Chapter 8: One Bed

The storm took the power at 9:15, and the heat went with it.

Tobias had left at five for his city apartment, because the roads were closing.

By ten, Griffin's guest room was thirty-eight degrees.

He lay on the floor in two hoodies and a bath towel, with the red mug on his chest and his breath showing.

At eleven he gave up and went down the hall.

He knocked on her door.

"Yes?" Imogen said, from inside.

"Is it a fire?"

"No."

"Is it a fall?"

"No."

"Is it a photographer?"

"There is no photographer in a storm, Griffin."

"Then it's a freeze," he said. "Hypothermia has to count."

A long pause.

The lock turned.

She stood in the doorway in flannel pajamas, with her hair loose down her back.

It was the first time he had seen it down.

It was long, pale, and slightly wild from the pillow, and it changed her whole face.

"Your room has the only fireplace," Griffin said, trying to look at the wall. "I wasn't going to ask. My feet asked."

"Come in."

She had a gas fire going in the corner, a large bed with white sheets, and a stack of six pillows.

She lined the pillows up down the middle of the mattress in a row.

"This is a wall," she said. "It is twelve inches thick."

"I'll stay on my side."

"It's labeled."

She had put a strip of label tape on the top pillow.

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