Chapter 8: Who Are the Four

The morning after the kiss, Lorne made me coffee, and I knew something was wrong.

He didn't own a coffee maker.

He had walked to the laundromat's vending machine, bought a can of cold brew, poured it into a pan and heated it.

"It's coffee," he said, and held the pan out with both hands.

"Thank you," I said.

We were both being so careful that I wanted to scream.

I drank the coffee from the pan.

"About last night," he began.

"It was for the chat."

"It was very good for the chat."

"The chat," said Lorne, "is up to four hundred and ten thousand."

That was the number I needed to hear, and it still landed badly.

"That's great," I said.

I went to work and sat down at my desk, and found that eleven of us were standing in a ring around the QA corner.

They weren't working.

A tester from compatibility was crying into a mug. Two of the juniors had boxes already.

Everyone looked at me.

"Is it true?" one of them said. "That four of us stay?"

I had not told anyone he'd said four.

He had said it to the whole room on his first morning. It was in my head every hour.

"I don't know," I said.

"You live with him."

"I live with a mattress."

"You'd know," said somebody at the back. "He's your husband."

I found Lorne in the supply room, with the door open and a stack of papers in front of him.

I put my hands flat on his desk.

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