Chapter 5: One Bed

"Then he won't," I said.

"Neely."

"What does a sham marriage look like to a judge?"

He was quiet on the line.

"Separate addresses," he said finally. "Separate lives. No ring."

I looked at the plastic ring.

"What's your address?"

"You're not serious."

"I'm a roofer. I'm always serious about addresses."

Tuesday after work, I parked my truck on Jones Street with two duffel bags.

The carriage house sat at the back of a brick courtyard.

A white-haired widow watched me from her kitchen window. She raised her teacup.

Thatcher opened the door before I knocked.

He'd changed out of his county shirt into a gray T-shirt.

"It's small," he said.

"I live in a garage half the time."

One room downstairs with a kitchen along one wall and a sagging leather armchair.

A narrow staircase went up to a loft.

"Bedroom's up there," he said. "I'll take the chair."

"Your feet will hang off it."

I kicked off my steel-toe boots by his door. They landed next to his work boots, a little crooked.

He stared at them.

"What?" I said.

"Nothing." He cleared his throat. "Nobody's left boots there before."

He made coffee.

He poured me a mug. I drank some.

It tasted like a burned tire.

"That's the worst coffee I've ever had," I said.

"It's strong."

"It's a crime. You work at a courthouse. Arrest yourself."

He took my mug and drank from it himself. He made a face.

"Huh," he said. "It is bad."

"How long have you been drinking this?"

"Three years."

I laughed so hard I had to sit down in his armchair.

He stood in his own kitchen with my mug and watched me, and slowly started to smile.

The loft had one bed.

Not a big one, either. A double, with a blue quilt and a window over it that looked onto the courtyard.

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