Page 100 of Home Ice

“The bed’s cherry,” I whispered against his ear. “Whoever made it did honest work. Mortise and tenon at the corners. It doesn’t creak because it can’t.”

“How can you tell mortise and— “ and then his body let go all at once, the last resistance leaving him like a clamp released. I slid home, and there was no sound except for our breathing. We lay there joined in the light, his eyes an inch from mine, both of us panting as if we’d carried something heavy up the stairs.

We found a rhythm together, slow and then faster. I could see it all when the pleasure hit him, and he kept his eyes open the whole time, focused on my face.

Rafe wrapped a hand around the back of my neck. The headboard knocked the wall twice, and we ignored it. The bed didn’t creak, but it could move.

“Close,” I told him.

“Keep your eyes open,” he said.

I came looking at his face, and I stroked him until he came, too.

Afterward, we lay wrecked across the bed, the comforter half on the floor.

We slept in each other’s arms and woke and talked about nothing. He went to the kitchen and brought back water. I drank it while he answered two texts, one from his mother and one from Max.

We got hungry around one and ate standing at his counter. He made chicken salad sandwiches with grocery store chicken salad Varga recommended.

It was nearly three when I noticed the light.

It came in sideways through the living room window, exactly as I’d told Rafe it would. It crossed the floor and climbed the console, and the walnut did what walnut does in low sun. The brown turned deep red.

“Rafe,” I said.

He came out of the kitchen drying his hands, and I nodded at the console, and he stopped.

“You told me about this,” he said. “The day you brought it. You said I’d see it in the summer, because I’m never home at three.”

“You’re home at three.”

Epilogue - Rafe

My choice of suits for Heath and Kieran’s wedding was the one Max’s tailor had made in February. I’d worn it four times now. Niko’s was the Stavros suit from the gala, out of the half of the closet that had been filling up since spring. Niko added clothes one shirt at a time.

Sometime in May we’d stopped pretending the shop apartment was where he lived. He wore the suit like a man who had made his peace with it. Formal clothes were not in his comfort zone.

My phone had been buzzing on the counter since eight.

Varga posted instructions for the day in the team chat. He included a fifteen-minute block at 4:45 labeled TOAST, STAY HYDRATED FOR IT, and below that Rook had added I have not approved draft five, and below that Varga insisted there is no draft five.

“Varga’s built an agenda for the day,” I said.

“Of course he has.” Niko came down the hall with his jacket over one arm. He stopped behind me at the mirror, looked at my tie for a second, and reached past my shoulder to move the knot an eighth of an inch.

“Gift’s in the truck,” he said. “It’s been in the truck for three days.”

“I know. I checked last night.”

“You checked a wrapped box.”

“I checked it was riding right,” I said. “Things shift.”

The morning was already warm on the street. July in Chicago smelled like hot pavement. I backed the truck out of its parking spot and pointed us toward the northwest suburbs. Niko told me what Ma had said on the phone that morning, which was that having a yard wedding in July was brave, and that she was sending a dish with Max even though nobody had asked her to.

“What’s the dish?”

“Spanakopita. Two trays. She said one’s for the table and one’s for you.”