I felt the first drops of rain when we were still a block away. We picked up speed, but I didn’t want to sprint. Teo’s leg was good enough for jogging, but I wasn’t sure it was up to a race. We were doing fine. Even the worst of the rain held off, until we hit a dip in the ground where previous rains had washed away soil. I jumped over it without thinking, but Teo slipped, and suddenly he was facedown on the grass.

What else could I do? I plopped down beside him, the rain falling faster. “Fancy meeting you here,” I said. “You okay?”

By then he’d flipped to his back. He was breathing hard but looked fine otherwise. I did the only sensible thing. I propped my hands on each side of his head, leaned over and kissed him. Hard. He put his arms around me, and the only thought that managed to worm its way through a haze of desire was that I was glad we were off the road.

“You know,” I said, when I propped myself just high enough to see his face. “When I said I wanted to pick you up, I didn’t mean right away. You could have waited until we were inside.”

“I stubbed my toe. That doesn’t happen often.”

“Too bad. The result was so much fun.”

“You have raindrops in your eyelashes.”

“You look a little worse for wear yourself.”

He held up his hands to look at his palms. I saw they were red, but not even skinned. I leaned over and kissed one, then the other. “And now I get up, extend my arm, and even if you don’t need it or me, you don’t refuse either.”

I did exactly that, positioned myself over him, with one foot on each side of his hips, and held out my hand. He took it reluctantly, sat up, then in one smooth motion he pulled me down on top of him again. “This is so much more fun.”

I squirmed, but he wrapped his arms around me. “We have to get up sometime, Teo. This is a public place. And I saw lightning.”

He slid his hands under my T-shirt and his thumbs under the bottom of my bra. He kissed me again.

I gave up being practical. This felt exactly right, even as the rain fell harder. I was consumed with memories of other moments like this. I remembered, too, where they had always led and how good our lovemaking had been, right from the beginning.

Only when the distant thunder grew louder, and my bra was in danger of being unhooked in somebody’s front yard, did I finally wrench myself away, get back to my feet and hold out my hand again. This time he let me help him up.

Rain was now falling in earnest, but I couldn’t stop smiling. “You didn’t injure anything, did you?”

“No, but Peg’s not so fond of getting wet.”

I laughed at the nickname. “Peg Leg?”