Chapter Forty-Seven
Jessica
After viewing the house on Morning View Drive, Alan, Ruthie, and I went to the bakery for some coffee and pastries.
I took Ruthie to Lainey’s office, then came back out to sit across from Alan at a table near the kitchen door.
“How’d it go?” Lainey asked as she set my cinnamon roll and Alan’s croissant down on the table.
“I loved it,” I confessed as I unrolled my napkin from the silverware and put it in my lap. “It was so bright and cheery, with lots of floor to ceiling windows that let the light in. And the kitchen… it’s perfect. It has amenities I didn’t even know existed!”
Alan had smiled patiently when I’d gasped every time the realtor pointed out something. I suppose being a builder, he knew all about extras and upgrades.
“That’s great! So did you make a decision, or do you want to look at other places first?”
Alan answered, “We get the keys tomorrow.” He’d signed a six-month lease right there at the kitchen counter and transferred the money already.
“We’re going to be neighbors!” Lainey squealed. “Do we get to go furniture shopping, too?”
Alan told her, “No, they left most of the furniture for staging, so we’re just going to use that for now. So, other than the nursery furniture, the only thing we need to get right away is a mattress. The one they have feels like plywood.”
I remember I’d gone beet red when Alan had sat on the bed in the primary bedroom and matter-of-factly told the realtor, “No, this won’t work.”
All I’d been able to think was, “Won’t work forwhatexactly?”
Then he’d patted the space next to him and said, “Don’t you agree, babe?”
Babe?
Why did I love that so much?
The second I’d sat down next to him, I understood what he meant. The mattress felt like a slab of concrete. But I’d still been embarrassed to be having the discussion in front of the realtor, knowing she knew that we’d be in the same bed together.
Wouldn’t we?
We hadn’t talked about our sleeping arrangements, but I inferred if we were going to give our marriage a real shot, that meant sharing a bed, and everything that meant.
Lainey grinned. “Besides, you don’t want to start your marriage with a used mattress.”
“That, too,” Alan agreed.
My boss tilted her head as she looked at me. “You’re awfully quiet.”
All this talk about our bed was making me squirm, but I thought I was pretty clever when I replied, “I just keep thinking, when are we going to have time to go mattress and baby furniture shopping?”
That wasn’t a lie.
I’d suggested we just move Ruthie’s crib and changing table from my parents’, but Alan thought we should leave it so they’d have it when they babysat her. I agreed in theory but replacing it before we moved in was another story.
“Do it online,” Lainey replied with a wave of her hand. “They’ll deliver it right to your door within a day. Probably even set everything up, too.”
“Shouldn’t we test out the mattress?”
Alan winked at me. “Oh, we will.”
And, once again, I felt my face burning up, but my stomach was doing somersaults at the idea of what that would be like.
Lainey seemed to ignore Alan’s innuendo and stated, “Most places give you ninety days to try one out, so if it doesn’t work, you can send it back and get a different one.”
