“I am,” I said.
“Do you like saying that?”
“I’m learning.”
Ellie lifted her glass.
“To learning.”
I touched mine to hers.
“To prepared cheese.”
“That too.”
We moved inside when mosquitoes decided to join us without an invitation.
Ellie carried the plates. I carried the wine.
The kitchen looked as if a very polite hurricane had passed through it.
“I’ll clean,” she said.
“You’re a guest.”
“I watched you alphabetize dairy. You’ve done enough.”
“I didn’t alphabetize it.”
She pointed to the board.
“Brie. Cheddar. Gouda.”
“Stop saying that.”
She laughed and turned on the faucet.
I stood beside her and began wrapping the cheese.
Our shoulders touched.
Then our hips.
Neither of us moved away.
It should not have felt intimate to put leftovers into containers with a woman.
It did.
Perhaps because the simple things were always the ones I missed.
Not hotel suites.
Not secret entrances.
Not kisses cut short by security schedules.
A woman barefoot in a kitchen, rinsing two plates while quietly humming one of my songs without knowing it.
