Page 100 of One Adult, Please

"Everyone's asleep."

"Kevin could see."

Grant laughs, soft and warm against my mouth. "Kevin's in the reinforced goat stall. I locked him in. On purpose."

"You locked Kevin in somewhere?"

"He ate the emergency seed supply yesterday. He's in time out."

"Kevin doesn't recognize time out."

"He recognizes locked doors." Grant's hands tighten slightly on my waist.

"Can we go somewhere with walls. Somewhere Gregory can't press his terrible vacation face against the acrylic and ruin my life. Somewhere I can..." I stop. Start again. "Somewhere I can let go."

His eyes move over my face. Whatever he sees makes his expression soften. "The rescue center," he says. "There's a back room. Storage. It has a lock."

I nod. He squeezes my hand. Once. Gentle.

We walk to the rescue center. I don't fall.

The storage room is small. Concrete floor. Metal shelving along the walls. Bags of animal feed stacked in the corner. A narrow window near the ceiling lets in the light from outside, casting everything in that same blue-green glow.

Grant closes the door, locks it, and turns to face me.

We stand there for a moment. Looking at each other. The space between us feels electric.

"We don't have to do anything," Grant says. "We can just…"

"I want to."

He crosses to me. His hands find my face, cupping my jaw, tilting my head back. He kisses me deeper this time. His hands move down my neck. Over my shoulders. Down my arms. He takes my wrists gently, brings them up, places my hands on his chest.

"Touch me," he says against my mouth. "I want you to touch me too."

I touch him through his shirt, over the fabric, feeling the warmth of his skin and the beat of his heart. I start working his buttons open. I'm clumsy, but he stands still while I fumble with each button, letting me unwrap him at whatever pace I can manage.

His shirt opens. He shrugs it off and lets it drop and I put my palms flat against his bare chest and feel him breathe. He's got more scars than I expected. Thin white lines on his ribs and a larger one on his shoulder and something on his hip that disappears below his waistband.

I trace the scars, following the lines of old hurts. "What's this one?"

"Cassowary. Australia. 2015." His voice is rough. "I was between her and her chick."

"This one?" I trace the one on his shoulder.

"Fence. Climbing into an enclosure I shouldn't have been in to get to an injured wallaby."

"And this?" The thin white line on his ribs.

"Kevin's predecessor. A goat named Lucifer. The name was accurate."

I lean forward and press my mouth to the cassowary scar.

Grant's whole body goes taut beneath my lips. I kiss each scar. His breathing gets rougher with each touch.

When I reach the waistband of his pants, I look up. "Can I?"

"Yes. God, yes."