The next morning, the smell of toasted bread and warm butter lured me from my dreams before the sunlight did.
I blinked awake, the early rays kissing the curtains softly, and for the first time in a long while, my chest felt strangely light. No pit of nervousness, no pressure of survival. Just... calm. A rare kind of calm I didn't know I'd been missing.
When I walked into the kitchen, Claude was humming.
Humming.
Wearing a half-buttoned shirt again—of course, because fate had a weird sense of humor—and standing in front of the stove like he'd been doing this forever.
"Morning," I said, half-expecting him to yelp in surprise and burn the eggs.
But he just turned with a grin. "You're up early. I wanted to bring you breakfast in bed, but… apparently, you're faster than I thought."
He was holding a frying pan in one hand, a spatula in the other, and—somehow—flour on his cheek.
"Did you fight the flour bag?" I asked, reaching up to brush his face clean.
