We worked it out together in the dark.

One single blink, slow and deliberate, meant yes.

Two blinks meant no.

And a glance toward the heavy bedroom door meant that someone was coming down the hallway and that we should both go still and silent.

It was a crude language, a language of a few words, a language of blinks and glances that a stranger watching would never have noticed passing between us, but it was enough, and building it with him in the small hours felt like reaching a hand down into a well and feeling, against all hope, a living hand reach back.

He was in there.