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“You can sleep on the couch.” For a moment, I think she might stamp her feet.
“This is my apartment.”
“It’s also your stupid narrative,” she snaps.
“Well, I’m not sleeping on the couch. I’m too long for it.”
“Well, I’m not sleeping on the couch because there are no blinds!”
“What’s wrong? You worried someone might see you in my jimjams?”
“Why are you being so unreasonable?” she almost cries.
“Come with me.” I grab her hand and make for the good side of the apartment.
“I really hate it when you do this,” she grumbles from behind me. “Your legs are twice the length of mine.”
Suddenly, I want to test her hypothesis. I shut that shit down.
“In here,” I say, tugging her into my room. Another room that’s sparsely furnished but for my bed. A bed fit for a king. A modern-day king, none of that canopied shit. “This is the alternative.” I shove my hands into my pockets. It wouldn’t do to shake her.
“Your bed?” Her tone is one of utter disbelief. “You want me to sleep in your bed?”
“Let me twirl my dastardly mustache in celebration of getting you here.” Like an asshole, I do just that. “You got me. I set this whole thing up—got you to marry me, then hired in a crew of actors just to get you into this.” I point at my bed.
“But . . . You . . . I . . . We can’t.”
“It’s the couch or one-half of this huge fucking bed.” Probably should’ve kept the fucking out of it. “Until we can sort something else out.”
“Like moving out?”
“Like a camp bed in the office.”
“I just don’t understand. You could afford to book suites at every hotel in Manhattan—why would you make this so difficult?”
“Maybe because I’m difficult.”
“Is this some kind of punishment?”
“Not everything is about you,” I retort. Home is important. And home, if you’re not careful, can prove to be temporary. My home is my everything. But I can’t say any of that shit because it makes no sense—I own a goddamn property portfolio! I’m still not moving out.
“I know that.” Her small voice makes me feel like a prick.
“I’m staying. You do you.” Maybe I am a prick.
“That’s not an explanation.”
My jaw flexes. “I don’t owe you one.”
“Well, I’m not sleeping on the couch.” Something inside me unclenches as her eyes stray to the bed with genuine concern. “And I’m not sleeping here.”
“Bathtub it is, then.”
“You’re not even funny,” she mutters, dropping to sit on the edge of the bed.
I lift my eyes to the window because I’d rather be looking down her dress. “Says the girl who promised me a dress made from Pringles tubes.”
“You’re ridiculous,” she grumbles, her fingers straightening a wrinkle in the shiny fabric of her dress.
