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Sonny is still; his chest rises and falls with each breath, her hand moving steadily with it, but beyond that he doesn’t stir. It gives Amanda a moment to take him in, the parts of him she’s never had the privilege of indulging in before. Not just the obvious, last night’s explorations allowing them both to finally realise their own imaginings, but the little things. The way he sleeps with his head tilted back, leaving his jawline and neck exposed, tempting her lips to find a path not yet travelled; the childhood scar just below his hairline - from a story Amanda already knew - that she had traced her fingertips over last night, staring at him in reverence, each touch bringing her closer to him in more ways than one.
He’d looked at her the same way; like she was a gift, long wished for and hard to believe he finally had. He’d regarded her in awe, with his hands so much bigger than she’d ever realised, fingers curled around her rib cage and words sticking in his throat. It had been like the breaking of a dam when she’d reached for him then - her hands on his shoulders, pulling him towards her, her mouth whispering words she’d kept in for so long. A second, the briefest flicker of time, and then they were lost in each other, in sensations that had never felt so raw.
It was an intimacy Amanda hadn’t expected, hadn’t ever experienced before - beyond the physical, this connection with someone who knew all of her and still looked at her like she was responsible for the stars in the sky.
Watching him now she feels it again, coiling in her stomach, expectation hanging between them. She has never felt so close to anyone; experiences she thought she’d had are paling now, because what she had once thought of as love seems childish and inadequate compared to what is tightening around her. It’s about so much more than what is here at the surface - more than all he achieved with his lips and his hands, their bodies moving in sync, carving out a new place in their partnership. That was more familiar territory - not with Sonny, but neither of them came into this green - but the way he’d held afterwards, the tender touch of his fingers as they brushed her hair back from her eyes, his whispered affirmations - that’s what has Amanda’s heart beating double time in her chest, searching out his in the dim morning light.
Sonny shifts beside her, his facial expression changes and he murmurs unidentifiable words that bring a smile to Amanda’s face - seeing how he wakes up, that’s new, that’s knowledge she gets to have now - then his eyes blink open, his whole body going rigid for a brief second before yesterday comes flooding back to him.
He rolls onto his side, taking her in; his voice is a little hoarse as he croaks out, “Good morning.”
“You’re in my bed,” Amanda says through a smile, pointing out the obvious as though it’ll make it seem like less of a big deal.
Sonny nods, and he smiles far too broadly for someone who must’ve only managed four hours of sleep at most, and says, “Yeah, I am.”
He waits for her to speak again, one arm still splayed across the pillow as he props himself up and watches her. Amanda watches him right back, her fingers reaching for him, her hand settling on his hip, thumb skimming the bone just above his underwear. He’s patient with her; his happiness is unrestrained but he doesn’t pour it out in front of her, it sparkles at the edges of his eyes and in the corner of his mouth, but he’s being careful with her, like he’s afraid she’ll break, like he’s afraid of being the cause.
It takes her a moment to find the words, to answer unasked questions and lay the playing field out before them both. She smiles at him, her thumb still moving across his warm skin, and she says, “I could get used to waking up like this.”
-
It’s freeing. Just the two of them. No need to hide or hold back in any way; from the minute they’d walked in the apartment door she was his to hold, to touch, to share kisses with as they ate dinner sprawled on the couch, to pull close and sigh against her skin as her hands slipped beneath his t-shirt, pushing it up until he tugged it over his head, breaking their kiss long enough to see the satisfied smirk on her face.
He presses her against her bedroom door without worrying about the thud his hand makes against the wood as he balances himself. He trails kisses down her jawline and lets his mouth linger at her neck, heat coasting through him at the sounds she doesn’t have to hold back.
The freedom in it is joyful, more than just the physical; it’s her - beneath his hands and wound around his heart. The gasp she catches with her hand over her mouth, that turns to laughter, delighting his ears, when she remembers she doesn’t have to be quiet tonight.
And on her bed, his palms skimming along her ribs, his eyes taking in every inch of her with a reverence that’s bordering on blasphemous - he feels like the luckiest guy alive.
They don’t get to do this very often - not like this, uninhibited and a little reckless - and though he is glad of it, though he would relive it all in an instant - will relive it all in his head when he’s alone in his own apartment - there’s a twinge of guilt low in his stomach when he lies back against the mattress. It isn’t guilt about enjoying this time with her, and it’s not about getting to fall asleep like this, with Amanda’s head more on his pillow than her own, her arm draped almost possessively over his stomach; there’s nothing to feel guilty about here.
It’s everything around it. The guilt of the secrets they’re keeping.
More than that; the only reason he’s here like this, the reason he gets to stay the night in Amanda’s bed, is because Billie and Jesse are upstate with Amanda’s mom and not at home, asleep just down the hall. He feels guilty for basking in this because the thought implies he doesn’t want the girls around - and he’s careful, so careful, to make sure Amanda knows that isn’t the case - though really it’s just that sleepovers don’t happen when the girls are here. Not yet.
Even if they weren’t keeping this thing between them quiet, telling the girls, Sonny spending the night in their mother’s bed - that’s a big deal. Because Sonny has been a presence in their lives since the minute each of them was born, and he’s loved them beyond all possibility - but his role will shift with time, when he goes from being their godfather to being a man who loves their mother just as all-consumingly as he loves them, but in a way altogether different and new.
What all that means is that he can count on his fingers the number of times he’s gotten to wake up next to Amanda - there are rare nights he does stay, ones that end with him sneaking out to the couch before the girls are up, but generally there are long, lingering goodbye kisses in her doorway - and her nosey neighbour down the hall must know about them even if no one else does - hands grabbing to pull each other close for just one more touch, whispers and soft laughter when they finally do part and he looks back at her over his shoulder before he walks down the stairwell, driving home and going to bed alone.
The rarity makes it special, makes him feel like a lovestruck kid. And maybe there’s a part of him that’s enjoying it just a little extra because of who they’ve spent their weekend working with - the part of him that still feels like the new guy when Nick Amaro walks into the room takes pleasure in knowing that it’s Sonny that Amanda’s taken to her bed tonight, and Sonny’s name on her lips; earlier, and now, as she mumbles in her sleep. Not that Amaro has given him any cause to be jealous, but there’s still a dent in Sonny’s ego from all those years ago, one he’s polished out and brushed over, but apparently just seeing Amaro is enough to remind him it’s there.
Amanda murmurs his name again, but this time it isn’t a sleepy declaration, but firm, a hint of annoyance there. She opens her eyes but doesn’t lift her head; the fingers of her left hand spread out across his stomach, tapping idly at his skin, “Go to sleep,” she says as his eyes dart to hers.
“I’m just-”
“Thinking too loud,” Amanda grumbles, shifting against him until the line of her body is pressed against his.
Sonny concedes defeat, nodding slightly, “I’m thinkin’ about you,” he says, knowing it won’t placate her.
“You can think about me in the morning,” she says, and then she does lift her head, leaning back to look at him with a coy smile on her lips, “When we wake up together,” she says, her fingers dancing up towards his chest. She doesn’t have to add a salacious comment to her words, Sonny hears the implication loud and clear and he laughs lightly, resting his hand on her arm.
“Goodnight Rollins,” he says, closing his eyes just as she presses her lips to his shoulder. She settles beside him again, and Sonny’s last thought as he does succumb to sleep is that he can’t wait to wake up just as entangled with Amanda as he is right now.
-
She can’t keep herself from touching him. It’s not that desperate heat that engulfed her back when they first became this version of them - May had closed out with a frantic buzzing beneath their skin, embers of want that sparked every time she caught sight of him. January slips away with a softer kind of need, a desire not to consume him but to be a part of him. She reaches for him continuously through the evening, their fingers entwined on the walk up to the apartment, her hand on his thigh as they explain it all to Jesse and Billie, her lips against his cheek when she sees him swallow back a sharp rush of emotion when Billie asks if this all means that he is going to be her daddy. And when they turn out the lights Amanda curls herself around him, her head resting on his shoulder, fingers splayed across his bare chest so that she can feel his still-racing heartbeat.
There’s a stillness between them, the calm after a storm of Amanda’s own making. A week that started with tension that built until it overspilled, until Sonny let out everything he had been holding in, let Amanda see how her fears were hurting him as much as her. There was an ache deep inside her at that realisation; she’d known he felt guilty over not disclosing, but the extent of it, everything beneath the surface; about their friends, their families, how the girls saw him fitting into their lives, she hadn’t truly understood. She hadn’t let herself see it- the sacrifices that he was making for her.
There were conversations and promises and anxious expectations and then - then there was this. Calm. Bliss.
Kissing him out in the open, showing the world he was hers, she was his.
Lying like this now, knowing that he won’t leave, not to go home or to move to the couch or to hide in the bathroom when Billie yells out at 3am.
Amanda doesn’t sleep right away; wrapped in the comfort of Sonny’s arms she could - she could drift away without the thoughts that all-too-often have her lying awake - but she wants to enjoy this. The first time that he’s here, in her bedroom, without any sense of secrecy or subterfuge.
“Carisi,” she murmurs into his shoulder, “Are you awake?”
She feels his laughter reverberate in his chest as much as she hears it, “Couldn’t tell you if I wasn’t,” he says, but she’s too happy to fire back the teasing retort he deserves.
“Thank you,” she says, grateful for the darkness of the room so that he can’t see the emotion in her face. He must hear it in her voice, though, because his arm tightens around her and he turns his head to press a kiss to her hair as she continues, “For being patient with me.”
“I could’ve been more,” he says, and she knows a part of him is still chastising himself over the tears that had slid from her eyes when he finally confronted her about their seemingly never-ending secret.
Amanda shakes her head, “You waited long enough.”
“Worth it,” Sonny counters, “Every second.”
Though she smiles to herself, Amanda doesn’t prolong the conversation; she embraces the quiet warmth of the room - of the two of them close together, starting a new chapter of their story.
-
It’s early; Sonny squints at the alarm clock on Amanda’s nightstand but his eyes are heavy with sleep and he can’t quite make them out, but there’s no sunlight streaming in through the gap in Amanda’s curtains, the ones he keeps suggesting she replace with blackout blinds, so it’s before sunrise.
He hears Amanda’s voice and rolls over to face her, one hand automatically reaching for her hip as he sits up, moving closer to her. It takes him longer than it should to process what’s in front of him. He’d faintly registered that Amanda’s phone ringing had woken him, that she had taken a call, that she was talking to Liv. He processes all that but it isn’t until it’s a little too late that he realises Amanda isn’t just on the phone; Liv has her camera on, showing Amanda a crime scene that would have made Sonny glad he wasn’t a detective anymore, had he not simultaneously realised that Amanda’s camera was on, too, that in the little box in at the bottom of her screen isn’t just Amanda’s face, but Sonny’s own.
He freezes in place.
Liv knows they’re together - obviously - but they’ve been careful to keep things professional at work. They don’t hide in public anymore; he’ll wrap his arm around Amanda while they walk, or they’ll hold hands; kiss hello and goodbye. But with Liv there’s that unspoken boundary, that she’s Amanda’s captain, that she was Sonny’s, so - aside from their little UC stint - they haven’t so much as hugged in front of her since they disclosed.
And even if they had, Sonny still wouldn’t have been prepared for his former boss to see him in his underwear, his hair ruffled and his lips pressed to Amanda’s shoulder.
“It’s Liv,” Amanda says, unhelpfully, as Sonny hides his face behind his hand and rolls onto his back, biting back a groan of embarrassment.
Liv’s laughter comes through the phone, contrasting the tone of her conversation with Amanda, “Sorry to wake you, Carisi.”
Sonny lifts his hand from across his face and chances a glance at Amanda. She’s looking at the phone but he can see from where he’s lying that she’s smiling, amused by his mortification. “Anyway,” Amanda says, as though nothing had happened, “Like I said, Carisi’s here so I can be with you in thirty minutes.”
He lies still as they say their goodbyes, not moving until Amanda hangs up. She’s still smiling at him when she turns around, leaning in to kiss the frown from his face. “Well, I can’t ever look Liv in the eye again,” he says with a grimace.
“Oh, c’mon,” she laughs, “She probably didn’t even notice.”
It doesn’t reassure him and he rubs his hand over his face as he sits up, watching as she gets ready to leave. When he glances over at the alarm clock now he can see it’s just after 4am, so at least several hours will pass before he has to see Liv in person again.
When Amanda kisses him goodbye she’s still got that amused smirk on her face and her hand lingers on his cheek, “Go back to sleep,” she tells him fondly, “I’ll see you at work.”
He could let it linger in his mind, but the embarrassment is starting to fade - there’s work and a case and more important things than whether or not Liv actually got a good look at him half-asleep in Amanda’s bed. He drifts off to sleep resolving not to think about it, his arm stretched out across Amanda’s side of the bed, and when he wakes up there are two miniature versions of his girlfriend staring at him with expectant looks on their faces, trouble already brewing in Billie’s eyes.
It isn’t until after he’s showered and the girls are sat at the table eating their breakfast that he grabs his phone, skimming through six different messages from Amanda - two about the case, one checking on the girls, and the others teasing reminders of their morning wakeup call sent several hours apart, no doubt after she and Liv had regrouped in the car on their way to the precinct.
There’s one from Liv too, and he expects at least a light barb from her, but it’s brief, a reminder that she’s happy for the two of them.
When he walks back into the bedroom to grab his tie and jacket, Sonny smiles at the unmade bed. He’s pretty happy for the two of them, too.
-
It shouldn’t come as a shock to Amanda that Billie has terrible timing; she’d come hurtling into the world weeks before her due date and before her mother was even on maternity leave. So Amanda shouldn’t be surprised when there’s a knock on the door less than three hours after she’d tucked her youngest daughter into bed, and at a very unfortunate moment in Amanda’s own nighttime routine.
It might be her years as a cop, or it might be plain old mom instincts, but whatever the reason Amanda’s grateful for her quick reaction, the one that allows her to have the blankets pulled up over her and Sonny before Billie flies into the room, not waiting for an answer.
“I’m so thirsty,” she sighs, clambering up onto the bottom of the bed.
Amanda’s eyes dart to Sonny; he looks a little awkward, like he’s been caught with his hand in a cookie jar, but he’s recovering quickly, knees tucked up under the blankets as he looks to Amanda for direction.
Amanda’s proud of the way she manages to get her underwear back on beneath the blankets, but grabbing her shirt won’t go unnoticed and the last thing she wants to do is answer a string of questions at 10pm - questions that will more than likely be repeated around the dinner table at Sonny’s parents’ house tomorrow, “Okay baby,” she says carefully as Billie flops dramatically on the bottom of the bed, “Go on out to the kitchen and I’ll get you some water.”
Billie half rolls, half jumps off the bed, skipping out of the bedroom as quickly as she’d come in, completely oblivious. She leaves the door wide open but Amanda doesn’t call after her, slipping from the bed and grabbing the t-shirt she’d been so happy to remove from Sonny barely thirty minutes ago, tugging it over her head. “You okay?” she asks Sonny and he nods.
“I’ll be out in a minute,” he says.
Amanda shakes her head, “Stay here,” she tells him, “I won’t be long.”
And in fairness, she isn’t - one cup of water and a, “Mommy, that isn’t your shirt,” later and Billie’s ready to go back to bed - but she grips Amanda’s hand as they walk back down the hall, tugging her past her own bedroom, “Can I sleep in your room?” she asks imploringly.
That in itself isn’t unusual - Sonny’s as used to Jesse and Billie climbing into bed with them as she is these days, but more commonly at five am, when they’ll settle between them chattering away while Amanda and Sonny cling desperately to the last vestiges of sleep, and either the girls drift off again too or they’re all out of bed an hour later, planning their days while Amanda holds onto her coffee cup like a lifeline.
Billie doesn’t wait for an answer this time either, just pushes the bedroom door open. Sonny’s ready for her, anticipating this - he’s gotten dressed, grabbed a fresh t-shirt from the drawer of his things in the bottom of her dresser and pulled back the blankets, “Hey Billie bear,” he says, his voice so soft that Amanda doesn’t need to ask if he’s okay with this. He hauls Billie up, half-throwing her into the middle of the mattress as she giggles wildly.
“I’m gonna sleep here,” she says, spreading her arms across the bed taking up three times the space someone so little actually needs. When Amanda joins them Billie rolls over to face her, tucking her little hands beneath her head; she always starts out sleeping the same way Jesse does, curled up tight - but by the time she wakes her elbow will be in Sonny’s ribs, her other arm flailed out across Amanda’s face.
Before he turns out the light Sonny catches Amanda’s eye over Billie’s sleeping form, “Rain check?” he whispers.
Amanda nods, sharing a smile with him. He flicks the lamp off and as her eyes adjust to the darkness Amanda watches Sonny shift until he’s lying on his side too, one arm behind his head, the other reaching across Billie protectively, his fingers reaching for Amanda.
Moments like this remind Amanda exactly why she loves Sonny Carisi - they make her tempted to say it out loud - because as much as he’s her partner, her other half, he belongs to Jesse and Billie too - willingly, enthusiastically. He’s taken on this new role without so much as blinking; and really it’s been such a smooth transition, the way they’d gone from one kind of partner to another is reflected in the way he’s gone from godfather to- well, to this. They haven’t defined it, haven’t put a label on it. As far as Billie’s concerned he is her dad; she’ll never remember a time when he wasn’t. Jesse adores him as much as she always has and Amanda loves how in sync they are. He jokes that Billie is a miniature Amanda Rollins with the force of a hurricane, but Jesse is Sonny - biology be damned, she’s his in every way that matters and when she gets home from work to find them cooking in the kitchen, sees the way they both turn to look at her with broad smiles on their faces, Amanda forgets, sometimes, that it hasn’t always been exactly this way.
He falls asleep like that, almost as quickly as Billie does, and Amanda doesn’t know how long she watches them both before she falls asleep herself, but when she wakes up they’re there; Sonny propped up against the headboard, talking to Billie in a quiet whisper as she leans into him, her fingers twisted in the fabric of his t-shirt. Jesse’s knelt at the end of the bed, head tilted forward, listening with rapt attention to whatever story Sonny’s telling, and Amanda waits until they notice she’s awake, enjoying this quiet start to their day, the way it warms every part of her to see all the people she loves most together and happy.
-
There’s a dim light casting a glow across the room when Sonny tentatively pushes the door open. Amanda’s head turns straight towards him, her body tense as she’s startled by the unexpected movement. She relaxes when she sees its him, but not entirely. There’s a tension in her shoulders, a wary expression on her face.
“Can I come in?” he asks cautiously - he probably should have asked before he showed up, should’ve called or responded to one of her texts. But he hadn’t wanted to get riled up again, to wind up back in his own apartment with a knot in his stomach and the wrong kind of heat left between them.
Amanda nods, closing the book he’s pretty sure she wasn’t actually reading, “You’ve never needed permission before.”
They both know that’s not true - not exactly.
He lets the door slide shut behind him, careful not to make too much noise and wake the girls. Despite her invitation he feels uneasy, and he hovers at the edge of the room as she folds her arms across her chest, waiting for him. She’s not even the one that’s upset, but she’s on the defensive already and he’s been down this road with her before, he knows all the wrong buttons to press.
He isn’t even interested in an argument. He’s annoyed she didn’t tell him about Barba, that she let him walk into this and be blind-sided. But he isn’t completely oblivious either; he knows why Amanda wants a good defence for Delia Hackman, and he knows, too, that if Liv and Barba were on speaking terms she would have asked him herself the second they decided to help her.
“I didn’t think you were coming,” Amanda says quietly, hands cupping her elbows. She’s vulnerable like this; in her own space, her own bed. But she lets him in, lets him see this part of her, lets him share in all the corners of her life.
Sonny nods, finally moving away from the door. The side of the bed that Sonny has come to think of as his is empty, undisturbed, like she was waiting for him. He sits on the edge, legs stretched out in front of him until his feet bump against her dresser in this too-small space. “I can go,” he offers as he lays his hand flat on the bed between them, palm down, fingers extended towards her.
Amanda takes the opportunity, unfolds her arms and reaches out to rest her hand on top of his, “No,” she says, “Stay.”
“I shoulda answered your messages,” he says as he stands up, changing for bed with her eyes on him. He doesn’t feel exposed or observed; this is comfortable, this is them.
“Mmm,” Amanda agrees, just enough attitude behind her murmur to let him know she was pissed he ignored her. She’s quiet as he changes, doesn’t speak again until he’s sat beside her, leaning back against the headboard, blankets still tucked in under him, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Barba.”
“Yeah,” Sonny sighs, “I get why you did it,” he concedes, “But I wish you would’ve warned me.”
Amanda traces a pattern on the bedsheets, eyes cast downward, away from him, “I know,” she says, “But I didn’t- I wanted her to have a good defence but I knew you’d be- I didn’t want you worrying about my loyalty, not now.”
It’s a reminder of a time when he did worry about that - a time when he and Amanda were still in limbo and he felt like he was drowning without anyone there to pull him out. But she was there then, and she’s here now.
“Hey,” he says softly, reaching out for her, his fingers on her forearm as he waits for her to look up at him, “I know,” he says, “I’m not gonna pretend it didn’t hurt, hearin’ it was you, but I know that wasn’t why you did it.”
She nods, sliding her arm up so that her fingers reach his, entwining them, “I’m glad you came home,” she says. Home. They haven’t called it that before, not out loud.
He likes the sound of that - loves it, even. Loves her.
I love you so much, he thinks, and then he cups her cheek gently with his free hand, pressing his lips tenderly to hers, all of the afternoon’s frustration ebbing away as he lets himself get lost in her; in this moment, the feel of her skin beneath his hands and the way all the things they don’t say just compound this feeling he’s had for her for longer than he can voice.
The lamp casts shadows over them as they move together, that last remnant of her night alone - the light she left on for him without saying so, but Sonny doesn’t notice the patterns scattered across the ceiling, all he knows is Amanda Rollins, here in this room, with him - no matter where their days take them this is where he wants to end his nights.
-
The room is barren now; everything boxed up and moved out into the living room ready for the movers to load up in the morning. All that remains is her bed and she sinks down onto it, bone tired from a long day of packing boxes in the summer heat. Propped up on her elbows Amanda glances around the room, thinking back to her first night here, three and a half years ago.
It had been empty then, too. She hadn’t gotten her furniture from storage yet so all that filled the room was this bed and Billie’s crib, tucked up against the wall. She had lain here watching her littlest baby sleep, and she’d bit back tears at how they’d ended up here, how she’d put them on a path that left another daughter without a father, left her making the same mistakes her mother made over and over again.
When she holds back tears tonight they’re for an entirely different reason - tears of joy, or relief - of fulfilling a promise she had made to herself that her daughters would grow up knowing they were loved, knowing they were worth more. They know that; Jesse and Billie are loved; they get to see Amanda happy, letting herself be happy.
She’s not moving apartments because of another mistake, another screw up. She made a choice last May, a choice that led them to a different path, to a future that’s smiling at her from the bedroom door, standing there in just a towel because he’s been showering off the sweat and dirt of a day hauling boxes around, and the girls are having a sleepover with Noah so they have the apartment to themselves one last time.
The smile on his face softens, his eyes light with concern, “Amanda?”
“I’m okay,” she tells him, sitting up, “Too tired to move. Which really is a shame,” she adds, deliberately scanning her eyes down his torso.
He chuckles lightly, leaning over to kiss her, his wet hair dripping onto her shoulders. She accepts the kiss then ducks out of his reach, slipping off the bed to rifle through the duffel bag she’d left on the bedroom floor, finding clothes for him to change into. His arm curls around her waist as he stands behind her, pulling her in close and peppering kisses into the crook her neck, “Definitely a shame,” he says, releasing his hold on her to get dressed.
Amanda sits on the edge of the bed, images flooding her mind as she looks around - so much has happened here, so many memories. With her girls, with Sonny. The first time they were here, him looking at her like he could barely believe she was real - taking the time to show her how much he loved her, even then. Everything that followed - this was her space only for a few years but it was hers, and then it was his, too. Now everything is going to be theirs and that’s not something Amanda had anticipated sharing with another adult, not at this stage in her life.
“Are you okay?” Sonny asks gently, sitting beside her, “Not changin’ your mind?”
Amanda shakes her head, reaching out to grip his hand, “Not at all,” she says, “Just- memories.”
“We’ll make more,” Sonny promises, and Amanda believes him. That’s the thing with Sonny Carisi, Amanda has learned over the years - when he makes a promise it’s for real. When he tells her he loves her there’s no agenda, just that raw emotion he can’t escape. When he promises Billie pancakes and Paw Patrol on Sunday morning he’s there, sitting on the couch with syrup sticky fingers and Billie tucked under his arm. When he told Jesse he wouldn’t let go of her bike until she said so he ran with her as she peddled wildly, waiting for her to tell him to let go, his hands falling proudly to the side when she declared she was ready, pride emanating off of him.
Amanda glances around the room, “I’ve loved being here with you,” she says, then scrunches up her nose in embarrassment. Sonny doesn’t laugh, doesn’t tease her, just presses a kiss to the bare skin of her shoulder and murmurs in agreement.
She has - Amanda and Sonny have always hung out, spent time together. Her kitchen was always more his, her living room was home to a thousand moments and firsts. Sonny has been her safe harbour for far longer than she’s ever admitted to, always been in the crevices of her existence, known her apartment as well as his own. But not her bedroom - he’s the only man she’s ever brought into this room and it signified a change that they couldn’t brush off. That first morning after she could have run; she could have slipped from the bed before he awoke and it would have been awkward, it would have coloured things between them in the wrong sort of way, but it wouldn’t have been this. Staying, watching him sleep, the intimacy of that morning after - that was what had cemented this change in their lives; Sonny in her bedroom in all the ways she’d secretly imagined, sure, but also in so many ways she hadn’t.
Tomorrow they’ll pack up the very last of their things, and they’ll grab Sonny’s own boxes from storage, make a life together in a new home, with a new, bigger, bed - and a new bigger kitchen, one that Sonny had looked at with almost as much love as he directed at her every day - and though there’s a loss in saying goodbye to the version of herself she was when she first moved in here, it’s a mere murmur in the back of her head compared to the celebration of who she’s become, who they have become.
And Sonny’s right; they’ll make more memories wherever they go; she’ll wake up next to him on their best days and their worst. All the joy they’ve found here they’ll take with them, reshape their world around each other in every room they share.