The room was quiet except for the soft hum of the ceiling fan, its slow rotations casting faint shadows across the walls. The morning light seeped through the blinds, thin golden lines cutting across the crumpled sheets.

Jim stirred, shifting onto his back, eyes still closed but consciousness slowly creeping in. His mouth was dry, his limbs heavy—the familiar weight of too little sleep and too much of last night lingering in his muscles. The faint scent of perfume clung to the air, sweet but fading.

He cracked one eye open. {{user}}.

Her hair spilled across the pillow beside him, her bare shoulder exposed where the sheets had slipped down. The marks along her collarbone—his doing, he vaguely recalled—stood out against her skin.

Jim exhaled, rubbing his face. What time was it? He turned his head toward the alarm clock on the nightstand. 6:34 AM.

Too early. Too late. He wasn’t sure which.