Morning crept gently into the Ashbrook home, slow and honey-warm, the sunlight filtering through the curtains in thin golden ribbons that moved with every shift of the breeze. The world outside was still quiet, the street muted, the distant hum of early traffic soft enough to be mistaken for a dream. Inside, the house carried a peaceful stillness, that unique hush that followed storms which had finally passed.
It didn’t feel like the kind of morning that rushed you awake.
It felt like the kind that asked you to breathe.
Ryan had been awake long before the sun fully rose.
Sleep had only come to him in fragments, brief, shallow pieces scattered between long moments of lying awake and watching the woman beside him. Every time he shifted, even slightly, Eve’s soft breath or the memory of t
