Eli woke at five-forty.
Seren was already half awake — he had learned, over sixteen weeks, to exist in a lighter register of sleep, one ear always open. He got up before the sound escalated. Lifted Eli from the crib. Took him to the kitchen.
The city was dark outside the windows.
He made tea with one hand.
Eli regarded the kitchen with the serious attention he brought to most things at this hour, as though the pre-dawn kitchen contained information worth cataloguing.
"I agree," Seren said quietly. "It's a good kitchen."
Eli made the sound.
Seren drank his tea.
At six-fifteen his phone buzzed on the counter.
Juno.
He answered.
"Are you awake," Juno said.
"Obviously."
"Is Eli—"
"Yes. Kitchen. Go ahead."
A pause.
Not long. Three seconds. The specific pause of someone who has been rehearsing something and has arrived at the moment of saying it and found the rehearsal insufficient.
"Damien asked me to marry him last night," Juno said.
Seren put his mug down.
"He—"
