After that, I’d like to slip each and every tiny pearl button out of its slot to open your shirt to the waist. —Handwritten note from Max to Sophia Max walked out of the shower an hour later to find Morpheus glaring at him from the bed. “What?” he asked, pulling on a pair of jeans and a dark green T-shirt. The cat continued to glare. “I fed you,” Max muttered, glad for the prosaic reality of life for giving him a way out of the memories that had haunted him for over a decade. “Don’t scowl at me because you snarfed it in one minute and now have a stomachache.” Morpheus licked his paw. He was not amused. Deciding not to pet the damn cat right then in case it decided to bite off his hand, he ran a comb through his hair and walked out to the kitchen. Thanks to the grocery shopping he’d done the day he arrived, he had all the ingredients for the dinner he planned to cook for Sophia. “Shouldn’t we focus on the case?” she’d asked before she left his apartment, her eyes huge.
