Chapter 5: One Mattress

Lorne Roark lived in a one-room apartment above a laundromat, and the room had a mattress in it.

That was all.

There was a mattress on the floor, a lamp, one pan, and a box of cheese crackers on the windowsill.

By the door sat a pile of envelopes held down with a stapler.

"It's a temporary arrangement," he said, before I could say anything. "I've been in the city for two weeks."

"You're the CEO."

"I'm aware."

"Of a company with two hundred people."

"One hundred and ninety-nine," he said, "and a woman on a mattress."

I put my duffel bag down on the floor.

Jessamine had come to help me move and had left ten minutes ago, hugging me hard at the door and whispering, "Tell me everything."

I had not planned to tell her everything.

"The bed's yours," Lorne said.

"No, it's yours. It's your apartment."

"You're the guest."

"I'm your wife."

"In a game."

"On the lease," I said, "in spirit."

He rubbed his forehead with two fingers.

"Miss Kettering. Take the mattress."

"No."

"I'll take the floor."

"You'll take the floor in your own home, by choice, for thirty days?"

"I slept on the floor of three different offices last year," he said. "It's very good for the back."

"Why?"

"I'd rather not say."

I looked at him, at the plain navy suit and the cheap steel watch, and at a man who could have taken a hotel for a week and hadn't.

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