Page 4 of Until We Come Home

“Mind if I light up?” she asks, holding it up. “I’m not much of a smoker usually, but a dancer on tour gave me a couple at the afterparty and this one’s been tucked away in my pocket all week. Tonight feels like the right moment.”

“Go for it,” I say.

She rolls it smooth, sets it between her lips, and flicks the lighter twice before it catches. The paper crackles as she takes a deep pull with her eyes half closed, then tilts her chin up and exhales a long stream of smoke that drifts toward the string lights suspended overhead.

The warm glow catches the long line of her throat down to where her dress unbuttons, and I make myself look at the vineyard instead, though it doesn’t do much to cool me down.

She holds the joint out toward me. “Want a hit?”

I look down at it. I rarely smoke, but I’m off the clock for the week, it’s legal out here in California, and I don’t have anywhere to be tomorrow.

“Why not,” I say, taking it from her fingers.

I take a drag, the harsh smoke catching in my throat so I have to clear it on the exhale. She watches me, amused.

"Out of practice?" she asks.

"It's been a few years," I admit, passing it back.

“It comes back to you. I only indulge after a brutal week of rehearsals when everything aches," she says, taking another pull before holding it back out. "Don't tell my trainer."

"My lips are sealed," I say.

"Good," she says, exhaling a cloud of smoke. "He'd give me a full lecture, which would be another problem I’d have to run from."

I take another hit, the smoke going down smoother this time, leaving a warm, earthy taste behind. Slowly, the knot between my shoulder blades starts to loosen. The crickets seem louder in the dark, and I look over at her.

"Speaking of running from problems," I say, passing the joint back to her, "what went wrong with you and the choreographer?"

She laughs. “Nothing happened. That’s sort of the problem. We’d both been home in LA for two whole months straight, which never happens, and we started doing the thing where you’re together every single night and you both get a little too comfortable and a little too settled.”

“What kinds of things are those, exactly?” I ask, watching her turn the joint between her fingers.

“You know. He’s bickering about whose turn it is to take out the trash, I’m picking at him for leaving his shoes everywhere. So we did what we always do. Called it before it got ugly, and now we’re both seeing other people. A little break, and then in a few months we drift back and it’s all exciting again. Hot sex, the whole thing.” She takes a drag. “I think he’s on a silent retreat in Bali right now with some girl he met at a sound bath.”

“A silent retreat,” I repeat.

“Ten days. No phones, no talking, lots of staring at a wall. Not really my thing,” she says, taking another drag.

“I have a hard time imagining you staying quiet for ten days,” I say.

“I’m going to choose to take that as a compliment,” she says, pointing the joint at me.

“It is,” I say, chuckling as I take the joint from her. “You’re good company.”

“Well, obviously.” She grins up at me. “Honestly, though, I’m a bit allergic to commitment, if we’re being real, and so is he. It works.”

“And that’s why you’re not too broken up about it,” I say.

“That’s why I’m only four bread rolls broken up about it. It’s healthy, I think.”

“Oh sure,” I say, and let the smoke out slowly. “That sounds really healthy.”

“Ah, there’s that signature East Coast sarcasm. Though I’m hardly taking romance tips from a mysterious guy lurking in the dark behind a restaurant.” She nudges her shoulder against my arm again. “Mind if I ask you a serious question?”

“We’ve already traded deep dark personal secrets, so fire away,” I tell her.

“Do you date at all? Since your wife passed, I mean. And you can definitely tell me to shut up if that’s crossing a line.”