Teddy rolls over and pulls me into him, muttering. Slides his hands down to cup my ass in a way I can only describe as polite, says, “Hey.” Kisses that spot on my neck that makes my limbs spasm. From deeper in the house I hear the unmistakable bangs and clips of the Super Nintendo, two-player Street Fighter, Mel cussing, “Uh oh, lookit that shit. That’s right, hussy.” Then the grunt of the aerial kick, the call that sounds like “Shoooore you can!” One of the boys glumly remarks, “Dude.”
There’s a thin line of daybreak glowing underneath the curtains. Teddy says something I can’t hear into my shoulder. I arch my back. He reaches inside me. I need to remember the way this feels. Your memories will fail you, I think, a flutter of sadness closing my throat. It will eventually disappear into its barest idea, an outline of itself. You have spent entire years knowing only the lack of what you are feeling right now. So feel this all you can. I turn and push him onto his back. Crane my head under the covers toward his hips, going lower and lower until I hear him gasp.
—
We dress and emerge to find a Murphy bed opened, Ryan, Tatum, and Mel scattered across it in their socks and T-shirts. Mel’s arms are splayed across the boys, glasses pushed up to her forehead. She snores, mouth parted. Ryan is in a fetal position, fingers curled underneath his chin. Tatum’s hands hang long and white, trailing nearly to the floor.
We stare at them for a moment. “Breakfast,” Teddy whispers.
He leads me through the living room to the kitchen and closes the door, a frail oak scratched all to hell. The fridge is a listing Frigidaire icebox, at least fifty years old. A recliner sits inexplicably in the corner. I curl up on it and stare into the stove seam where two pilot lights glow. “The kitchen and the bathroom were part of the servants’ quarters,” Teddy says. His shirt is open. Two folds of softness eclipse his belly button when he bends to retrieve eggs. “This is one of the oldest mansions in the city. It was built by a banker whose granddaughter was killed by the Mafia and left in a ditch on Dixie Highway. He let the place go to hell after that. It was a crack house in the eighties. How do you like your eggs?”
“Sunny-side up.”
“I had a feeling.” He produces a spatula, a grinder of sea salt. He cracks the eggs. I wonder if I could cajole him into fucking me on the tabletop.
He tosses the shells in the trash, then comes for me, takes my face, kisses me. Presses his forehead to mine. There’s the gassy flare of stovetop, a sizzle of melting butter. We smile at each other like goons. I never want to leave. We could stay here and live together in this creaky old apartment. Go to the farmers’ market every Saturday. Have weird babies with psoriasis and stutters.
And then I remember the project. Shit. What did I tell Teddy about our project last night? What were the chances I fed him a few half-truths trying to get him into bed? I drum my fingers against the armrest. “Um,” I start, “did we talk much about what Mel and I are working on last night? I can’t totally recall.”
“There are parts of last night that are spotty and there are parts that are still in very clear relief.” His shoulder and elbow make circles above the bowl. The fork clicks. “We talked about it a little. It’ll be about you? The stroke?”
“Kind of, yeah.”
“It will be amazing, I’m sure,” he says. “Go over big in New York with that string of boyfriends you have up there. All those hipster types with their slouchy ways. I’m sure you work your voodoo on them.” He swishes his fork in the air. Yolk flies onto the countertop.
“Not quite.”
“Modest Mabel over here. I’ve got homemade sausage in the fridge. Are you a meat eater?”
I wrap my legs around him and we commence to making out while the eggs scorch. There’s a good, minuteless block of time, his hands well up my shirt, in which he whispers in my ear how happy it would make him if I stuck around for a few days. And just like that, I lose my courage.
—
It turns out the kids subletting our studio want to extend through the holidays. I propose staying in Louisville for a few weeks. “For research,” I say.
Mel rolls her eyes. “Researching Ted’s peen,” she says.