Ris choked out a laugh, clinging to him like a cat on the side of a tree, her head lightlythunkingagainst the wall of the hallway. Her face fit neatly between his tusks, sighing into the heat of his mouth, enjoying the slip and drag of his tongue. The blunt edge of his teeth lightly scraped over her jaw, and she considered that it was a shame they weren’t both home that night. Her head lolled as Ainsley kissed his way down her neck, her hands coming up to scratch against his skull, the stubble of it rasping beneath her nails. Catching his ear with her teeth, she licked up the pointed length, biting gently before whispering.
“What’s for dinner?”
She was already laughing when he dropped her, letting her go tumbling back to her feet, shaking his head.
“You’re trash. Here I am, trying to be a romantic,as perusual, and you can only think of one thing. ‘I hope he put the veggie lasagna in the oven already.’”
“Did he?” she asked hopefully, still giggling.
“Trash. And yes, he did.”
Ris rose up on her toes, meeting his mouth once more, his hand already on the doorknob.
“. . . I’ll probably be a little later tonight.”
“Okay,” she nodded, ignoring the slight hesitation before his words. It was Thursday.Grief group,then. Her pottery class hadn’t yet resumed since the Yule holiday break, and she would be home alone. “I might be waiting naked on the kitchen table if he put garlic bread in, too.”
“Wooooo, big night. Something to look forward to.” One last quick kiss, the door already pulled open. “I love you.”
He said the words more seriously now. It wasn’t just an automatic parting, a thing to say. It was something to which he gave weight, telling her as a pointed reminder each time they came and went.
“I love you too, babe.”
Changing out of her work clothes, she briefly entertained the thought of slipping into her flex leggings and grabbing her mat. The yoga studio down the block had drop-in classes seven nights a week, and she could kill some of the time he’d not be home . . .no. It’s slushy out, it’s cold. You literally just got home. You don’t need to be busy twenty-four hours a day.
She frowned, knowing the voice in her head was technically correct. But the nice thing about keeping busy, she could admit to herself and only herself, was that she wasbusy.
Unlike Ainsley, she didn’t mind the commute from the city. The drive wasn’t terrible if she left early enough, which she always did, and it gave her an opportunity to not be responsible for anything other than the commute itself.
She might put on an audiobook or one of her language lessons, but she’d barely make it over the bridge before it would be off, replaced with the radio, singing along to pop songs like she was still a teenager, as if that were something teenagers still did. She didn’t want to think, didn't want to plan. She didn’t want silence to have the chance to seep into the corners, insinuating itself into her good mood. She liked the mindless decompression of it, and didn’t want todoanything.
Taking the train felt like an ordeal unto itself — getting to the station, waiting on the platform, constantly on high alert and hyper aware of her surroundings, surrounded as she was by humans. She didn’t enjoy the logistics of the ride, beingsandwiched in between strangers, attempting to keep hold of her workbag and her dance bag, her yoga mat, her pottery supplies.
She likened it to having to fly somewhere and deal with the aggravation of the airport before getting to enjoy one’s vacation — fine if it was the trial before the occasional week-long getaway, but not particularly a gauntlet she wanted to run five days a week, especially when the only reward waiting for her at the end was a day in the office.
Having access to her car was far preferable. She liked being able to do the grocery shopping at the Food Gryphon on her way home from work, liked being able to park in the municipal lot on Main Street and walk around downtown. She liked having the chance to pop into the coffee shop and pick up takeout. She loved the businesses, the vibrancy of the downtown, loved the diversity of species.
Rislikedliving in Cambric Creek. She always had. Having her own way around town made her feel as if she still did, in a way.You just don’t sleep here anymore.
A part of her missed having her own condo, but it wasn’t as if the apartment in the city they shared wasn’t finally beginning to feel like home.
Beyond the hallway, the living room erupted in an explosion of color. The bright crimson sofa from her condo, his green chair from Starling Heights, a patchwork loveseat they’d purchased after the move that ‘looked like a fair-trade market and a clown college had a baby,’ according to him, art on every wall that wasn’t covered in a bookcase, all of them jam-packed.
“I’m not living out of milk crates,” Ris had told him, shortly after she’d moved in. “And I refuse to suck the dick of someone who does. You’re almost forty. It’s time to stop living like a college student.”
His outrage had been immediate.
“Okay,firstof all, I haveyearsbefore I’m forty. Plural years, lady. Just because you’re a cougar doesn’t mean you get to boss me around. What’s wrong with milk crates?! They keep all of my records and books nice and neat.”
“So would a bookshelf!” she’d laughed, already knowing this was exactly how he would react. “You know, real furniture! You have the money; there is zero excuse to be storing things in plastic boxes that I’m pretty sure you told me you got for free from the alley behind your old apartment building. So literal garbage. I refuse to live out of literal garbage, garbage boy.”
“I like saving my money to spend on cool shit! What’s wrong with being fiscally savvy?”
She’d collapsed into giggles against him, already knowing the solution. The gnomish furniture superstore off the highway had both bookshelves and meatballs, giving her the opportunity to purchase one while distracting him with the other.
“This place is diabolical,” he’d huffed the following weekend, pushing the cart as they followed the lighted arrows on the floor. “I got a soft pretzel,andnow we’re looking at steak knives?! I can buy a table that will come in seven hundred piecesanda pallet of wine? Who dreamt this all up?!”
“The richest gnomes in Europe,” she’d laughed, leading him to the gallery of bookshelves.
