Page 160 of Dark King Daddy

“It wobbles. I put my phone on it last night and it slid six inches to the left.”

“I’ll fix the nightstand. I’ll replace the chair. I’ll clear this room and you can set it up however you want. Where does the desk go?”

“Under the window. Obviously.”

“The radiator is under the window.”

“The radiator is under the left side of the window. The desk goes on the right. Anyone with spatial awareness can see—”

“Show me.”

I stood up. He stepped into the room. We stood together in the center of the small space.

“First,” I said, “the chair goes.”

“We’re agreed on the chair.”

I grabbed one arm. He grabbed the other. We lifted it—it was heavier than it looked, dense and ugly and constructed from what felt like compressed disappointment—and carried it into the hallway. We set it against the wall.

“That felt ceremonial,” I said.

“Amen.”

We went back in. Daniil moved the boxes of Lev’s files to the hallway—three trips, efficient, stacking them neatly against the opposite wall. I picked up the broken lamp and carried it out. The room emptied. The space opened. The window light fell across bare floorboards and clean walls and the particular possibility of a room that had been nothing and was about to become something.

“Desk under the window,” I said. I stood with my back to the wall and extended my arms, measuring. “Here. The plan chest goes against that wall—the long one. My reference shelf beside the door. The drafting lamp on the desk.”

“Where does the good chair go?”

“Under the desk. Where chairs go.”

“You have strong opinions about chairs.”

“I have strong opinions about everything. You married me. You should have read the fine print.”

He looked at me. The room was empty. The light was good. The radiator clanked once and fell silent. We stood in the cleared space and it felt good.

I reached for him. My hand found the front of his shirt. I pulled him toward me—not hard, not urgent, with the slow, deliberate pull of a woman who had just admitted she had been living as though this might end and had decided, standing in an empty room with good light, that it wouldn’t.

His hands found my waist. I kissed him before he could say anything else about chairs.

He made a small, amused sound against my mouth, and I kept hold of his shirt.

“I’ll call the building manager at Pioneer Street tomorrow,” I said, against his mouth.

“Good.”

“I want the drafting table by Friday.”

“Friday.”

“And the plan chest. And the books. And the lamp. And the chair.”

He kissed me again. His thumb traced the line of my jaw. The empty room held us in its bare, clean, uncluttered space, and I thought: this is mine now. This room. This house. This man. This life that I had been circling without landing in, treating as provisional, keeping my things packed for—just in case. Just in case it ended. Just in case he changed. Just in case the fear was right and the love was wrong.

I was done packing.

The blue dress was not new. I had bought it two years ago for an architect’s show that I had attended alone and left early. It was navy silk, simple, cut close through the bodice and falling straight from the hip. I had not worn it since. I put it on and I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror and I thought: tonight I am having a date with my husband, and he is going to court me, and we are dressing for it, and the Voronins can wait.