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The first thing that hit me was warmth, not the usual kind that comes from a cozy blanket or a heated room in winter. This was something very specific. The kind that had a weight and a shape to it, and it unmistakably belonged to Damien Lockwood.

For a few blissful seconds, I drifted in that space somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, soaking up that warmth without questioning where it had come from or why it was there.

But then, as my brain started to boot up, it kicked in with its usual harshness, reminding me that the last couple of months had been increasingly ridiculous.

I cracked my eyes open.

Sunlight streamed through the curtains in soft golden slants, filling the room with that gentle early light that makes Saturday mornings feel calm and unhurried.

And there was Damien, using my chest as a pillow.

Again.

I looked down at the top of his head. His dark hair was tousled and messy from sleep, falling across his forehead in a way that made him look so much younger and more human than the polished version he usually presented.

One arm was draped casually around my waist, as if he’d staked his claim and had no plans to let go, with his head resting against my chest like he belonged there, and why wouldn’t he?

Beneath the blanket, our legs were all knotted up, suggesting that personal space had, at some point during the night, become a mere theory.

My heart seemed to forget its usual duties.

Just friends?

What a load of bullshit...

"Jesus Christ," I whispered, mostly to the ceiling, but more to the absurdity of it all.

The position itself didn’t even bother me anymore. After weeks of waking up in all sorts of entangled ways, I was pretty used to it. The strangest part was how natural it felt. Not just normal, I mean, it wasn’t the kind of normal that came with healthy distances and boundaries. It had become familiar.

Comfortable, in a way that crept in slowly until one day you realized something strange was now just a part of your life, settled in and taking up space in your heart that you didn’t even remember giving away.

For a long, uneasy moment, I just lay there, listening. Waiting for sleep to come once again, because you see...

Once Damien slept with his head on your chest and arms wrapped around your waist like you were some kind of human body pillow, just forget about it.

There’s no way you could ever escape his grip, I had no choice but to fall back to sleep until he woke up. I shut my eyes, I’d scold him about that for the dozenth fucking time later.

Damien’s breathing was calm and steady against me, it was arm, relaxed. He seemed to trust this space between us, like he had stopped worrying about whether he was allowed to be this close.

But to be honest...I think he was never worried about that. Something tightened in my chest; it was sharp and hard to identify.

Then the knocking began.

A loud knock echoed through the apartment, snapping me out of my reverie. I blinked, another followed, and then another, insistent and getting increasingly impatient, like whoever was out there was determined not to leave without getting a response.

I frowned towards the hallway. Who could possibly be showing up this early with that kind of urgency?

For crying out it was barely 7 AM! The knocking continued, so I shifted slightly, trying to pull away.

But Damien’s arm tightened around my waist immediately. I froze, his face pressed deeper into my chest, a small, sleepy protest.

"No," he mumbled.

I looked down at him. He wasn’t even fully awake. "No?"

His eyes stayed shut. "They’ll go away..."

Another knock, this one louder and more demanding.

"Let them come back later," he murmured, with the kind of confidence that suggested he believed the universe would just oblige.

I bit the inside of my cheek and smiled, because I shouldn’t have found that as funny as I did. Or as endearing, especially not endearing. That territory was dangerous. It was exactly the kind of thing that could lead to decisions I wasn’t ready to face.

"Come on now," I muttered.

Damien responded by tightening his grip even more, like that was going to solve everything.

See? I told you, you couldn’t reason with sleepy Damien. Not...that you could really reason with a fully conscious Damien when it came to our bickering.

The knocking resumed, persistent, clearly from someone who was all in on this plan and wasn’t going to let silence deter them.

Eventually, I managed to break free, ignoring the small, sleepy noise of protest he made as I worked my arm and then my legs out of our tangled mess.

The moment I sat up, he reached over and stole my pillow, wrapping both arms around it as if it were the most important thing in the world and settling back down like it was the easiest thing ever.

I rubbed my hand over my face and shuffled to the front door, my brain still mostly offline, hair everywhere, wearing whatever I’d fallen asleep in. The knocking stopped just as I got there.

I opened the door and froze.

Melanie stood there.

Seeing her was like a punch to the gut. Her eyes were red, not dramatically so, but enough for me to know right away that she had gone to sleep crying. The guilt that had been quietly simmering in my chest since last night surged back up.

I wasn’t ready for this right now...

"Melanie—"

Before I could finish, she stepped past me into the apartment, her hands twisting together as if she was nervous, like she’d practiced something on the way over and needed to get it out before the moment slipped away.

"Oliver, I’m sorry."

I blinked. That was not what I was expecting. "What?"

"I’m sorry," she said again, her voice trembling a little. "I shouldn’t have done that."

Confusion knocked the guilt aside for a moment. "What are you talking about?"

Why was ’she’ apologizing?

"Last night." She looked down, fiddling with her hands. "I shouldn’t have dumped a thing like that on you like that. It wasn’t fair."

My stomach sank. "Melanie, you don’t have to—"

"No, let me finish." She took a breath, visibly trying to steady herself. "I thought maybe you were just waiting for the right moment. I thought maybe you were just nervous to initiate anything, so I just thought I’d take matters into my own arms. But I guess I was so fucking wrong..."