Page 29 of Undefined Terms

I put my forehead on the tiles. Close my eyes.

The image is right there. Hasn’t moved. Celyn’s face looking up from the floor of my flat with the stubble and the smudged eyeliner and the blue nails wiping the cheek and the mouth saying that’s the hottest thing that’s ever happened to me. The sound, the small one, the one from when I had my hand on, from when Celyn came.

I turn the water cold. Hold it. Count to twenty. Get out.

CHAPTER SIX

Seven o’clock, the gate. Block C, the rebar. Tying. The wire, the pliers, the rhythm. The body knows. The body’s good at this.

The body’s good at other things too apparently.

I tie the next one. And the next. The fingers work and remember, not the wire. The grip on a hip. The waist that fit inside my hands. The skin under the t-shirt, warm, the heartbeat under my palm quick and getting quicker and.

‘Boss.’ Gaz, the grin. ‘You’re grinning. You never grin. You got laid?’

‘Get back on the ties, Gaz.’

He goes. I look down: scraped knuckles, concrete dust in the creases. Last night these hands were somewhere they’d never been.

Same hands.

By lunch, the portacabin, Gaz still hasn’t let it go. Jay looks over from his bacon roll. ‘You do look different, boss.’

‘I look the same.’

‘Nah,’ Gaz says. ‘You look like you slept. First time since you got here you actually look like you slept.’

I didn’t sleep, lay in the dark replaying every second on a loop that wouldn’t stop. But something feels settled, like a slab when the props come out and it holds.

Five o’clock. I shower, pull on the black shirt, check the mirror. Who am I dressing for. I know who I’m dressing for.

The bar. Celyn, corner table. A flower shirt tonight: big blooms, orange and purple, open over a black vest. Eyeliner smudged like it was put on and rubbed with a thumb. Violet nails.

Celyn looks up, the eyes, grey today, the half-smile. But wider than the half. Three-quarters.

‘You came back.’

‘Said I would.’

‘People say things.’

I sit, my chair.

‘I don’t,’ I say. ‘Say things I don’t mean.’

Celyn looks at me. The smile drops, not gone, changed. The eyes stay. The fingers wrap around the mug. The garden-tea smell.

‘No,’ Celyn says. ‘I don’t think you do.’

We talk. About the novel, the character’s found the light switch but the room’s changed shape. About the restaurant. A new waiter who dropped a tray of desserts and blamed the floor. ‘The floor was fine. The floor didn’t suddenly develop a grudge.’

I laugh, Celyn laughs, looser tonight, both of us.

‘How’s the site?’ Celyn says. Laptop closed.

‘Good. The set went clean. Pour tomorrow.’

‘Do you think about it? The concrete. After it’s poured.’