About the View
The city below can wait
The balcony is scarcely wider than the little sofa squeezed between the glass door and the iron railing. She slips outside first, the evening breeze catching the hem of her T-shirt, and a heartbeat later she hears him step out behind her, careful, deliberate, as though the night might scatter if he’s too loud.
“Left or right?” he asks, voice amused but low enough to stay beneath the music drifting up from two streets away.
“Your right,” she answers, folding her legs beneath her before he even sits.
When he eases down, she’s already tucked against his chest, weight light, heartbeat quick. He draws a slow breath—as if memorising—and closes his arms around her.
“There,” he murmurs into her hair. “Perfect.”
Below them, headlights weave through the city like stray sparks; laughter flares, dies, flares again. A single guitar riff slips between buildings, brushes the railing, fades. She rests her cheek against the steady rise of his breathing and lets the city become a blurred constellation beyond his shoulder.
“It’s loud down there,” she says.
“Then keep your eyes on the view up here,” he replies.
“My view is mostly buttons.” Her fingers tap the neat row on his shirt. “And the side of your jaw.”
“That’s the view that matters,” he says.
A breeze lifts her hair; he tucks a strand behind her ear, fingertips so gentle the motion feels like a sentence he hasn’t spoken yet. She tilts her head back, meeting eyes darker than the sky behind him, and the moment narrows into a single, bright point.
“Tell me what you see,” she whispers.
He doesn’t look at the skyline. “I see you pretending to admire the night when you’re waiting to find out if I’ll kiss you.”
Her laugh escapes, quiet and helpless. “And will you?”
He answers without words. Lips graze the top of her head, then her temple. The sofa fabric warms under her knees; the railing presses cool against her shoulder; the night air tastes of sea-salt and distant coffee grounds.
Minutes drift—five, forty, impossible to know—until his phone vibrates, a small insistence of real life. He sighs and slides the ridiculous throw pillow between them, hugging her and the cushion together.
“Save it,” he tells her, half-smile intact. “Make sure it stays right here.”
“The amazing pillow,” she declares, adjusting it. “Official part of the architecture.”
He stands, helping her unfold legs that have forgotten the floor. For a second she misses the weightless warmth of being held. He touches her cheek, then steps inside. The door clicks shut; only streetlight hum and an absurd pillow remain, holding the shape of what just happened.
She leans against the railing, hair swept forward by a gentler breeze than before, and watches the city flicker. Somewhere below, traffic lights change, voices tangle, applause rises for a singer she can’t see.
None of them know how tender their lights look from here.
— K