“That sounds incredible. You tell me where to start, and I’ll sous-chef for you.”
Franny set me up with a cutting board and a sharp knife, and I set to work chopping tomatoes into small cubes and tossing them in a large bowl. Next to me, Franny washed the arugula and basil, the latter of which she handed off to me to be minced into small pieces and added to the tomato.
With the two of us working together, it wasn’t long before we were setting dishes out on the table, a heaping bowl of fresh pasta with a no-cook tomato sauce between us. Franny had whipped up an arugula salad with lemon and olive oil, and she’d torn the bread into bite-size pieces and toasted it to get a bit of crunch. She poured some wine into a carafe and grabbed two tiny old jam jars from a cabinet. Outside, it was still pouring. Franny shut off the AC and pushed open the windows, letting in crisp air and the sweet smell of rain on concrete. “It’s actually kind of cool out there,” she said. “The air feels good.”
The sounds of the city wafted in as we sat down to eat. Our dinner was simple and bright, full of big, filling flavors. But it was also quiet, with easy banter about our usual weekend activities. Franny liked to catch up on reading and walk around Prospect Park; I tended to run and clean, and watch too much baseball. It was stuff that we did on our own, stuff that suddenly seemed a lot more appealing when imagining doing it with someone else. She told me about the baby shower she’d been dragged into planning with her mom, the endless messages she’d been getting from her for weeks. I gave her the rundown on my Seattle trip and the early talks of maybe opening a San Diego office too.
Later, as I did the dishes, Franny tucked herself back into that corner of the couch, her laptop open and teetering precariously on the edge of the sofa arm as she crafted a reply to Anna’s latest email. I liked seeing her like this, her guard down, relaxed. It felt natural, like we did this every weekend. What if we did this every weekend? I asked myself. What if sometimes I came out to Brooklyn, or she brought her stuff into the city and we walked along the High Line or sat by the fountain at Lincoln Center and watched the people heading into the opera. I hadn’t let myself wonder what it might look like to share the slow moments of my life with someone else again. But they felt immediately brighter imagining Franny there with me.
When I finished, it was inky black outside; the night had somehow snuck up on us, surprised us with darkness. Not that I had been paying attention to anything other than Franny today. I shuffled over to the couch, sitting much closer to her than I had last night. She snapped her laptop shut and placed it on the floor, running a hand down my thigh. “Before you even suggest that it’s time for you to go, I want you to know that I’d love for you to stay. Here. And not just because I want to force you to watch more eighties movies with me.”
“You mean we’re not watching Sixteen Candles?” I placed a chaste kiss on the edge of her neck, where it sloped up to meet her chin.
“I mean, that movie is wildly problematic by today’s standards, so hell, no. And I don’t feel like watching Grease, as shameful as it is that you haven’t seen it.”
“What should we do, then?”
Franny turned to face me, placing her hands flat on my chest. “I have a long list of ideas, if you’re open to hearing them.”
She tucked her fingers into my waistband, scraping her nails gently along my skin. With one swift movement, she had gone from sitting next to me to straddling my lap, her hands now wrapped around my hips. She placed a delicate kiss on my cheekbone and then traced her lips to my ear, then down my neck. Instinctively, I pressed her into me, wrapping my arms around her back, and let out a long sigh into her neck, resisting the urge to lift her up and carry her to her bed—or, better yet, the kitchen counter.
“I’m listening,” I said. The words came out rough, like wheels on gravel.
“Well, the most important thing to know,” she said, “is that every one of them involves you completely naked.”
*
The next morning, I woke up again in Franny’s bed. But this time, I wasn’t clutching a pillow. I was holding her. She was splayed across my chest, face-planted and out, one arm draped over my stomach. My arms were wrapped around her like she was a safety blanket. “Franny?” My voice was a hoarse whisper. I got no reply. She was out, and so I lay there, doing absolutely nothing but enjoying the sensation of her body pressed against mine, the way her bare skin felt against my fingers, her rhythmic breathing lulling me back into a quiet, meditative place.