When I woke, I did not know where I was.
The ceiling was unfamiliar.
White. Smooth. Empty except for a narrow line of morning light spilling through curtains I did not remember closing.
For one confused second, I expected to hear the shower running beyond Charles’s bedroom.
I expected grey sheets.
His watch on the bedside table.
His voice asking what time it was before he had properly opened his eyes.
Instead, something warm and heavy rested against my ankle.
I looked down.
Cupid was lying across the foot of the bed, his head pressed against my leg as though he had spent the night guarding the border between me and the rest of the world.
The moment I moved, one of his ears lifted.
Then the other.
His eyes opened.
He stared at me for several seconds, decided I was still alive,
