Zevran was awake.
I knew because his breathing had changed — the shift from deep sleep to surface awareness that I recognized because I had spent enough hours next to critically monitored patients to know what the texture of consciousness sounded like.
"You wake up before five-thirty," he said.
"Usually," I said. "Not today."
"Good."
"Don't make it a thing."
"I'm not making it anything," he said. "I'm noting it." A pause. "I also wake up before five-thirty."
"You do."
"We've been overlapping in the kitchen for two weeks."
"I know."
"I made coffee every morning at five twenty-five."
"I know. I heard you through the floor." I paused. "I didn't come down."
"I know you didn't." A beat. "I heard you on your roof at five-thirty."
I turned to look at him in the dark.
"You could hear
