Page 54 of Full Contact

We lay there breathing hard. Trier’s cheek rested against my hair, and I flattened my palm over his heart, feeling it slow, beat by beat, under my hand.

He grabbed a pillow from behind him and shoved it under my head.

“The pillow,” I said, when I had sentences again.

“You said you liked a flatter one.”

“I said it in passing.”

“You still said it.”

Then Trier got up and came back with a warm washcloth. He helped me clean up, then took care of himself and left the cloth in the bathroom.

When he returned to bed, he brushed the damp hair back from my forehead. I turned my face into his hand.

He switched off the lamp on the nightstand.

I heard the faint clink of Peaches’s tag against her water bowl. A few moments later, an orange head appeared in the gap at the door. She looked at us, then walked away.

“Need anything?” Trier asked. “Water? Another dinner?”

“No.”

“You’ll stay, right?”

“Try to make me leave.”

Trier’s hand rested against my side, heavy and warm.

“I wanted you to ask me to stay yesterday,” I said.

I hadn’t meant to tell him that. I’d found my shoes and explained that I needed to go home. He wasn’t at fault for agreeing with me.

Trier drew me closer as I turned onto my side. His chest warmed my back, and his arm settled across my waist.

“You could have stayed,” he said.

I smiled and listened to his breathing slow behind me. The room was dark except for the narrow strip of light at the door.

***

I woke to the door easing open and Trier coming back in, dressed in a University of Michigan T-shirt, a mug in each hand. The blinds let in the gray-gold of early morning. My cheek was pressed into the thin pillow, and the other side of the bed was still warm.

“Medication’s done,” he said. “She ate all of breakfast. Full dish.”

“Good morning to you too.”

“It does add up to a good morning.” He set one mug on my nightstand, positioned where I could reach it without sitting up, and walked around to the other side of the bed.

I rose onto an elbow and tried the coffee. It was perfect.

Trier climbed back into bed. Peaches appeared within a minute, hopped onto the foot of the bed via the bench, and sprawled across his feet.

“She knows I’m here? Do I have her permission?” I asked.

“It’s kind of obvious.”

We drank our coffee while somebody’s dog barked in the courtyard.