"You're back."
"In twenty-two."
"I read four pages."
"Don't make fun of me."
I set the guitar case down by the chair across from her. She looked at it.
"You brought the guitar."
"I did."
"Are you gonna play?"
"In a minute."
I sat in the chair and took the guitar out. Astrid set her book down on her chest.
I played her the Otis Redding song my grandmother loved. A slow one. The chords were easy. The melody sat above them with a small ache the song had been carrying for sixty years. I playedit on my back porch for ten years and on her side of Maple for two months, and I never played it in front of another person.
I played it once through.
Then I played it again.
She didn't say anything when I was done. She set her coffee down on the side table and looked at me with the same look she gave me on the kitchen counter the night of the feral cat.
"That was your grandmother's."
"It was."
"Easton."
"Yeah."
"I love your hands."
I laughed before I meant to. The Queens came up in it.
"That's what you got from that song?"
"It's not what I got. It's a thing I noticed."
"What did you get?"
She didn't answer for a beat.
"I'll tell you later."
By half past three, she stopped reading.
Her book was still open on her chest, but her eyes were closed. Her head was tucked into the side of my neck. I had a hand on her shin under the blanket, running my thumb back and forth along the bone of her ankle without thinking about it.
She breathed against my collarbone. I thought she'd gone under for a nap. I let her.
She opened her eyes.
"Easton."
