I sat up in bed and heard music filtering in from the living room, and on top of it, a voice out of tune. The song was “Going to California” by Led Zeppelin. The voice was Luke’s.
I gave Mittens a pat on the head and slipped on shorts and a tank top.
Everything in the living room was like what I had imagined, except the plants were back in their places. Somehow they seemed fuller, though. I stood still. The sun shone. Luke was in the kitchen, limping back and forth from the stove. The air smelled like fried eggs.
“Good morning!” I called.
He couldn’t hear me over the music and a very exaggerated impression of Robert Plant. I tried to keep from laughing, and held up my hand for Mittens to stay. Luke had his back to me, poking at the skillet with a spatula.
“Good morning,” I called again.
He turned to me, shirtless, startled. “Oh! Good morning. Yeah. I was just . . .”
“Making eggs?”
Luke was still an anomaly in my close quarters, too big to fit, or at least he was now that he was upright, his six-foot-plus frame in my little kitchen. And especially after last night. The memory jolted me. Our bodies, together. I wondered why we didn’t stop ourselves before it got that far. Then I wondered why we stopped. I cleared my throat.
He gestured to the stove with the spatula. “Making eggs and working on some, you know. Vocal stylings.”
“Very good. You should consider starting a Led Zeppelin cover band.”
He laughed. “Yeah. Shed . . . Dead . . .”
“Nothing rhymes with Zeppelin,” I assured him, grabbing a glass for water. “Believe me, I’ve tried.”
I left him to the stove and caught a smile in my reflection in the bathroom mirror. I was thinking about the recent uptick of his interest in music. Today was not the first day he’d started by putting on one of my records. He was just as he said he was, a straight classic-rock fan, but I could put on something rock-y but obscure and get a curious glance out of him.
We emerged at the same time, me with my face washed, him from the kitchen with two plates.
He sat, I sat. Over-easy eggs, still steaming, and avocado on toast. The last time we were here, we were holding each other. He’d revived me. He’d cried into my hair. Now his elbow touched mine only on occasion, balancing the toast to his lips, trying to get the crumbs to fall on the table rather than all over his leg brace.
“What are you gon’ do t’day?” he asked, his mouth full.
I laughed. “Eat eggs and avocado.”
“Oh, yeah?” He took another bite. “That sounds pretty good.”
“What are you doing?”
He swallowed. “Eat avocado and eggs.”
“Huh, who knew?”
Mittens trotted in, tongue out. We moved our plates out of her reach. I stood, paused the Led Zeppelin, and put on Xenia Rubinos’s “Hair Receding.” A crease rose between his eyebrows, his mouth slightly turned up, listening.
“I knew it,” I said.
“What?”
“I call this look your new face.” I pretended to frame him with my fingers.
“My new face?”
“Your new face. It happens every time you’re exposed to something outside of your comfort zone. It’s the song, and I can tell because of this.” I reached across the coffee table to touch the crease between his brows. “You got it when I put on Dirty Projectors, too. And when you ate sweet potato fries.”
He touched the spot, too, and shrugged, looking at me. “I bet I get it a lot around you.”
“Hey!” I sat back down beside him, an inch closer than I had sat before, and gave him a small push. He didn’t scoot away.
“It’s not a bad thing.” He glanced at me, smiling.
“No, it’s not.” We were quiet for a while, finishing our breakfast.
Our breakfast. The plants were flourishing even though I’d been so busy with the band. Because he’d watered them. I thought of my dream and felt a rush of gratitude. He’d asked what I was doing today, and I realized I just wanted to be here, or anywhere, anchored in peace, knowing Luke was there, too. I’d tried not to name it last night. I could tell myself I had been too tired, too confused, too torn up from talking about Frankie, wanting someone’s comfort.
“Are you okay?” Luke asked beside me. I nodded, unable to look at him right then. Looking at his hands.
Because here we were, wide awake and well fed, and I knew I hadn’t just wanted to be held by anyone last night. I wanted to be held only by him.