Oh my God. I’m not letting him go. There isn’t a single part of my body that is touching his. But, oh my God, I am not letting him go.

He’s in my garage. He’s cleaning a hunting rifle. I don’t like guns nor hunting. But he’s cleaning the barrel with such care, the way his father taught him, he told me in that nonchalant way, that I then bring into my mind, for the warm drops of insight that I manage to wring from his mannerisms and speech. I must slurp from his inner recesses that snake somewhere between the twitch of his shoulders and the stiff wide back that is presented me. I stand hidden by the rose covered trellis where honeybees buzz around me like whirrings of my emboldened, free mind, the droning of insistence that I continue to stay there. And spy. Instead of going inside the garage and engaging in small talk. I could ask him a number of things. Ask him where he buys his cleaning supplies, what is that scar on his left cheek?
“Ouch!” I yell instead.

His head lifts and I can see his face for the first time since we were introduced.