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Clint looks up. His smile starts small, then grows like he is pleased to be pleased by me.

“There you are.”

“Don thinks you’re holding me against my will.”

“Rude.” He sets the knife down. “You weren’t the one being held down this morning.”

My face goes hot. Memory of his sweaty pecs under my palms, my vision blurring as his hips came up to meet me.

“You could have escaped if you wanted to.”

And now his body reacts. Not much. Just a squint of the eyes, a movement in his crotch.

“Muscle isn’t everything, Paul.”

I step closer to the counter. Clint’s eyes move over me, catching the black paint on my chest.

“Painting got you?”

“I may have lost a small skirmish.”

“Want me to kiss it better?”

“Are you starting to like the taste of acrylic?”

In response, he leans over the counter and kisses me. Tomato on his fingers. Kitchen light on his shoulders. His mouth warm and familiar and still, somehow, new.

When he pulls back, Sunday is still there. I’m still packing suitcases. Don’s still tapping his thumbs on the steering wheel in the airport pickup lane. But for one bright second, the only thing I can feel is Clint smiling against my mouth.

The words rise while Clint turns back to his tomatoes. We need to talk about this.

Instead, I say, “How was your show?”

Clint’s knife pauses for half a second, then keeps moving. “Good tokens.”

“That sounds encouraging.”

“It is. Means I can afford glamorous things like groceries and underwear. Assuming I ever need them again.”

I smile. It’s strange how the idea of Clint in briefs is now erotic.

He adds, “Sore in some places, though.”

My face reacts before my manners kick in. Clint catches it and grins down at the cutting board.

“Relax. Occupational hazard.”

“I am relaxed.”

“You look like you’re trying to decide where jealousy fits under the house rules.”

“I’m not jealous.” Not exactly. I’ve stayed out of his shows because he asked me to, and because the screen between us is no longer a thrill. “I don’t mind.”

I do not want to watch him now. I want him afterward, in the kitchen with tomato fingers, coming back to me.

Clint looks over. “I know.”

Lunch is tomato sandwiches, sliced mango, and berries Clint rinses in a colander like baby chicks in a bath. He sets the plates on the counter, and I stand there looking past him at the pool, the noon sky, the hard blue strip of ocean beyond the garden wall.