I snort awake.
A soft, inelegant sound, muffled by the pillow crushed against my face. Waking up is a slow, syrupy creep back into my body. I'm warm. Deeply, stupidly warm, wrapped in linen sheets that smell like lavender and dry sunshine. I try to open my eyes but my lids are lead. With a murmur, I nuzzle deeper into the pillow.
Then my sleep-soggy brain logs two things.
1. The vibration is gone. That constant, low hum of the jet's engines is absent, replaced by a thick, country quiet, broken only by a distant singing bird.
2. This bed. Not like the thick, clinically clean mattress on the plane. But a bed like you see in the movies with a mattress that cradles me and pillows that feel like fucking clouds.
My eyes snap open.
