Marlowe
The east wing had turned into something dangerously close to a real home over the past several days, and I only fully realized it when I caught myself arguing with King about the thermostat for the fourth morning running and actually enjoying it.
"Sixty-eight," he said, hand already on the dial.
"Sixty-eight is a war crime."
"Sixty-eight is efficient."
"Sixty-eight is how old people die in their sleep, King." I nudged past him and turned it back up two degrees, and he let me, which was somehow the most damning part of the whole ritual — a man who ran an entire motorcycle club through sheer force of will, conceding a thermostat argument to a prospect every single morning like it cost him nothing at all.
A knock at the outer door interrupted whatever comeback he'd been building
