Page 122 of Empty Net

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Tonight he sounds like a man offering water.

"Yes."

He brings me a glass. I drink half of it. Set it down.

Then I take his face in both hands.

He goes very still.

"Nolan."

"I don't want to leave my body alone with this either," I say.

His eyes change.

"This is not like last night," I say.

"No."

"I am not trying to outrun it."

"Okay."

"I want you."

His breath catches. "Okay."

"And I want to stay after."

The catch becomes something else.

There are sentences more intimate than touch. This is one of them.

He kisses me first.

Not hard. Not careful. Both. His hands come to my wrists, holding me holding him, and for a long moment we stand in the entryway kissing like we have nowhere to be and nothing to prove and every reason to take our time.

In the bedroom, the light stays on.

This matters too.

Not bright. Lamp on the dresser. Warm light. Enough to see him. Enough to be seen.

Caleb undresses me slowly, not because I am breakable and not because grief requires ceremony, but because there is no hurry. I undress him with hands that know more than they did the first time in this room. The scar on his hip from college hockey. The place behind his ribs that makes him inhale sharply. The way he tilts his head when I say his name and mean it as a promise rather than a handhold.

"Caleb."

He closes his eyes.

"Look at me," I say.

His eyes open.

There. My words. My choice.

The sex is quiet.

Not silent.

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