Page 13 of Roulette

Roulette sat in one of the two porch chairs, his long legs stretched out, ankles crossed, a paperback open face down on his thigh. He hadn’t said much, but he stayed close, and I realized I liked that more than I should. His quiet didn’t make me nervous. It made the porch feel steadier. I handed him the empty seed bag without looking at him, and he took it. His fingers brushed mine. Neither of us pulled away fast enough to pretend it meant nothing.

He set the bag on the floor beside his chair. Didn’t comment on the fact that I’d just commandeered his garage find and his porch railing without asking. I hung the feeder from the hook I’d screwed into the eaves that morning, twisting the wire until it held, and stepped back to look at it.

“Your taste in decor is questionable,” I said.

The corner of his mouth pulled. Not quite a smile, but the beginning of one, living in the crease beside his eye before it reached his lips. He looked at the feeder swaying gently in the faint breeze.

“Wasn’t mine,” he said.

“Whose was it?”

“Don’t know. Been in the garage since I moved in.”

I leaned against the railing and tucked a wave of hair behind my ear. It had come loose from its knot hours ago, and now it fell around my shoulders in a mess I couldn’t be bothered to fix.

A cardinal landed on the fence post across the yard, bright red against the gray wood, and cocked its head at the feeder. I held still. Roulette did too. The bird considered us for a long moment, its black eye sharp and assessing, and then it took off toward the trees without so much as a second glance. I exhaled.

“Rude,” I said.

“He’ll come back when we’re not looking.”

“He better. I didn’t sweep all that garage dirt off for nothing.”

I nodded at the book on his thigh, spine cracked, a curled corner marking his page. “What is that, anyway? You’ve had it out here three days and I don’t think you’ve turned a page.”

He glanced down at it like he’d forgotten it was there. “Louis L’Amour.”

“Never heard of him.”

“Westerns. Wrote about a hundred of them.” He turned it over, showed me the cover -- a sun-bleached cowboy on a sun-bleached horse, the kind of paperback you’d find for a quarter at a yard sale. “My mother had a shelf of them. Never got rid of it.”

“So you read them for her.”

“Read them because they’re good.” A pause, like he was deciding whether to give me the rest of it. “Same story every time, mostly. Quiet man. Does what’s right because it needs doing, not because anybody’s watching. Nobody makes a speech about it. Sun goes down, the work’s done, and that’s the whole book.” He shrugged, like he’d said more than he’d meant to. “Guess I like knowing how it ends before I start.”

“That’s the least surprising thing you’ve ever told me.”

The corner of his mouth pulled. “Didn’t say I read for surprises.”

“What’s this one about?”

“Man clears out some cattle rustlers. Marries the rancher’s daughter on page two-eleven.” He set it face down on his thigh again, page still unturned. “Haven’t gotten there yet. Already know it’s coming.”

I laughed, and he didn’t quite smile, but something eased at the corner of his eye the way it did right before he almost did.

The cicadas pulsed. Somewhere on the far side of the compound, a saw whined through wood, softened by distance and heat. I propped my elbows on the railing and let my shoulders drop. For once, my body wasn’t braced for the next sound, the next shadow, the next reason to check the door behind me.

The realization arrived quietly. I was relaxed. Not safe enough to forget everything, but safe enough to breathe without measuring the exits. I was standing on a stranger’s porch filling a birdfeeder shaped like an outhouse while a man I barely knew sat nearby and let the silence hold.

It wasn’t happiness, exactly. Happiness was too large and bright for a moment this fragile. This was smaller: warm wood under bare feet, seed dust on my hands, cut grass in the air, and a silence that asked nothing from me.

It wasn’t happiness, exactly. Happiness was too large and bright for a moment this fragile. This was smaller: warm wood under bare feet, seed dust on my hands, cut grass in the air, and a silence that asked nothing from me.

Roulette set his mug on the arm of the chair and stretched, his shoulders rolling back, the tendons in his neck shifting under his skin. He moved like someone who had been sitting still too long, not someone in any hurry. He looked at the feeder, then at me, and his expression softened by a degree so small I almost missed it.

“Need anything from town later?” he asked.

The question was so ordinary it caught me off guard. Need anything from town. Like we were roommates. Like this arrangement had parameters that included grocery runs and errands and the mundane logistics of sharing space with another human being. I hadn’t thought that far ahead. Hadn’t let myself.