulled it out and looked at the screen without breaking stride.
*Shay~ This man is testing every nerve I have left. I genuinely want to wrap both hands around his throat and hold there until something changes.*
Liam read it twice.
Then he smiled. A real one, small and genuine, arriving without him deciding to produce it.
