Page 5 of Body Count

He’d be here all day, I thought.He’d be in the house all day, the way he was every day.He’d work in the third bedroom we’d turned into his office, even though it was Sunday.Then he’d stop, and he’d work in the yard instead.And every time he moved, it would be this: the hammering steps, the slamming doors, like living with an angry ghost who, no matter what you tried, you just couldn’t make go the fuck away.

Even in the dark, I closed my eyes.Exhaustion warped my sense of balance.I felt like I was falling or drifting or something.Then I opened them again and took off the shorts and the shirt.I reached for the light switch.Instead, though, I opened the door; the ambient light from the kitchen was enough for me to pick out a pair of jeans and a gray oxford.I was cuffing the sleeves when he came back from rage-laundering and stared at me through the doorway.

I glanced at the clothes on the floor and said, “They’re clean.”

He hadn’t combed his hair.It was flattened on one side from where he’d slept on it.A little shaggy, maybe.Needing a trim.

“Something wrong?”I asked.

He stared at me a moment longer, and then his steps carried him out of sight.I took a pair of socks from the dresser.They were all there, clean and folded and organized by color.As I sat on the bed to pull them on, water ran in the kitchen.And then the coffee pot made a chiming noise when it bumped something.A headache was starting deep inside my skull, a combination of exhaustion and a hangover.

Darnell’s stride came back toward the room.When he reached the doorway, he said, “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

It was hard, meeting his eyes.

“Where were you?”he asked.

I pulled on one sock.Then the other.His breaths were shaky.God, I thought, don’t cry.

I said, “When we agreed to have an open relationship—”

“When we agreed,” he said.

After a moment, I started again.“When we agreed, we said that we weren’t going to do this.We weren’t going to make it a thing.”

The bubbling sound of the coffeemaker rose.

“When we agreed,” he finally said, “you said you were going to come home.”

“I—”

He slapped the doorjamb.“Where were you?”

It was too hot for the oxford, I decided.I started unbuttoning it.

“We agreed on rules,” Darnell said.“Nobody we know.Nobody with a partner.No staying out all night.”His voice softened, and that was even worse.“You come home, Gray.”

I let the shirt fall to the floor and found a polo in one of the drawers.I pulled it on.He was still looking at me.

“Is the coffee ready?”I asked.

“If the rules aren’t working, then maybe we need to talk about this again.”

I slipped past him into the kitchen.“I’ve got to go to work.”

“Sure you do.On a Sunday.”

The coffee was still dripping.My sneakers were on the tray by the back door, so I stepped into them.

He was still looking at me.

“Anything else?”I asked.

“What am I supposed to do?Make threats?Yell?”

“You can do whatever you want.”

He laughed and rubbed his eyes.“Okay.”But when I turned the handle on the back door, he said, “Nobody can keep doing this forever.”

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