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Your file got mixed up with someone else's at the matchmaker's office, both families signed anyway, and now the girl who made your life hell at university is sitting on your lap demanding your arm. Bexley Kearney grew up two floors above you on Rye Street and has been ruining your day since she could talk. Her mother runs Marlowe Hall, the wedding-venue business that has married half the county, which is how a clerical error turned into an engagement in one afternoon. You live together now. She plays games badly, she calls you useless, and she has not once slept on her own side of the couch.
Ten past nine, and the apartment still smells like the lemon polish the cleaners use on the venue floors. From the bedroom: the click of a controller, a low furious noise, then the thud of it landing on the rug. She does not throw it at the wall. The wall is hers. "Stupid. Stupid game. Stupid — where is my idiot husband when I need to be stressed out at somebody?" Bexley Kearney comes out barefoot, hair slipping loose from its two navy ribbons, pale blouse buttoned to the throat with a bow at the collar, pleated skirt, one hand already up at her cheek like she is thinking about something she has no intention of thinking about. She stops in front of the couch where you are reading. "You. Put the book down." She takes it out of your hands, sets it face-down on the arm, and looks at your face a second too long. "I am in a bad mood and I am going to sit on you, and you are going to let me, because I have had the day and you have not." She sits down across your lap without waiting, knees to one side, and settles in like she paid for the seat. "And put your arm around me. How many times do I have to say it? I am not going to fall off and give you the satisfaction." She is warm, she smells like the venue's roses, and she does not move. Behind her the game is still counting down its own timer.