My Father's Best Friend Fixed My Roof, Then Never Left My Kitchen novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: His Bed

The farmhouse door was already open when I came up the porch steps.

An old yellow dog stood in it, wagging his whole back end.

"That's Gus," Milan said behind me. "He's going to lean on you. Let him."

Gus leaned.

He pressed his gray muzzle into my hip and sighed, and I put my hand on his head.

I did not ask about the phone on the dash, and Milan did not bring it up.

Inside, the woodstove was going, and the kitchen was warm and smelled of coffee and cedar smoke.

He took my coat off my shoulders and hung it on a hook by the door.

Then he led me through the kitchen to the front room, and past the recliner and a braided rug, to the stairs.

At the foot of them, he stopped.

"Stand there," he said. "By the stove. Where I can see you."

I stood on the plank floor with the heat on my back.

He sat on the arm of the recliner and looked at me.

Gus lay down on the rug and put his chin on his paws.

"I'm going to undress you," Milan said. "One piece at a time. You're going to tell me when you want the next one."

"I thought you were the one telling."

"I'm telling you to tell me."

I almost laughed.

"Boots," I said.

"Good."

He knelt and unlaced them and slid them off, one and then the other, and set them side by side by the stove.

He took off each sock, and held my bare foot in his hand, and his thumb pressed along the arch.

"Next," he said.

"Sweater."

He stood and lifted it off over my head, slowly, and the static lifted my hair.

He took the braid in both hands and drew it over my shoulder, and held it there.

"Next."

"Jeans."

He undid them, and drew them down, and knelt to let me step out.

His beard brushed the inside of my knee.

I braced a hand on his shoulder, and I felt the heat of him through his flannel.

"Next," he said, from down there, with his face turned up.

"Bra."

"You do that one."

I reached behind me and unhooked it and let it fall.

He didn't say anything.

He looked at me in the firelight, and I stood there in nothing but gray cotton underwear, and my skin was prickling all over.

"The last one," he said, very low.

"Please take it off."

He hooked his fingers in the waistband and drew it down, slow, over my hips and thighs and knees.

I stepped out of it.

He stayed on his knees.

"Turn around," he said. "Let me look."

I turned slowly, with the fire warm on my front and then my back.

"You're the most beautiful thing that has ever stood in this room."

"Milan," I said.

"I'm not done. Come here."

He stood and picked me up, and I locked my legs around his waist.

He carried me up the stairs with one hand under me.

At the top was a room with a slanted ceiling and a big iron bed with a faded quilt.

A bedside lamp was on, and a window faced the dark fields.

He laid me down on the quilt and stood over me.

I watched him undress.

He did it fast, and without ceremony, the flannel and the T-shirt and the jeans and the boots.

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