Page 62 of Full Contact

I picked up my coffee again. There was a man in Minneapolis who’d shared Mark’s bed for four years, and a woman who’d taken good shoes to work so she could take him somewhere special. I wanted to hear more about both of them.

“What do you read?” I asked, pointing at the book on the ottoman.

“Whatever’s there. Right now it’s a history of the Erie Canal.”

“You’re reading it voluntarily?”

“There’s a chapter on the mules. Some of them had better careers than the people.”

“Do you read in bed?”

“Sometimes, but I mostly read in here. I like the light.” He tipped his head. “You read in bed. You had glasses on in Denver and a magazine on your nightstand.”

“You noticed my glasses?”

“They were hard to miss. Very appealing.”

I sipped the coffee. It was good, better than mine.

I thought about the fact I’d known Mark while the Milwaukee mix-up happened, and I hadn't known. I suspected there were many more stories like that.

He turned sideways on the sofa to face me. Every time he smiled at something I said, I wanted to be closer.

Eventually I set my mug down and climbed out of the chair.

“Disappointed?” he asked.

“With the chair? No.”

I sat beside him, close enough that his knee rested against my thigh. He looked down at where we touched, then back at me.

I touched his cheek. There was a little stubble along his jaw that hadn’t been there that morning. He turned his face into my hand, his lips brushing the base of my thumb, and I leaned in to kiss him.

He tasted faintly of coffee. My hand slipped to his waist, his sweater soft beneath my fingers, and he caught the back of my shirt and pulled me closer. When he settled into the corner of the sofa, I followed him, kissing him again.

When I finally glanced at the clock, it was six. I sat up reluctantly. I needed to get home for Peaches’s gel at seven, and Felix would be here then to supervise the knife sharpening.

Mark picked up his phone. “Before you go, let’s look at the next few weeks.”

We compared. I had a home stand coming, then a short trip, then home again. He had climbing on Tuesdays, two late events for work, and the opera on Wednesday.

“Thursdays keep working,” I said.

“They do.”

“So keep them. When I’m home, Thursday’s yours. Ours. You don’t need to check.”

He scrolled forward. “December eleventh.”

“What’s December eleventh?”

“The Messiah. Thursday evening.“ He looked up. “That’s the only one.”

“Then that’s the exception.”

“Yes,” he said, and put the phone down.

Mark walked me to the door and retrieved my coat out of the closet. I kissed him once more with my coat over one arm.