Kayla was in the shower now. I could hear the water through the wall. Jolly was lying on the living room floor, eyesstraying to the stairs, probably wondering what the hell I’d done with his buddy William.
I stood at the counter and drank my coffee and looked out the window at her yard. I’d pulled two more slats from the fence between our properties a few days ago, widening the gap enough that William and Jolly moved between the yards like there was no boundary at all. Most afternoons, they were out there for hours, doing whatever they did, neither of them tiring of it before the other.
I let myself think the thought I’d been circling since last night.
This felt permanent.
Not in the way I planned things. Not a decision made and executed. In the way a river cut a channel. You didn’t choose it. You just realized one day that the water had been running the same direction for a long time and the ground had changed shape around it.
I had changed shape around Kayla.
She came down the stairs in a T-shirt and bare legs, toweling her hair. She stopped when she saw me at the counter.
“You made coffee.”
“I made coffee.”
She crossed the kitchen and kissed me, brief, easy, like she’d been doing it for years. Then she took the mug I’d already poured for her and leaned against the counter beside me.
We stood like that. Not talking. Not needing to.
Kayla was the one who broke the silence, tapping her fingernail against the side of her mug. “Trish isn’t dropping William off until tomorrow,” she said. “So we have an entire day with no responsibilities and no one asking us to watchPaw Patrolfor the nine hundredth time.”
“I don’t know. Jolly might still wantPaw Patrol.”
“Then you can leave it on for him.” She smacked my arm playfully. “I’m trying to plan an actual adult day here.”
I let my eyes travel down to her bare legs and back up. “We could just go back to bed.”
“We just got out of bed.”
“I’m aware.” I set my mug down and turned toward her, resting my hand on the counter on the other side of her. “Vividly.”
She laughed, and the sound of it warmed my chest in a way coffee would never touch. “I meant out in the world, Ben. Like people.”
“Overrated.”
“Humor me. There’s a planetarium in Glenwood Springs. Or there’s that new Italian place everyone keeps talking about. Or we could see a movie.”
“What’s playing?”
“I have no idea.” She wrapped both hands around her mug. “I haven’t seen a movie in a theater since before William was born. For all I know, they still have intermissions.”
“They don’t have intermissions.”
“How would you know? When’s the last time you saw a movie on the big screen?”
I thought about it. “Kandahar. At least five years ago. They set up a screen in a mess tent.”
She stared at me. “What was the movie?”
“Something with the Rock.”
“That narrows it down to about forty films.” She took a sip of her coffee and shook her head. “Okay, so we’re both terrible at this. Planetarium?”
“Planetarium.” I reached over and tucked a damp strand of hair behind her ear. “I’ll buy you a star chart.”
“You’re such a romantic.”
