Warranty Void at Aisle Thirteen

The kiosk paired Noreen Valdez with Sawyer Pritchard by emitting a wedding chime, printing two name badges, and catching fire in the spiritual sense.

“Domestic Harmony Challenge,” announced the showroom host, a woman in a blazer the color of refrigerated ham. “You will assemble a home, embody a marriage, and persuade viewers that joy comes in six hundred numbered pieces.”

Sawyer wore his badge like a medal. Noreen wore hers like a parking citation.

Their apartment was named LÄMNÖ: Urban Nesting Solution. It contained a wardrobe in seventeen boxes, a fake moss wall, one robotic cat, and a tea service waiting on a low table with the sad confidence of a corporate funeral.

The cat activated. Brass eyes lit.

“I am Piston,” it said. “Please refrain from acquiring personality.”

Noreen poured tea. By the time she lifted the cup, it had gone cold enough to shame her.

Then the moss wall breathed out damp potting soil, and she was back at the Tri-County Garden Club Finals, watching Sawyer Pritchard accept second place beside her prize-winning cabbage: a magnificent green cannonball that had beaten his ornamental shrub pyramid by three points and a judge’s suspicious fondness for brassicas.

“You brought the cabbage?” Sawyer asked, spotting it in her tote.

“It has more character than the furnishings.”

“Low bar.”

His forearm flashed as he reached for a box cutter, the crescent scar pale against his skin. Everybody knew the story: runaway hedge trimmer, rogue extension cord, Sawyer trying to save a topiary peacock from becoming a topiary accident.

“You still have that?” she asked.

“You still have that cabbage?”

“Answering a question with a question is cowardice.”

“Surviving a hedge trimmer is bravery.”

“Entering a chrysanthemum into a vegetable category was madness.”

“It won,” he said.

“It disgraced agriculture.”

They built with the fury of two people assembling a divorce settlement. Screws vanished. A shelf appeared backward. Piston judged each mistake with a red blink.

“Marital compatibility: forty-one percent,” it announced. “You share an aptitude for spite.”

Then the wardrobe rose, tilted, and came down like a wooden tyrant.

Sawyer shoved Noreen clear, except clear turned out to mean trapped beneath him amid pamphlets that read CONFLICT IS A STORAGE OPPORTUNITY.

His face hovered close. The old cockiness had cracked open; beneath it sat something warmer, more dangerous.

“This is not competitive,” Noreen said.

“No,” he said. “It’s extremely inconvenient.”

She hooked a hand behind his neck and kissed him before either could make a joke. His mouth answered with startling care. Her blouse buttons gave way under eager hands; his shirt followed, flung across instruction sheets promising a lifetime of ergonomic contentment.

“Still willing?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. “Stop asking like a pamphlet.”

He laughed, then kissed her again. Noreen pushed his jeans down, took him in hand, and watched bravado leave him in a splendid rush. When he touched her beneath her skirt, his thumb found the place that made her hips rise against him. He kept watching her face, waiting, listening.

“Here?” he asked.

“Here.”

She drew him over her, guided him inside, and the ridiculous showroom vanished beneath the hard, sweet rhythm they found together. Cardboard crackled. The cold tea tipped over. Sawyer said her name like it had won something. Noreen clutched at his shoulders, laughed once when Piston rolled over a stray screw, then pulled Sawyer closer until pleasure broke through her in bright, helpless pulses.

Piston’s brass eyes narrowed.

“Marital compatibility score: zero,” it announced. “Structural integrity compromised.”

Sawyer looked toward the display bed, which had begun to judder against the wall.

“Then why is the bed shaking?”

“Because it knows a healthy relationship when it sees one,” Noreen said.

The bed stopped shaking with a final metallic cough. A red lamp over the showroom door began spinning. Across the display floor, the host in ham-colored tailoring lifted both arms.

“Final round,” she declared. “We are live in ten.”

Noreen stared at their ripped instructions, overturned tea, and Sawyer’s shirt draped over Piston like a flag of surrender. On the nearest monitor, their compatibility score performed a slow, vicious zero.

“We will be publicly ridiculous,” she said.

Sawyer fastened his jeans, then held out his scarred forearm. The crescent caught the showroom glare.

“Remember the peacock?”

“I remember you losing to a cabbage.”

“I remember eleven stitches, a lawn chair wrapped round my ankle, and a judge asking whether blood improved the symmetry.” His grin returned, brave and crooked. “I entered it anyway. Called it Abstract Bird After Revolution. Came second.”

“You always come second.”

“Not today.” He lowered his arm. “Noreen, embarrassment is just gardening where everybody owns a microphone.”

That landed where it had no business landing. She laughed, sharp and delighted. Then she pulled the cabbage from her tote and set it in the center of the dining table.

“Let’s give them a home,” she said, “they can’t return.”

The cameras arrived to find LÄMNÖ reborn as domestic truth with a price tag. One shelf listed north because Sawyer had installed it upside down. Dead plastic ferns stood in a row, their gray leaves arranged like disappointed accountants. The tea sat cold in its cup beside a baby monitor that Piston had commandeered.

“Caregiver alert,” Piston announced through the monitor. “Your adult guardians lack load-bearing judgment.”

The host beamed at the lens. “And how do our newlyweds maintain harmony?”

Sawyer placed an arm around Noreen’s shoulders. “Through frank communication, shared goals, and quarterly cabbage reviews.”

“Also,” Noreen said, “we do not purchase furniture that requires a blood oath.”

Piston beeped. “Correction: they did purchase furniture. They forfeited dignity.”

A hundred little heart icons stormed across the producer’s screen. Their score climbed: twelve, forty-six, seventy-nine. The rival couples in their spotless fake homes looked horrified. Noreen felt grand. Let them be horrified. Her cabbage had beaten perfection once already.

The cameras died in the middle of Sawyer’s rehearsal line.

“Welcome home, beloved wife, let us—”

Every lamp blinked out. The rivals fled toward the emergency exit, clutching matching throw cushions. Piston’s eyes remained lit, smug as brass.

In the finished bedroom, the bed waited squarely on all four feet. Noreen shut the door, faced Sawyer, and felt suddenly free of the audience, the score, the entire tyrannical showroom.

“Are you choosing this,” she asked, “or are you performing?”

“You, plainly.” He stepped closer. “Are you?”

“Yes. Plainly.”

His hand cupped her cheek before his mouth met hers. She opened his shirt, kissed the old scar, then pulled him with her onto the bed. He undid her blouse with patient attention, pausing whenever she changed course, and his mouth made her laugh when he solemnly asked whether she consented to “optional lumbar support.”

“I consent to you shutting up and continuing.”

He did. His hand slipped beneath her skirt, found her ready for him, and worked with slow skill until her laugh became a broken sound. “More,” she told him. “Please.”

He shifted between her thighs. “Tell me.”

“Inside me.”

She guided him in, held his eyes, and rode the first careful thrust until the whole absurd room narrowed to their bodies and the creak of the properly assembled bed. He moved with her, steady then hungry, calling her name without a joke at last. Pleasure gathered, urgent and bright; she clung to him and came apart with a cry that made Piston outside announce, “User satisfaction detected.”

Sawyer laughed against her shoulder, then followed her over the edge, his body slackening as he held her close.

At the award ceremony, the host presented them a laminated certificate for Most Marketable Domestic Authenticity. Piston rolled onto the stage and read its verdict.

“Display structurally unsafe,” it said. “Emotionally marketable. Warranty void.”

Sawyer looked at Noreen, cabbage tucked beneath one arm, certificate under the other.

“Should we be worried?”

Noreen took his hand and smiled. “Read the warranty, darling.”