Page 57 of Brash for It
She leaves it open on the table like a note to the future.I read it without pretending I didn’t.Something in my chest does a dangerous thing.I let it.
We make our way out to face the day and for once I am excited to come home tonight.
“Ride or SUV?”I present her options.
“Bike,” she replies, immediately.“It makes everything in my head clear up.”
“Helmet,” I order, and hand it over.She takes it, putting it on with practiced ease.
At the spa, I walk her in because I want to and because there’s a coil in me that still listens for trouble.
I leave Kristen at the desk with her tote in its place and a little jar of mints that she keeps refilling even though people take five at a time like they’re stealing coins or some shit.She looks up as I step backward toward the door.I tip my chin.She tips hers.It’s a small salute and it says a stupid amount more between us.
Back on the bike, the engine shakes the last of the sleep out of my forearms and I head toward the shop.The road runs under me in friendly stripes.I pass the bridge and think of steam and her skin.I pass the turn to his neighborhood and don’t take it because we’re not living there.I pass the PO box and grin like an idiot at metal doors because I know which one of them holds the life she’s building.A life I want to be part of.
At lunch I get a text.
Kristen:Bridal party is a lively crew.Trina says she’d rather rebuild an engine at the shop with you than talk about 3D bows on nails again.You?
I write back:Camaro tried to best me.Found the wire shorting out.I win.
She sends a wrench emoji and a heart.I don’t ask how to interpret it.I put my phone face-down and go back to work with a stupid calm I can’t blame on coffee, sleep, or the peace I find in fixing a car.
By four, I’ve got the camera boxed and in my saddlebag.I swing by the spa and climb a ladder while Kristen stands below with her palm on my calf like a spotter.I want to laugh because at five feet one inch maybe two in shoes, she’s not catching my six feet four inch frame.But it’s cute she cares.
We run the wire, check the angle on her phone, watch the door paint into the tiny screen.“There,” I say.She marks a check in the notebook with a flourish like she’s signing a declaration.
On the porch that night we eat a simple pork chop dinner.We talk about nothing for an hour and everything for five minutes and then nothing again.It feels like a tune I want to hear on repeat.
When we go to bed, she doesn’t hesitate.She climbs into my space like she owns it because truth be told she owns me.I reach out, hook my arm across her and feel the room click into its best version of itself as she falls into place.
“Mind, body, soul,” she says into the dark, like she’s checking the inventory.“That was the line.”
“Still is,” I answer.
“You got it,” she whispers.“We’re good.”
She’s asleep in minutes.I stay awake a little longer, listening for the noise that used to pace the floorboards of my head.It doesn’t show.If it ever does again, I know what to do with it now: put it on a bike, ride it out until the only thing left is wind and a woman who pressed closer when I told her she should go.
It’s not complicated.It’s commitment the way I understand it.
I’ll be where I said I’d be.
I’ll tell you the truth.
I’ll show you the rest.
The map on the wall is still the same map.I’m just not looking at it alone anymore.
I close my eyes with her weight right where it belongs, and for the second time in as many nights, I fall asleep before the AC finishes its next breath.
Fourteen
Kristen
The first timeI catch my reflection that morning, it’s too late.
I’m at the front desk of the spa, computer already humming, when I lean forward to answer the phone and catch a glimpse of my neck in the shiny black screen.The mark is dark, high, blooming just under the angle of my jaw.
