Iwake up annoyed, which is weird because I’m usually a morning person.
Like, aggressively cheerful. The kind of guy who bounds out of bed ready to make terrible puns and convince everyone the day is full of possibilities. Dax calls me a golden retriever in human form, and he’s not entirely wrong.
But this morning? This morning, I want to tell the whole world to fuck off.
The couch cushions feel lumpy in places that weren’t lumpy yesterday. My makeshift pillow setup has somehow migrated halfway across my face during the night. The blanket is tangled around my legs like it’s trying to suffocate me.
And I’mhot. Like, way too hot for a room with AC.
I kick off the blanket and immediately regret kicking it so hard when my foot connects with the coffee table.
“Son of a—” I bite off the curse, sitting up and glaring at the furniture.
The living room is still dim, the amber emergency lights casting long shadows while the shutters block out most of thedaylight, leaving only thin gray cracks of morning light filtering through. The storm is still raging outside, and the whole house has this closed-in, oppressive feeling.
Across the room, Malik is already awake on his couch, staring at his phone with an intensity that suggests he’s either solving world hunger or about to throw the phone through a wall.
“Morning,” I say, aiming for my usual cheerfulness and landing somewhere around ‘passably civil.’
He grunts without looking up.
Okay then.
“Headache?” I ask.
“Suppressants,” he mutters. “Hangover from the double dose. You?”
“Feels like a freight train hit me.”
Jalen’s still asleep on the floor, curled up on his side with his bandaged hand tucked against his chest. Dax’s space is empty. He’s probably already up and doing whatever Dax does at the crack of dawn.
I stand up and immediately want to sit back down because my entire body feels wrong. My T-shirt feels scratchy. Even my gym shorts are annoying me.
Since when is cotton irritating?
“Coffee,” I mutter, heading toward the kitchen area. “I need coffee.”
The kitchen is a disaster from last night. The whole space smells like Sierra, sweet and warm and making my head fuzzy.
I shake it off and head for the coffeemaker, only to find it empty.
No coffee brewed. No coffee even started.
We always have coffee going by this time. It’s an unspoken pack rule. First one up starts the coffee. Which is usually me, but I figured Dax would have handled it since he beat me to waking up.
“Where’s the coffee?” I call out to the room in general.
“Nobody made it yet,” Malik says, still not looking up from his screen.
“Why not?”
“Because nobody felt like it.”
That’s such a non-answer that I actually turn to stare at him. “You good, man?”
“Fine,” he says shortly. “Just trying to figure out how long this storm will be around.”
He doesn’t look fine. His shoulders are tense, his jaw tight. And is it just me, or is he gripping that phone like he’s considering snapping it in half?
