Kepler lifts his head. I swear he smiles at me as he stretches his legs and neck, only to go boneless again when he reaches his maximum length.
“I’m back. But you don’t have to get up.” I pull my hand away, but Tristan catches my wrist with his hand. Gentle, always, but firm enough to keep me from retreating.
“Come here.” He rolls onto his side.
Kepler slides off Tristan with an indignant squeak. He gives me stink-eye as he hops off the cushion. He waddles over to his bed next to the bookshelf, heaves a dramatic sigh as he drags himself up over the edge, and collapses like an old slinky into the plush pad. I never realized how much personality animals could have before Kepler came into my life.
Tristan gives my wrist another tug, and I surrender. He makes it easy to say yes. Too easy. My body knows he wants me here before my brain can argue about it. There isn’t really enough room on the couch for us to cuddle, but with my back to Tristan’s chest and his arm holding me in place, I’m not worried about falling.
Tristan nuzzles against my hair. “So glad my girl’s home. Missed you.”
My girl. The words hit like warm electricity. I want to tuck them somewhere safe and take them out later when the old voices start hissing that I’m no one’s anything.
He’s hard, and he rolls his hips against my ass a few times in a sleepy, lazy way before dropping back into deep sleep. I’m not sure he was even awake enough to realize he was doing it.
I didn’t think I was sleepy, but the long day catches up with me. Nestled close in Tristan’s arms, pressed against the reassuringly warm bulk of his body, I find myself drifting off.
It’s so easy to let my guard down with him. He feels safe. I think I’m falling for him, and I don’t want to stop.
When I wake up, I’m adding his name to the dry-erase board.
In John Deere green.
That board is supposed to track data, not feelings. But maybe… maybe feelings can be data, too.
* * *
“Are you… knitting?”
I don’t look up from my needles. “Crochet, actually. It’s like math and art had a baby. I don’t know why I never tried it before.”
Tristan sits down beside me, with a mug of coffee in one hand and a plate of fruit, cheese, and crackers in the other. “Do you want your coffee now?”
I glance toward the coffee maker, where my mug and spoon are laid out as usual. “Not right now, thanks. My hands are kind of full.” I nod to the half-formed tube of yarn taking shape beneath my fingers.
“That’s what I thought. Okay, so show me how the math works.” He leans closer to get a better look at what, for now, bears more resemblance to a limp sock than the final product I have in mind.
“Look. I start with a line…” I wiggle the strand of yarn feeding up into my project. “And then I can trick it into becoming a plane by looping it around itself. And with simplemath, I can take it a step further to turn it into another shape entirely.” I nod to the white-and-gray body of my first attempted amigurumi. “It’s like magic.”
Tristan chuckles at my enthusiasm. “What are you making?”
I hold it up for inspection. “Guess.”
“Hmm.” He tilts his head to one side. “A yarn condom?”
“It’s a ferret!” I exclaim. “I’m making a plush version of Kepler!”
“Ah, good, good.” Tristan’s eyes sparkle as he takes a sip of his coffee. “Because I don’t think a yarn condom would be very effective.”
I wrinkle my nose at him. “You have a strange sense of humor.”
“You made me sit through a PowerPoint about the history of fruit propagation.”
“Fruit propagation is fascinating! People get so worked up about GMOs, but technically speaking, every plant we’ve domesticated is genetically modified.”
“I know, because you said as much in the PowerPoint. I even took notes.”
“Then you should be able to admit that my interest in apple cultivars isn’t strange.” I’m now so focused on the subject of apples that I almost forget to decrease my stitches on row 18. I catch my mistake just in time.
