He whistled low— the long low one a man used when he’d clocked something and was making sure the clocker knew he was clocking it. He let the silence sit a long time. The dusk went the rest of the way out.
“She was the nurse,” he said, in the tone of a man placing a thing on a table the other man already knew.
“She was the nurse.”
“You going to make a move.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Not the way I’ve made one before. This one needs a different play.”
He laughed once — surprised, soft. “Christ, Dog.”
I drank.
Tuck took his boots off the rail, set the empty bottle on the boards, and stood.
"You all right?"
"Yeah."
"You sure?"
"No."
He laughed, soft.
"Casanova."
"Fuck off, Tuck." I was smiling when I said it.
"Just observing."
He headed down the steps. At the bottom, he stopped and looked back.
"Don't screw this one up."
Then he was gone.
I sat in my father's rocker with the bottle cooling against my palm. A little while later, the porch light across the road came on and the front door opened. Sophia stepped out in scrubs, her hair up, a travel mug in one hand and keys in the other. She locked the door behind her, crossed the yard, and climbed into her sedan.
The engine caught on the second turn. The headlights swept across the cul-de-sac, then she was gone.
I watched the empty driveway for another minute before I called myself an idiot and went inside.
I wasin the garage before eight the next morning with a mug of coffee and a carburetor spread across the bench. The roller door was up and dawn was working its way into the cul-de-sac.
Her car was back in the driveway.
I hadn't seen her come home. Now the sedan sat where it belonged, silver with dew under the first wash of morning light.
I was halfway through cleaning a jet when the screen door opened and she stepped onto the porch with a mug in both hands. Dark hair hanging loose around her shoulders, scrubs softened from a long shift. She still looked beautiful as she stopped at the rail and lifted her face toward the sun, closing her eyes as the warmth found her.
I didn't move.
As she stood there, I could see the tiredness still on her. The quiet too. A breeze shifted a strand of hair across her cheek and left it there. She didn't seem to notice.
