May 6, 2440 5:00 AM
Eric did not like waking up early at the best of times, and those had ended sometime in his early twenties. At much too close to forty, going to bed after midnight and waking at 5:00 a.m. meant he was going to need a siesta later.
He checked his watch again and wondered whether V’ren engineers could create an alarm that worked on Filipino time. He had little hope Maggie was upstairs making breakfast, so he sat up, pulled on his robe, and hoped sliding out of bed to start the day would not make his body say, The fuck you are.
He pulled out two smoothie cups and two travel cups, set the travel cups in front of the coffee maker, and pressed the go button. Then he looked through the smoothie supplies in the cabinet.
One thing he had learned about V’ren biology the night before was that they ran hot and needed extra calories. He added an extra scoop of coconut oil, extra walnuts, and an extra scoop of protein powder. One cup got a scoop of his green powder, the other a scoop of Maggie’s, which she had told him was a girl blend when she started their morning smoothie routine at barely twelve.
He figured that if it was good enough for his sixteen-year-old eldest daughter, it ought to be fine for Tell.
He splashed green tea from the fridge over the chia in both cups to let it do its thing while he started in on his first coffee. Then he slid another pod into the machine and added another cup.
Eric wasn’t sure there was any benefit to taking a cold shower while drinking hot coffee beyond efficiency, but by 5:40 he was standing at Tell’s door, clean and moderately caffeinated, with smoothies and more coffee in a carrier.
She looked as good with her hair slightly tousled from sleep as she had when he left the night before.
He had wanted to kiss her then.
He wanted to kiss her now.
