I brush my teeth with the focused efficiency of a woman who is converting morning-after panic into dental hygiene. The peppermint toothpaste provides a grounding familiarity that my disoriented brain gratefully accepts, the cool mint cutting through the residual fog of the deepest sleep I have achieved in recent memory.
When did I last sleep that well?
The answer is not a specific date but a general absence. I have not slept that deeply since the Holloway estate. Since the nights in my childhood bedroom when the sheets smelled like home and the house was quiet and the world outside my window was a threat my father's presence held at a distance that felt permanent.
Last night felt like that. Safe in a way that bypassed my conscious assessment and settled directly into the primitive, designation-level circuitry that determines whether a sleeping body relaxes or remains vigilant.
Because of him. Because his scent saturated the bedding and the air and the arms around my waist, and my biology processed the composite data and arrived at a conclusion my waking mind has been resisting: safe.
I wrestle my hair into something approaching order through the strategic application of water and willpower. The result is not beauty. It is damage control. The boyish, spiked aesthetic that I have cultivated through years of not caring what my hair does resolving itself into its usual controlled chaos, the kind of hairstyle that reads as intentional rather than catastrophic if you do not examine it too closely.
The kitchen clock is mounted above the microwave, its digital face glowing green in the morning light that fills the common room through curtains neither of us closed last night.
I squint at the numbers.
10:00.
I stare.
10:00 AM.
The number does not change. Does not reveal itself to be a joke or a malfunction or a time zone error that will correct itself when I rub my eyes and look again. The microwave clock agrees. The angle of the sunlight streaming through the east-facing window agrees. Every available piece of temporal evidence in this kitchen converges on the same conclusion: it is ten o'clock in the morning and I have been unconscious for approximately nine hours.
"FUCK!"
The curse erupts at full volume before my hand clamps over my mouth, the sound bouncing off the kitchen tile and the barewalls and the closed bedroom door behind which Archie is still sleeping with a pillow substituted for my body.
We missed two classes. Both of us. Two full lectures that started at eight and nine respectively, which we slept through entirely because I sleepwalked into his bed and his arms acted as a weighted blanket that my nervous system interpreted as a valid excuse to ignore every alarm clock in the building.
This is my fault.
My nocturnal wandering transported me into his bed. My pheromones probably triggered the cuddling response that kept him asleep past his normal wake time. My entire biological existence disrupted the morning routine of a man whose perfect attendance record is probably the academic equivalent of a sacred artifact.
I grab my phone from the counter where I left it charging last night and compose a message to Miss Phillip with the frantic, thumb-mashing velocity of a woman whose academic career is flashing before her eyes.
Miss Phillip, I'm so sorry. Sage Holloway here. Archie Rosedale and I both missed our morning classes. The first night in the new dorm arrangement was an adjustment and I just woke up at 10. I take full responsibility and it won't happen again.
The reply arrives in under a minute.
Miss Phillip's communication efficiency remains undefeated, her typing speed rivaling professional transcriptionists, her willingness to respond to student crises before noon on a weekday suggesting either profound dedication or clinical insomnia.
Good morning, Ms. Holloway. Adjusting to a new dorm environment is understandably taxing on both Omegas and Alphas, particularly given the circumstances of your displacement. I'll remove the absence penalty from both yourrecords. However, please make every effort to attend your afternoon classes following the lunch break. I trust this accommodation won't become a pattern.
I exhale the breath I have been holding since the clock revealed its betrayal.
Thank you so much, Miss Phillip. We'll be at the afternoon lectures. Promise.
The phone returns to the counter. The relief settles into my shoulders, replacing the panic with the specific, grateful calm of a woman who has just avoided an academic catastrophe through the mercy of an administrator whose twin sister coaches figure skating and whose tolerance for student chaos has clearly been calibrated by years of exposure to university-level drama.
Afternoon classes. That gives us until one o'clock. Which means I have three hours to figure out breakfast, check in on the flooding situation, and decide whether to address the fact that I woke up in Archie's arms or bury it beneath so many layers of denial that an archaeological team could not excavate the memory.
Denial. Definitely denial. Denial is my friend. Denial has served me well through multiple crises and will continue to do so until the heat death of the universe or the next time he cuddles me in his sleep, whichever arrives first.
The kitchen. Right. Food. The practical, actionable task that converts anxiety into productivity and gives my hands employment while my brain processes the romantic implications of the last twelve hours at a speed it finds less threatening than immediate confrontation.
Archie cooked last night. Produced a pasta that belonged in a Michelin-starred restaurant and served it with the nonchalant competence of a man for whom culinary excellence is a baseline rather than an achievement. The memory of that meal, the flavor and the warmth and the moment he slid his plate to minewithout hesitation, carries a tenderness that makes my chest ache in ways that have nothing to do with indigestion.
He cooked for me. The least I can do is return the gesture.
