I woke at 4:47 AM to the sound of Belle's alarm and the sensation of two warm bodies pressed against me in a bed that was never designed for this purpose.
Belle's phone screamed from somewhere beneath her pillow, a custom alarm that sounded like a nuclear submarine's emergency klaxon filtered through a garbage disposal. She slapped at it three times before finding the screen and silencing it, then groaned into my shoulder with the enthusiasm of someone who had been woken from the dead against their explicit wishes.
"I hate everything."
Naomi stirred against my right side. Her fingers tightened around mine in a reflexive squeeze that said her body was awake but her brain had not yet accepted that particular reality. The shell necklace had pressed into my chest during the night and left an imprint that would probably look like a hickey from a seashell-themed vampire.
"Five more minutes," Naomi mumbled.
