Swallow Me Whole novel · Chapter 21 of 24
Chapter 21: Moving Day
"That's the last box," Keeva said, and dropped it on his kitchen floor with a thump.
It said SADIE: BOOKS, SOME OF THEM CRIED ON.
My sister dusted off her hands, looked around at the pile of my life stacked against Ashton's cabinets, and grinned.
"I'm going to go be a nurse at someone for ten hours," she said.
"Do not have sex on the counter. I eat on the counter."
"Goodbye," Ashton said, with great dignity.
"Wait, are you wearing my sweatshirt?" she asked me.
"It's mine now."
"Keep it. You earned it."
She kissed the top of my head, and punched Ashton on the shoulder, and left.
The screen door clapped behind her.
It was four in the afternoon on the last Saturday of August, and the whole duplex was suddenly quiet.
The light slanted through the kitchen window, gold and dusty.
I stood there in a pile of cardboard with my hair in a clip, sweating through a T-shirt.
Looked at the man I was about to live with.
"We should unpack," I said.
"We should."
"Where do you want the boxes?"
"I want them in the hall."
"The hall."
"For about three hours." He caught my wrist in one hand and turned it over, and set his thumb across the pulse. "Come with me."
He led me into the bedroom.
I stopped in the doorway.
The old bed was gone.
In its place stood a new frame of dark oak, wide and low.
It had a tall headboard carved in long clean slats, each one planed and joined and sanded until the wood looked wet.
A bare mattress lay on it, white and new and wrapped in nothing.
"You built this," I said.
"Over three weeks. At night. After you fell asleep."
"You built a bed."
"I built our bed. For the record, that's the first time I've ever said that word."
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of Swallow Me Whole are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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