His eyes crinkled and he put it back, slapped through a couple more hangers and pulled out an embroidered camisole that had a big rip in it. It used to be gorgeous but could never be repaired. It had also seen good times.

“Are you nuts? I went to the Red Hot Chili Peppers concert in that!”

He put it back and walked out of the room and down the stairs. He came back with two open bottles of Fat Tire, gave me one and then walked out again. It wasn’t a lot of help, but it wasn’t a bad effort.

Forty-five minutes later, I’d scaled the mountain. There was a huge pile of my discarded clothes in the landing, some shoes, bags and other junk. Lee’s suitcases were unpacked, zipped up and out on the landing too. He had two and a half drawers all to himself and about a third of the closet.

I was face down on the bed, listening to Kelly Jones doing a f**king great job at singing Rod Stewart’s “Handbags and Gladrags” which I thought was apropos.

I felt the bed depress with Lee’s weight and a hand at the small of my back.

“I ordered a pizza, I’m walking to Famous to get it. You wanna come?”

I shook my head and Lee left.

I finished the song, replayed “Have a Nice Day”, then turned off the CD player, stumbled in the TV room and threw myself onto the couch. A couple minutes later, Lee walked in with a pizza box with two opened Fat Tire bottles balanced on top.

“Please tell me that’s pepperoni mushroom,” I said.

He smiled. “And black olives.”

Thank God.

We ate, we watched baseball, when we were done, Lee took the box and empties downstairs and came back with full bottles.

This wasn’t so bad.

Lee pulled me off the couch, laid down on his back and pulled me on top of him, shifting me to the side then tucking me in. I was snuggled up, cheek on his chest, watching the Rockies night game.

Okay, so, this wasn’t bad at all.

After I made that momentous decision, I fell asleep.

* * * * *

Lee woke me up by shaking me and saying, “Time for bed, gorgeous.”

I rolled over him and got up from the couch.

I disrobed between couch and bedroom, crawling between the sheets wearing nothing but my hot pink hipsters, too tired even to brush my teeth.

It took several seconds for me to notice that Lee was moving around the room but the noises he was making were not bedtime noises.

“What’re you doing?” I mumbled.

“I have work.”

I knew better than to ask and furthermore, I didn’t want to know.

He turned off the light, leaned over me and kissed my temple.

“Be careful,” I told him.

“Always,” he whispered.

Then he was gone.

* * * * *

Lee woke me up getting into bed.

I rolled into him and he tucked me against his side.

“Everything okay?” I mumbled, though I couldn’t imagine he heard me because my mouth was mostly mushed up against his chest.

“Yeah. Go back to sleep,” he said.

I laid there a second, close to dreamland then I asked softly, because I had to know, “Is this gonna be my life?”

His body was tense when I rolled into him but had relaxed after he tucked me in. It got tense again at my question.

“Yeah,” he answered, ever the straight-talker.

I took a deep breath into my nostrils and let it out my mouth. “Just promise me one thing.”

“What?”

“I want you to wake me when you get home.”

His body stayed tense for a beat then relaxed. “I can do that.”

“Thanks,” I said.

Then I fell asleep.

* * * * *

Early the next morning, I was standing outside in the middle of my yard wearing a pair of cutoffs and Lee’s olive drab shirt that said “Army” across the chest. I had a coffee cup in one hand and the hose in the other hand, the spray gun locked down and I was watering my flowers.

I heard a door open and then Stevie called, “Do ours too, will you?”

Still in my morning stupor, I lifted my coffee cup in a half-assed, “gotcha” not even bothering to turn around and I heard the door close again.

I noticed Lee run across the sidewalk at the front of the house. He stopped and opened the front gate and walked into the yard to stand a couple feet away from me.

I looked up at him. He was wearing another pair of sweats cut at the thigh, these black and faded. The shorts were topped with the white Night Stalkers tee that I considered mine, the shirt was plastered to him with perspiration. His running shoes were shoes that had been run in, not fancy-ass, look-at-me shoes.

Even with all that sweat, he was somehow not breathing heavily and if I wasn’t in a haze, I would have jumped him, I didn’t care how sweaty he was.

“Hey,” I said.

He looked at me, then looked in the direction of the spray. His eyes crinkled and he looked at me again.

“Hey,” he said.

“I’m watering the flowers,” I told him.

He shook his head. “Honey, I hate to tell you this but you’re watering the fence.”

I looked toward the spray and saw that I was aiming a little high, the force of the flow was hitting the fence and running down, not hitting the flowers.

Oopsie.

“I haven’t had enough coffee,” I explained.

He walked up and took the hose out of my hand.

“Perhaps you shouldn’t operate complicated machinery in the morning,” Lee suggested.

A hose spray nozzle wasn’t exactly complicated machinery but I wasn’t going to argue.

“Do Tod and Stevie’s too, would you?” I asked and then I walked into the house and sat on my new couch and put my feet up on the ottoman, staring off into space until I’d emptied the cup.

I topped it up, walked up the stairs, put my mug on the bathroom counter, took off my clothes and got in the shower. I had a head full of shampoo and was rinsing when the shower door slid open and I heard Lee join me. Lee’s hands started on my h*ps and began gliding around which made it kind of difficult to concentrate on the task at hand but I persevered.

Once the soap was rinsed from my hair, Lee moved me out of the spray and took my place. I grabbed my conditioner and started to massage it into my hair.

“So, how exactly do you work all night, wake up before six in the morning and go for a run?” I asked.

“Practice,” he answered.

Soap was running down his body. At the sight, I kind of lost interest in the conversation. I abandoned my conditioner and started to glide my hands around Lee’s body, the soap making him nice and slippery. I began to explore in earnest, the water falling over both of us. Then, I decided to make it a multi-sensory exploration using hands and mouth, which Lee allowed for awhile then he pulled me up and pressed me against the wall.