Cade and Lily

I woke up slowly.

Not the jarring, disoriented kind of waking that happened in my dorm room when my alarm dragged me out of sleep at seven AM. This was different — gradual and soft, like surfacing from warm water. The kind of waking that happens when your body feels safe enough to take its time.

For a moment I just lay there, blinking at the ceiling, cataloguing sensations before my brain fully caught up. The sheets were soft and smelled like him — clean, faintly woodsy, something underneath that was just *Cade.* The arm around my waist was heavy and warm. The light coming through the...