Chapter 95

Emily’s POV

When I woke up, the room was already filled with the morning sun.

The curtains were thin enough that the city bled through them, the neon softened into daylight.

For a moment I didn’t remember where I was.

I only knew warmth, the smell of coffee grounds lingering somewhere in the apartment, and the solid weight of someone’s arm beneath my cheek.

Then I moved, and the shape of him clarified.

I was in Alex’s room.

His breathing was slow, he was not quite asleep, not quite awake.

I realized how still I had been lying, as if my body was afraid of startling the fragile thing between us.

I didn’t move away.

“Morning,” he said, his voice rough, like the first note of a song that hadn’t been rehearsed.

“Morning,” I whispered back. My throat was dry, the word catching in the middle.

Neither of us shifted immediately, but my mind was already racing, circling all the rules we had made hours before, the b