"Yes."
"This is a radical night."
"Shut up."
He smiles and sets the plate back down.
I kiss him on the couch. Not because a scene has turned. Not because the room demands it. Because his mouth is there and I want to. This is another kind of radical. Want without emergency.
He lets me pull him closer. Then stops letting and starts choosing. His hand slides into my hair. His body shifts against mine. The TV keeps talking softly about a goalie interference review neither of us is watching.
"Bedroom," he says against my mouth.
"Bossy."
"You like it."
"Evidence?"
"You're standing."
I am.
We make it to the bedroom with less solemnity than before. This is new too. Not less important. Less burdened. My hip catches once when I toe off my shoe and Caleb grabs my elbow without making a thing of it. I say, "Stupid joint," and he says, "Rude joint," and the fact that he insults my hip instead of pitying it makes me kiss him harder.
The sex is confident.
Not easy. Nothing involving me being naked with another person and emotionally available is easy. But it is not desperate. Not averted. Not grieving. I am not managing every breath like it might betray me. I am not counting exits. I am not waiting for the old reflex to tell me when to leave.
I am there.
Caleb notices. Of course he does. His hands are less careful in places where I have shown him care is allowed to become want. He still watches the hip. Still adjusts when needed. But he is not treating me like something that might fracture if held wrong. He wants me like a man who has learned the map and still enjoys getting lost.
He gets me on my side because the angle is better for the hip and because we both know it by now, which should feel clinical and does not. It feels learned. His chest is against my back, one arm under my neck, the other hand moving down my body with a confidence that makes my breath leave in pieces. I reach back for him. He catches my wrist, kisses the inside of it, then puts my hand where he wants it.
"Bossy," I say, but it comes out wrecked.
"You like it," he says again, lower this time, and proves it before I can answer.
I say his name. Once. Then again when his mouth finds the place under my jaw that makes language fail.
He looks pleased with himself.
"Don't," I say.
"Don't what?"
"Look smug."
"I am not smug."
"You are extremely smug for a man wearing one sock."
He glances down.
He is wearing one sock.
The other is halfway off, caught around his heel, because apparently desire did not prioritize laundry mechanics.
