But tonight, on this deck, with the second chair empty because the woman who sits in it is in my lap instead, with her mouth against my neck and her hand on my arm, the weight has a place to rest, not a place to disappear but a place to set down long enough to pick back up and keep moving.
"Boone."
"Ireland."
"Take me inside."
I stand, pull her up with me, and before she can get her footing I bend and lift her over my shoulder in one smooth motion, my arm locked across the backs of her thighs.
"Boone." Her voice is half laughing, half breathless, her fists pressing against my lower back. "This is not what I had in mind."
"You said inside. You didn't specify the method."
"The method is caveman logistics. Put me down."
"When we get to the bed."
I carry her through the kitchen door, and her laughter fills the rooms that used to be quiet and mine, the way her flowers changed the table and her mug changed the counter, presence where there was absence, noise where there was none.
"You're enjoying this," she says, her fingers hooking into my belt loops.
"I'm transporting a civilian to a secure location. Standard operating procedure."
"Standard operating procedure does not involve throwing a woman over your shoulder like a rucksack."
"You weigh less than a rucksack. And complain more."
Her laugh sharpens into the precursor to something devastating, but I set her down on the bed before she can land it.
The look she gives me from the mattress, hair fanned across the orthopedic pillows she bought because my old one looked like a science experiment, her mouth curved and her eyes dark and my t-shirt riding up her thighs, is the look that's going to end up in the notebook tomorrow in handwriting so small she'd need a magnifying glass to read it.
The deck can wait. The notebook can wait. The door I'm opening is not the one made of paper and ink.
It's the one she's been standing on the other side of, sharp and unhesitating, since the first morning she told me my coffee was terrible and made me want to write a poem about how she holds a mug.
In the morning, Welling goes back on the machines and Falk goes back to work, and the hands pulling Ireland's shirt over her head will go back to doing the work and saving the opinions for after.
But tonight, the opinions don't exist. Tonight there is only this.
8
IRELAND
Welling is having a good morning.
The evidence is in his jaw before he opens his mouth, before he settles into the resistance station and adjusts the shoulder harness with the careful attention of a man who has learned that his body requires negotiation now instead of obedience.
The set of his jaw is different today, less grinding, more focus. The frustration that has been eating at him for weeks has pulled back far enough that the determination underneath it can do its job.
"External rotation felt better in the shower this morning," he says, strapping in. "Still tight at end range, but the stiffness broke up faster."
"That's your medications tracking the way they should. Your inflammatory markers have been trending down since we adjusted the protocol. Give it another week and the tissue response should accelerate."
"A week." He says it the way operators say it, like a week is a deployment he has to survive rather than a unit of time.
"Seven days, Welling. You've survived Hell Week. You can survive seven days of following my instructions without looking like I've asked you to hold your breath underwater."
The corner of his mouth twitches, not a smile but the near-miss of one. "Your instructions are harder than Hell Week."
