I woke up with Lia's hair in my mouth and Akina's arm across my ribs.
The window said evening with the kind of light that meant the day had aged considerably while I had not been paying attention to it, gone soft and orange against the dorm wall, and someone outside in the quad was yelling about a frisbee.
Lia made a small, sleepy noise against my chest and did not wake up. Akina, on the other side, was breathing into the pillow in the deep way of a woman who had decided sleep was a project and was now committed to seeing it through.
My phone, on the nightstand, was buzzing.
I extracted my arm from under Lia approximately one millimeter per minute, which was a craft skill I had developed over the past few weeks, and got the phone before the call rolled over.
MIRA.
I answered, voice low, "Mm."
"Sweetheart." She sounded amused already. "Are you whispering?"
I murmured, "I am whispering."
"Where are you?" She asked.
"...A friend's place."
