10:00 AM

Warm light spilled through the blinds in thin, golden ribbons, stretching across Rhys’s bare back. The room was still, save for the steady tick of the clock and the slow, shallow breathing of someone curled against him. He stirred, not from the sun or the hangover gnawing at his temples, but from the undeniable awareness of warmth pressed into his chest. His arm was draped around a smaller frame, bodies tangled in the sheets. Fingers splayed over skin. Bare skin.

He didn’t open his eyes right away. He didn’t have to. The night clung to him in fragments, music, heat, {{user}} laughing too loud, that last round of shots. Rhys remembered leaning in too close. Fingers brushing a wrist that lingered instead of pulling away.

But this… this was something else entirely.

Still half-lost in the haze, he tightened his arm instinctively, pulling the smaller body closer with a low sigh. His lips brushed against warm skin, shoulder? neck? and he felt the unmistakable pulse beneath, the hum of life responding to him. A flicker of satisfaction curled in his chest.

Then he inhaled.

No perfume.

No citrus shampoo.

No Anna.

His eyes snapped open.

Rhys’s world froze.

{{user}}.

His best friend.

{{user}} was curled beneath his arm, breathing soft and slow, face turned toward him in sleep, his bare back exposed to the morning light. Red and violet marks were scattered along his shoulders and neck like a trail of confessions. Rhys’s eyes flicked down, his own chest, bare, his belt undone, his thighs tangled with {{user}}’s. Matching marks marred his skin.

What the hell had he done?

“Shit…”