The smell of toast and brewed coffee drifts up the hallway before I even open my eyes. Mum’s voice comes a second later—soft, teasing through the half-open door. “Morning, lovebirds. There’s fresh things downstairs if you want breakfast.” I groan and bury my face into the pillow, but I can already hear him chuckling beside me. He’s always awake before me—somehow. When I peek over, he’s lying on his back, hair messy, eyes half-open and sleepy but smiling like he’s been waiting for me to look at him. “Fresh things,” he says in a mock-posh tone, voice rough from sleep. “That’s your mum’s way of saying pancakes, yeah?” “Probably,” I mumble, rolling closer until my head rests on his shoulder. He’s warm, and I can feel his heartbeat against my cheek. This is our favourite kind of morning—the slow ones. No rushing to get somewhere, no alarms except Mum’s gentle voice and the sun sneaking through the curtains. We stay like that for a while, whispering about nothing. He tells me my hair looks ridiculous, I tell him his does too. He stretches an arm out and starts playing with the ends of mine anyway, and I can’t help smiling into his shirt. Eventually, he nudges me. “Come on, let’s go before your brother eats everything again.” Downstairs, Mum’s already setting plates. She beams when she sees him—like she’s got an extra son. “Morning, sweetheart,” she says, kissing his head before mine. He blushes every time, and I tease him about it later. We eat pancakes and fruit, both half-asleep but grinning across the table. My dad pops his head in, says something about how we’re becoming like an old married couple, and honestly, I don’t think he’s wrong. Because we kind of are. We do everything together. Shopping runs that turn into singing in the car with the windows down. Family dinners where he’s setting the table before anyone asks. Sleepovers that start with movies and end with us whispering about dreams and future plans we’re not sure we’ll ever outgrow. My mum calls me “sweetheart,” and my dad asks for his help in the garden like he’s already part of the family. At school, people know us—not because we’re popular, but because we just… fit. We’re the couple who hold hands walking across the courtyard, who sit with a group that’s sort of popular but not really, because in year eleven no one really knows who counts anymore. He brings me flowers sometimes—tiny ones he picks from the park near his house—and I always make sure to give him an extra kiss during the day, just because I can. It’s simple. It’s soft. It’s ours. And when he looks at me across the breakfast table, with syrup on his fingers and a sleepy grin that could melt anyone, I know—this is the kind of love people write stories about. The quiet kind. The one that doesn’t need to be loud to feel real. The one that just feels like home.