As she placed her head on Dante’s shoulder, Zoe felt his arm wrapping around her shoulders. Smiling slightly, Zoe nuzzled against his shoulder to get more comfortable. This was really nice. Shivering slightly as she felt his fingers running through her hair.

Then he asked for clarification about when she’d gotten back. Zoe nodded. ”Just last night,” she said. ”Twenty-two hours of traveling. Combined with the jet lag, I haven’t really slept…”

As she finished speaking, Zoe let her eyes drift closed. She really hadn’t slept properly in over 24 hours, and Dante seemed fine if she were to take a nap. Plus, sitting like this, with his arm around her and her head on his shoulder was rather comfortable. Nice. ”Furniture is good,” Zoe said softly. Though she kind of wanted to tease him about that. If she wasn’t so tired...

Dante smiled as she leaned against him and they talked. This was definitely something he'd missed; something he'd never really had with anyone else since coming to New York. Besides, Duke was crazy about her, and judging how picky Duke was about people...that gave Dante plenty of reasons to be crazy about her too, right?

He leaned against her, smiling softly as he tried to focus on the television, but he had too many thoughts bouncing around in his head. Thinking about the woman next to him, how he thought he felt about her...

She really was a great person, and deserved much better than him but...she was giving him another chance, and now they were snuggled up on the couch. He was afraid of messing this up again, but...maybe they could be something. Maybe this would be good for both of them.

His eyes closed as his breathing steadied, holding her close.