"This is a very specific way to wake someone up."
"Would you prefer an alarm?"
"Absolutely not."
Elise turned onto her back. Her eyes were dark and half-open, her expression lazy and wanting and completely unguarded. Sienna worked her way down Elise's body with her mouth, each kiss on a map she knew by heart now: the appendectomy scar from when Elise was sixteen, the soft skin of her inner thighs, the spots that made her laugh and the ones that made her go very, very still. Six months of memorisation. Elise's hand tightened in her hair. Her voice came apart on Sienna's name. Sienna held her through it until Elise's body went slack against the pillows.
"Come here," Elise said.
Sienna moved up beside her. Elise kissed her deep and slow, then her fingers slid under the hem of Sienna's t-shirt, knowing and sure. She knew exactly what Sienna needed. Six months of attention, built into the press of her calloused fingers. When Sienna came she pressed her face into the pillow and let herself go, loud and uninhibited, as she hadn't known was possible until Elise.
Elise kissed her forehead. Then her nose. Then her mouth. Slow, tender kisses that tasted of morning.
"Hi," Elise said.
Sienna brushed damp hair from Elise's forehead. "Hi."
"Good morning."
"Very good morning."
They lay together, breathing, their legs entangled, the light moving across the ceiling. Millie padded into the bedroom and jumped onto the foot of the bed and curled into a ball, her purring audible even from six feet away. The apartment was quiet and full.
"Shower?" Sienna said eventually.
"Shower."
They got up and walked to the bathroom, Sienna's hand trailing along Elise's hip. The bathroom tiles were cold under their feet and Elise yelped and hopped and Sienna laughed, the sound bright in the small space. The shower was barely big enough for two and they bumped elbows turning it on and Elise's hip pressed against the tap and she swore and Sienna kissed her shoulder blade in apology. The water took a minute to warm and they stood close together while they waited, skin prickling in the cool air, and when the steam began to rise they stepped under the spray together. They washed each other's bodies with soap-slick hands, slowly, thoroughly. Sienna washed Elise's hair, working the vanilla-scented shampoo through the dark strands, and Elise tilted her head back and closed her eyes and the water ran down her face and Sienna kissed the hollow of her throat, tasting clean water and soap.
Elise washed Sienna's back with careful, circular motions, her hands moving over the muscles, knowing every inch of the body beneath her fingers. She traced the scar on Sienna's left forearm, the thin line from the surgical plate, and pressed her lips to it. The gesture was small and private and so full of tenderness that Sienna's throat closed.
They got out. Towelled off. Sienna put on clean clothes and her glasses and Elise stood at the mirror working a comb through her wet hair, and the domesticity of it, the absolute, ordinary normalcy of sharing a bathroom on a Saturday morning, was so precious that Sienna had to pause in the doorway and just look.
"You're doing it again," Elise said, catching her eye in the mirror.
"I'm looking at you. There's a difference."
The callback made Elise smile. That slow, warm smile that crinkled her eyes and softened her whole face.
"Breakfast?" Elise asked.
"I'm not eating your cooking."
Elise pressed a hand to her chest in mock offence. "I wasn't offering to cook. I was offering to take you to Lavender's."
"Deal."
They moved through the apartment, gathering phones, keys, wallets. Elise's phone buzzed and she glanced at it and grinned. "Frankie wants to know if we're coming to the team lunch tomorrow. She says, and I quote, 'Tell Sienna I need her to explain to Lou that sriracha is not a personality trait.'"
Sienna shook her head. "Tell Frankie I'm a physician, not a mediator."
"You're both. You mediated the Camille-and-Dani playlist war last week and everyone knows it."
Sienna's mouth twitched. She pulled on her jacket, one arm and then the other, and zipped it to her chin. "That was diplomacy, not mediation. There's a difference."
"There really isn't."
Millie was still on the bed, curled into a perfect tortoiseshell circle, her purring a steady, contented thrum. Sienna paused to scratch behind her chipped ear and Millie's eyes closed and the purring intensified.
