Jayden woke up, for the first time in months, warm.
His room in Cambridge was chilly, and Darren was a living, breathing hot water bottle. He oozed heat, luxuriously hot heat, and Jayden curled closer under the duvet, wrapping his other arm around Darren’s chest and cuddling up to his back. It was light outside, but a deep and murky light around the curtains that suggested it was threatening to rain. Jayden could faintly hear his parents’ voices downstairs, and then the front door slammed and Dad’s disappeared.
Eight-thirty, then. Dad was off to work.
Darren was deeply asleep, but that wasn’t new. He slept like the de-…like a log. Jayden had once pushed him right out of bed to see if he’d wake up, and he’d barely grumbled before curling up on the carpet and going right back to sleep. So
