He lifts his head. Looks at me. His face is right there — flushed, open, the angles of him softened by proximity and effort and the particular expression of a man who has been careful for a long time and is done being careful.
"You're—" He pauses. Searching. Not for the right word — for the honest word. "Here. You're actually here. And I keep— checking. Like you might—"
"I'm not going anywhere."
"I know." His forehead against mine. "I know. I'm just—"
"Checking."
"Checking."
His mouth finds mine. And there's no more clinical, no more careful, just his body and mine in the dark and the quiet — where pressure is welcome, where gentleness is needed, what makes his breathing change, what makes mine disappear entirely, the rhythm that isn't smooth or practiced but is ours, ours, ours.
"Ow—!" His whole body tenses.
I jerk back. "What — are you okay? Is it the hip? Did I—"
He's grimacing. Not at me. He's looking down.
Poutine.
She is on the bed. She arrived silently, as only Poutine can. She has placed herself — with the surgical precision of a creature who has never in her life made an accidental movement — directly on his left hip, both front paws planted there. Her entire compact weight, pointed and deliberate, on the exact territory where the hardware lives beneath his skin.
She looks at us. Her expression says:I was here first. This is my surface. Your activities are not my concern.
"Poutine," Ethan says. "Not now."
Poutine does not move.
From the doorway, Bagel's head appears. He surveys the scene. He meows — the questioning one. The one that meanswhat's happening and can I be involved.
I start laughing.
I can't stop. Ethan is lying next to me, shirtless, with a black cat planting both front paws on his surgical scar and an orange cat requesting permission to enter and the moment has been dismantled by feline sovereignty.
Ethan looks at me. The struggle on his face — annoyance, desire, amusement, the specific frustration of a man whose cat has zero respect for his intimate life — and then he breaks. He laughs. The real one. The full one. The one that hurts his hip and makes him press a hand to his side and say "Ow" through the laughing.
"She has — the worst — timing—"
"She hasperfecttiming," I say, wiping my eyes. "She always has perfect timing."
He removes Poutine. She allows herself to be relocated with the dignity of a queen being transferred to a secondary throne. He sets her on the floor. She stares at him with betrayal. Bagel takes this as his invitation and jumps onto the foot of the bed, where he curls into a ball and begins purring.
"One cat on the bed," Ethan says. "Final offer."
"Accepted."
He turns back to me. The laughter fading. The other thing coming back — the warmth, the want, the look of someone who has been interrupted by a cat and is choosing to find that endearing rather than devastating.
"Where were we," he says.
"You were checking."
"I was checking." His hand finds my hip. "Checked. Still here."
"Still here."
III.
