8. Blue #3
I liked it when he talked like that. A rule laid out.
A single word uttered that required agreement.
So basic, it settled me, though my hands clenched the edge of the counter tighter than I should have.
And I knew this because he came over and uncurled my fingers, placed them on my lap, and patted them, as if the matter was settled.
“Yes,” I said.
I watched while he took a damp paper towel and wrapped it around the broom, which he used to go over the wooden floor. Then he used a second damp paper towel and repeated the whole process. Everything went into the trash, including the mound of tea-stained snow.
“I think it should be all right now,” he said. “Why you’re barefoot, I don’t know. Where are those socks I gave you?”
“Hot,” I said. “They made my feet hot.”
He shook his head and sighed as he put the broom and dustpan away and put the trash can in its spot on the other side of the fridge. He seemed to despair of me, but not to the point where he thought I was too much to deal with. Because I was.
My friends had sometimes thought so, at least the dark-haired one had. I saw flickers of his mulish expression when I refused to share in his joy at something so simple; in my previous life, I would have disregarded it without a thought.
What had the simple thing been? Not a bright yellow bag of M it hadn’t been fully shut, but open a crack, and my hands on the door were hot against the wood.
“Wolfe?” I stepped into the room.
It would have been pitch black except that there were two windows. Both had the curtains drawn back, and through the glass I could see the starlight I’d been wanting to see. That starlight reflected in his eyes, and across the paleness of his shoulder in the sleeveless t-shirt he wore.
“Blue?”
He sat up and I sensed him scratching his head. Fear shot through me that he was going to tell me to go back to the couch, to go back to sleep. But I couldn’t be alone. Not another second.