I woke up and knew exactly where I was.
That was the new thing.
For as long as I could remember — through cities and food trucks and rogue years and seventeen different addresses — I woke up and spent several seconds assembling the answer to *where am I* from environmental clues. Smell, light quality, the particular give of whatever I was sleeping on. The answer always required work.
This time it didn't.
This time I knew before I was fully conscious. Because the answer was not a location. It was a person — the warmth of him, the steadiness of his breathing, the specific smell of cedar and smoke that had been the first thing I'd noticed about his coat and that I now associated with *safe* in the deepest, least rational part of me.
Darius was awake.
He'd been awake for a while, I thoug
