Hand to Heart Coordination

Adam knows that she doesn’t belong to him, but he also knows how to play this game.

She presses the soles of her feet up against his because she says they are cold. They feel so warm. He waits a moment before getting her a clean pair of socks. She puts on some soft spoken new indie breakout artist whispering about skin and breath and feelings that last forever. It's better than the tension in the silence, but he turns down the volume. She pulls on a blanket and he lays on top of it.

It’s a game and he plays it. And in the fourth quarter, on the final drive, with his moral sideline coaching drowned out by a stadium full of hormones, he leaves the huddle. After all his moves, his jukes, his carefully designed plays to keep her desirably close but appropriately far away, there is one play left.

“I’m tired,” she says.

“So am I.”

She moves a bit closer.

“I can walk you back.”

She doesn’t say anything.

Adam thinks that it would be wonderful if she didn't belong to someone else and if his bed, his name, and his memory didn't belong to him.