Thirty Days' Notice

The stairwell still smelled like garlic from the second-floor people. I came up with my knife roll under one arm and my coat half off, and the kitchen light was already on.

Isaac sat on the counter between two taped boxes, one sock on, the other in his hand. He had a pen behind his ear and the fridge door hanging open like he meant to put something in and forgot.

“You’re home,” he said.

“That’s the idea.” I set the roll on the only clear stretch of counter. My shoulders ached from a double. “You eating?”

“I had cereal at nine.”

“That’s not eating.” I opened the fridge past his knee and pulled eggs, the good butter, and the last of the greens. “Move.”

He moved, but not far. He stayed in the doorway while I set a pan on the heat and cracked eggs into a bowl. The flat had been half empty for a month. The couch was still here. His books were not. My knives were the loudest thing left in the room.

“How was service?” he asked.

“Loud. Short on dishwashers. A guy sent back a steak because it was pink.” I whisked. Butter hit the pan and hissed. “You want toast or not.”

“Toast.” He came in and dropped two slices in. The toaster was older than the lease. “You didn’t have to cook.”

“I cook when I’m awake. You’re awake. It works out.”

He watched the pan the way he watched weather maps, like something was about to change and he wanted to be early. I salted the eggs and tipped them in. The greens went after, just long enough to shine.

“Denver called,” he said.

“Yeah?”

“They want me there the nineteenth. Orientation, then a field week. I told them I already bought the ticket.”

I plated without looking at him. Toast popped. He buttered both slices and cut them the way I hated, corner to corner, and set them on the plates like he had earned them.

We ate standing up, because the table was under a box labeled KITCHEN, which was funny until you wanted a fork. The eggs were good. I said so in my head and not out loud. Isaac ate like he was late for something, then slowed down halfway through, as if he remembered he didn’t have to be.

“This is better than cereal,” he said.

“Most things are.”

He smiled at his plate. I looked at the fridge so I wouldn’t look at his mouth.

The list was still there, magnet crooked, headed in his block letters: BEFORE DENVER. Return library books. Cancel the gym. Tell the building about the keys. Half of it was crossed through. A new line sat near the bottom, struck out hard enough to groove the paper, but the words were still readable.

tell Ben

I set my fork down. “What’s that one.”

Isaac followed my eyes. His face did a small, useless thing, like he could cover the paper with his stare. “Nothing. I changed my mind.”

“You wrote it and crossed it out. That’s not nothing.”

“It’s a list. Lists get messy.” He took my plate even though I wasn’t done and ran water over both. “You want tea?”

“I want you to answer.”

The kettle went on. He got two mugs without asking which was mine. He knew. Three years of late shifts and he knew the blue one, chipped at the rim, from the place on Clark.

“Tell me what,” I said.

“Ben.”

“That’s my name. Not an answer.”

He leaned on the sink. The pen was still behind his ear. “I was going to ask you about the couch. Whether you want it or whether I should list it. Then I decided you want the couch. So I crossed it out.”

“The couch isn’t on the list.”

“It is in my head.”

“Isaac.”

Steam started. He poured, and the tea bag strings stuck to his fingers. He passed me the blue mug and kept his hand on it a second longer than the handoff needed.

“I’m bad at lists,” he said. “I start them so I don’t forget, and then I look at them and forget why I wrote half of it. Drink that before it gets sad.”

I drank. It was too hot. He watched me do it.

“You’re dodging,” I said.

“I’m making tea at one in the morning for a man who just fed me. That’s not dodging. That’s manners.”

“Since when.”

He laughed once, short. “Since I don’t want to fight in a kitchen full of boxes.”

“We’re not fighting.”

“Good.” He nodded at the ceiling. “Roof’s open. The latch sticks if you don’t lift it. I went up earlier. It’s clear.”

“You want air.”

“I want to not stand here looking at that list.”

I could have pushed. I had pushed with the last person who lived here, and he took the couch and left the rest. I rinsed my mug, dried my hands on a towel that smelled like the restaurant, and followed Isaac up the back stairs with my coat still on.

The roof was gravel and one plastic chair and the vent that knocked when the heat came on. Chicago lay out in orange and white. March cold got into the cuffs. Isaac had the chair but didn’t sit. He stood at the low wall with his hands in his pockets and his breath showing.

“Better,” he said.

“Colder.”

“Same thing, some nights.”

I came up beside him. Down on the street a bus sighed and moved on. Neither of us spoke for a minute. That used to be easy. Lately the quiet had a job.

“Three years,” I said. “You leave and I get the weird magnets.”

“You can have the magnets. And the chair. The chair hates me.”

“You sat in it twice.”

“It hated me both times.” He glanced over. The pen was gone. His hair was a mess from the stairs. “You going to keep the place?”

“If I can swing it. I don’t want another roommate.”

“Fair.”

“I want the same keys in the same bowl. I want to come home and know whose shoes are by the door.” I heard myself and didn’t take it back. “I’m not built for a sendoff. My last one left with the furniture and a text.”

Isaac’s jaw worked. “I know.”

“So if this is a going-away speech, you can save it. I cooked because you were hungry. That’s all it has to be.”

“It isn’t all it is.”

The vent knocked once. He took his hands out of his pockets and set them on the wall. His knuckles were red from the cold.

“The line on the list,” he said. “It wasn’t the couch.”

“I figured.”

“I’ve been writing it for a month and crossing it out. Tonight I did it again while you were plating eggs, which is coward work, and I know it.” He looked at the street. “I’m bi. I never said it in this apartment. I kept thinking I’d say it when it mattered, and then it always mattered, and I still didn’t.”

I waited. The cold sat on my ears. He wasn’t finished. I could hear it in the way he didn’t step back.

“And it mattered because of you,” he said. “Not as a category. As you. The late nights. The way you yell at the toaster and then feed me anyway. I kept finding reasons to be in the kitchen because the kitchen had you in it. I didn’t want to leave that the way I leave everything else. Half done. Boxed. A line I can cross out.”

My pulse was in my throat. I didn’t make a speech. I put my hand on his wrist where it rested on the wall.

He went still. Then he turned his hand and caught mine, cold fingers, a grip that asked and answered at the same time. I stepped in. He met me. His other hand came up to my jaw, thumb at the corner of my mouth, and I got my free hand into his hair, shorter than it looked, warmer than the air.

The kiss was not careful. It was late and honest and a little too hard at the start, then he eased and I followed, mouths open, the taste of tea and buttered toast, his nose cold against mine. I felt him smile into it and then stop smiling because he wanted more of it. I wanted more of it. Three years of not doing this sat between our coats and didn’t win.

When we broke, our hands were still caught, his on my wrist now, mine still at his hair. His forehead rested on mine. Gravel gritted under my shoes. I could see the bus stop light in his eyes.

“I leave in nineteen days,” he said.

The city kept its noise. I didn’t let go.