Damien
There's a knock at the door. Sharp. Rhythmic. Too energetic for this hour.
Only one person knocks like that.
Before I can move, the door swings open anyway. Because of course it does. Vivienne doesn't believe in boundaries. Never has.
She steps in with a tray in one hand, her oversized hoodie swallowing her, hair a waterfall of midnight down her back. There's a suspicious amount of glitter on her cheeks and what I assume is legal misery in her eyes.
"Move," she says, nudging my leg like I'm an inconvenient piece of furniture. "I'm dying. I need physical warmth and emotional validation immediately."
She drops the tray — my coffee, her pink thermos, and two breakfast wraps — onto the nightstand, and then flops down beside me with an exhausted, theatrical groan.
"I had class at six," she whines, tucking herself under my arm like it's the most natural thing in the world. "Six a.m., Damien. Six. The sky was black. I'm suing."
She's warm. I shouldn't notice that, but I do.
And I definitely shouldn't relax into it when she clings to me like a koala. But I do that too.
"You're a law student," I mutter, voice still hoarse. "Don't you people like suing?"
"Not when it's me who's suffering," she mumbles into my chest. "My suffering is sacred. Also, coffee."
I lean toward the nightstand and hand her her pink thermos. She takes it like it's a peace offering from the gods. Then immediately gags.
"Ugh. It's still black. I forgot to add sugar." She makes a face like she's just been betrayed. "Why do people drink this voluntarily? It tastes like emotional damage."
I smirk.
She blinks up at me, squinting. "Why are you smiling like that?"
"Like what?"
"Like you slept well and woke up to someone cuddling you and complaining in adorable high-definition."
I roll my eyes, but she's not wrong.
She's chaotic and warm and way too close, and it's barely eight in the morning, but I don't shove her away.
I never do.
And when she presses her cold fingers under the hem of my hoodie, muttering something about "capitalism and heating bills," I don't stop her either.
Because she's Vivienne.
And she's mine.
I haven't said that out loud. Don't plan to.
But she is.
Even if she doesn't know it yet.