The first thing Delia did in Soren’s apartment was move a wet towel.
It lay across the arm of the chair she wanted to sit in, darkening the fabric beneath it. She lifted it with two fingers and carried it toward the bathroom, where Soren was looking for the sunscreen he claimed to own.
“Where does this go?”
He looked up. “Over the rail.”
“Why wasn’t it over the rail?”
“Because I left it on the chair.”
She waited.
He saw her face and reached for it. “Sorry.”
“I’m not asking you to apologize. I just don’t want to sit on a wet chair.”
“Neither do I.”
“Then we have a shared interest.”
He hung the towel up and returned to the cabinet. Delia leaned against the doorframe, aware that she had been in the apartment for less than ten minutes and had already sounded like someone she disliked. The drive had been hot. She had missed lunch because she wanted to arrive early. Neither fact was Soren’s fault, though his towel remained his responsibility.
“I brought sandwiches,” she said.
He looked at her gratefully. “That sounds better than sunscreen.”
They ate standing at the kitchen counter because Delia did not trust the chair. By the time she finished, the irritation had become small enough to see around. Soren found the sunscreen in a drawer that also contained batteries, an old receipt, and a single playing card.
“Why the queen of clubs?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
“This is a very mysterious household.”
“You’re welcome to investigate the other drawers.”
“I don’t think we’re ready.”
He put the sunscreen in his pocket and kissed her, tasting faintly of mustard. She caught his shirt before he could move away and kissed him again, more slowly.
“Hello,” he said against her mouth.
“Hello.”
The whole afternoon changed shape.
They had planned to walk along the coast, but outside the wind was stronger than it had seemed from the apartment. Delia’s hair blew into her mouth before they reached the corner. Soren looked toward the water, then back at her.
“Still want to walk?”
“Do you?”
“Not very much.”
“Good.”
They stood on the sidewalk considering alternatives. Delia rejected a long drive because she had just completed one. Soren suggested a small indoor arcade at the far end of the main street. She asked if it was full of children. He said probably. They stood another moment, then both began walking toward it.
The arcade occupied a low building with a faded painted sun above the entrance. Beside it, shielded from most of the wind by a wall, was a miniature golf course. Delia stopped at the gate.
“Absolutely,” she said.
Soren looked at the painted lighthouse guarding the first hole. “Have you played before?”
“Several times.”
“Were you any good?”
“That’s a very limiting way to approach recreation.”
He paid for two games while she selected a blue ball and a club that felt approximately right. The attendant handed them a scorecard. Delia took it before Soren could.
“Oh,” he said. “We’re keeping score.”
“Of course we are.”
On the first hole, she struck the ball too hard. It passed the lighthouse, hit the back wall, and returned almost to her feet. Soren made a sound behind her.
“Was that sympathy?”
“Mostly.”
She tried again. This time the ball stopped against the lighthouse door. She crouched to inspect the gap, as though the difficulty might be a maintenance issue. Soren waited with an expression of unbearable patience.
“You can laugh,” she said.
He did.
By the fourth hole, she was losing by enough that keeping score had begun to feel ideological. Soren was annoyingly competent, though not graceful. He bent too far over the club and frowned at each obstacle as if it had sent him an incorrect invoice. Delia took a photograph while he considered a small plastic bridge.
“Don’t,” he said without looking up.
“You’re considering it very seriously.”
“It has a slope.”
“Most bridges do.”
His ball rolled over the bridge, curved around the hole, and stopped at the edge. Delia made a sympathetic noise that fooled neither of them.
On the sixth hole, Soren’s ball disappeared beneath a model fishing boat and failed to emerge. He bent to look through the opening. Delia went around the other side. They could see the ball lodged against a piece of wood inside.
“Hit another one through,” she suggested.
“Then there will be two in there.”
“Or the second one will move the first.”
He looked at her. She raised her eyebrows. He stepped aside.
Her blue ball entered the boat and came to rest beside his.
For a second they stared at each other. Then Soren began laughing so hard he had to lean on the club. Delia tried to explain that the principle had been sound, which only made him worse.
The attendant came with a long stick and rescued both balls. He appeared accustomed to adults making this mistake. Delia thanked him with as much dignity as she could gather. Soren waited until the man had gone before saying, “Excellent investigation.”
She hit his shoe lightly with the end of her club.
At the ninth hole, she managed a shot that went directly in. Her delight was so disproportionate that a small child waiting behind them applauded. Delia bowed to him. Soren kissed her cheek, laughing, and she let the child see her kiss him back.
They finished with Soren ahead by eleven strokes. Delia folded the scorecard and put it in her pocket.
“Evidence?” he asked.
“For my appeal.”
They went inside the arcade, where the noise made conversation difficult. Soren tried a machine that promised a stuffed animal and received nothing. Delia won a handful of tickets from a game involving rapidly lit buttons and exchanged them for a small eraser shaped like a frog. It was a terrible frog and an impractical eraser. She liked it immediately.
Near the back stood two linked driving games, each with a plastic seat and a steering wheel shiny from use. Delia stopped beside them. The screen offered a choice of courses, all apparently designed by someone with no interest in safe road planning.
“One more,” she said.
Soren looked from the screen to her. “You’re going to be good at this.”
“Why would you assume that?”
“Your face.”
She sat down and adjusted the seat. He folded himself into the one beside her, knees too high, and tried to find a comfortable position. Delia waited until he had chosen a car before selecting the course with the most turns.
“Unkind,” he said.
“You haven’t seen me drive.”
“I’ve seen you park.”
The race began. Delia accelerated too early and hit the first barrier. Soren passed her with an undignified shout. She recovered, caught him at the next corner, and watched his car continue straight into a painted mountain.
“There’s a brake,” she said.
“I’m aware.”
“The other pedal.”
He laughed and lost more ground. Delia leaned into the turns, though the chair remained firmly attached to the floor. She could hear him beside her, breathing harder as he concentrated. At the final corner he nearly caught her. She crossed the finish line just ahead, threw both hands up, and struck the underside of the display with one knuckle.
“Ow.”
Soren turned immediately. She was already laughing, holding the hand against her chest.
“Victory injury.”
He took her fingers and inspected the reddened knuckle. “Will you live?”
“With appropriate admiration.”
He kissed it. The gesture was so unembarrassed that she forgot the score for a moment. Then he asked for a rematch and she remembered it very clearly.
They changed courses. This time Soren drove cautiously, refusing every opportunity the game offered to take an absurd shortcut. Delia tried one, sailed over a gap, and landed facing the wrong direction. His car passed hers at a sensible speed.
“Very responsible,” she said.
“Thank you.”
He won by a comfortable margin. Delia demanded a deciding race, then saw a boy waiting with his hands in his pockets and stopped herself.
“We should let someone else have a turn.”
Soren looked over and stood. Getting out of the low seat proved more difficult than getting in. Delia gave him her hand, then had to brace her feet when he accepted it. They nearly both sat down again. The boy watched without visible amusement, which she found generous.
Once Soren was upright, she kept hold of his hand. Her knuckle still stung, and her face felt warm from laughing. He bent to say something close to her ear, but the machines drowned him out. She turned, and his mouth brushed her cheek by accident. They stopped trying to talk until they were outside.
Outside again, they sat on a low wall in the sheltered side of the building. Delia held the frog on her palm while Soren examined it.
“I think it’s ill,” he said.
“It’s tired. It’s had a long day.”
“So have I.”
“You didn’t have to come out of a machine.”
He turned his head to look at her, smiling. She touched the corner of his mouth with her thumb. The gesture surprised them both. His smile faded into something quieter, and he took her hand before she could lower it.
“I missed you,” he said.
“It’s only been two weeks.”
“I know how long it’s been.”
She moved closer on the wall. The wind stirred his hair. She wanted him with a suddenness that made the noise of the arcade behind them seem very far away.
“We could go back,” she said.
He stood immediately, which made her laugh.
At the apartment he hung his jacket on a hook, then glanced at the towel now drying properly in the bathroom. Delia saw him glance and shook her head.
“Don’t ruin this by making a towel joke.”
“I wouldn’t dare.”
He pulled her toward him. She put the frog on the counter before wrapping both arms around his neck. His hands moved warmly over her back, and when he kissed the place beneath her ear she forgot the drive, the scorecard, and the second museum session Devon had approved for August eleventh. She would tell Soren about that later. For now she wanted his full attention, and had it.
They left the bedroom door open. The apartment held the late afternoon light around them as they undressed, laughing once when her bracelet caught in his sleeve. Then the laughter quieted and the rest belonged to them.
Afterward, Delia lay with her cheek against his shoulder, listening to a gull complain somewhere beyond the window. Her stomach made an audible sound.
Soren looked down. “Again?”
“I’ve had a very active day.”
“You played nine holes of miniature golf.”
“Badly. It took longer.”
He kissed her hair and got up to find something they could make without leaving the apartment. Delia watched him pull on a shirt. He caught her watching and stopped.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s not a nothing face.”
She smiled and reached for her clothes.
They made a simple supper together, which meant Soren cooked while Delia cut what he handed her and tried not to get in the way. When she began washing the pan before they ate, he asked her to leave it.
“It’ll be harder later.”
“I’ll do it later.”
She put the pan down. At the table, she told him about August eleventh and the changes she intended to make. He asked whether she would use the same objects. She said some, but that people had brought better ones.
“Did you get paid yet?”
“Next paycheck.”
“Shampoo?”
“Still on the list.”
He remembered. The small pleasure of it stayed with her while they ate.
Afterward, he washed the pan. Delia dried the plates and put them in the cupboard she now knew. She had just reached for the last one when he said, “Would it help if you had a key?”
She stopped with the towel in her hand.
“For when you get here before I’m upstairs,” he added. “Or if you want to go out while I’m working.”
“Your apartment key?”
“Yes.”
He kept washing, though there was nothing left in the sink that required quite so much attention. Delia looked at the private door, then at the small bowl where his keys lay. She knew exactly how a key could grow in her mind: a sign, a promise, something she could polish until it reflected what she wanted to see.
She also knew how often she had stood outside holding a bag while he found a moment to let her in.
“I’d like to think about it,” she said.
He turned off the tap. “All right.”
“Not because I don’t want to be here.”
“I didn’t think that.”
She was not entirely sure, so she put down the plate and went to him. “I do want to be here.”
He leaned back against the counter. She stepped between his knees and rested her hands on his shoulders.
“Next weekend,” she said. “When you’re at mine. I’ll give you an answer then.”
“Okay.”
He kissed her, gently this time. She stayed close after it ended, feeling the damp warmth of his hands through the fabric at her waist.
Later she placed the tiny frog on the shelf beside the bed, where she intended to leave it. Soren, passing the doorway, said it looked better in that light.
“You don’t have to be polite,” she said.
“Good. It looks worse.”
She threw a pillow at him. He caught it, and came back into the room carrying it toward her.