Chapter 24: Porch Light

I turned the porch light on at 4:58 in the morning.

Jesse had gone out at three with the Switchbacks for the first dawn ride up Schultz Pass.

He had said he would be home by five, and Jesse never said a time he didn't keep.

I stood barefoot on the boards in his gray work shirt.

It was soft from a hundred washes, and the left cuff was frayed where he chewed the thread when he thought.

It came down to the middle of my thighs, and I had nothing on under it.

The air was cold and smelled of pine.

Down the road, a headlight swung around the bend.

I knew the sound of his engine already.

I had learned it the way I once learned the other one, by listening for it every night.

This one I was glad to hear.

The bike rolled up from the north and into the drive.

He cut the engine and sat for a moment with the lamp still on.

Then he kicked the stand down and took off his helmet.

The cut sat on his shoulders in the porch light, with the road and the mountain white across the back.

He looked up at me on the porch.

He took in the shirt, and my legs, and my face.

"That's mine," he said, low.

"It was on the floor."

"It was in the drawer."

"Then it was on the floor after."

He laughed.

I laughed too, out loud, in the quiet of the street, and I didn't care who heard.

He crossed the lawn and took the porch steps in two strides.

"You waited up," he said.

"I turned on the light."

"That's what I mean."

He kissed me.

It was a long, slow, deep kiss, with the cold still on his jacket and his hands warm on my face.

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