Chapter 4: Eggs

I let them in at three in the morning and gave them the living room.

"We each drove home," Hana said, dripping on my mat.

"We sat in the driveway in our own cars for an hour. Neither of us could go inside."

"Why not?"

"It's too quiet in there," Dane said.

I did not ask what he meant.

I gave them two blankets and a pillow, and I told them the bed was mine and the couch was theirs.

"Hands," I said. "I haven't said you can hold each other."

Hana lay down on the couch under the blanket, with her back to the room.

Dane lowered himself onto the rug beside it, his enormous frame folded awkwardly into the space.

His right hand lay open on the floor, six inches below hers.

I looked at the gap for a moment longer than I should have.

Then I went to bed and left the door ajar.

In the morning the rain had stopped, and I was frying eggs in my robe when someone came up behind me.

I knew it was Hana from her footsteps.

She turned me around by the hip, and set me against the refrigerator, and kissed me.

It was a good kiss.

It was long and unhurried, with her hands braced on the fridge on either side of my head.

The whole length of her body was pressed along mine.

The spatula was still in my hand.

I let it stay there.

I kissed her back, and I heard the eggs spit on the stove.

When she pulled away I looked past her shoulder.

Dane stood in the kitchen doorway in yesterday's shirt with his hands pushed deep in his pockets.

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