I backed out of there, got in my truck and headed out, stopping to close the gate after myself. I went down the canyon road, careful on the turns. When I reached downtown Fairfax there was still daylight in the sky, but I decided to go all the way to 101 rather than take the back roads to Petaluma and dodge the deer, who liked to practice jumping in front of headlights right
about now.

I texted Aaron that I was on my way, and he texted back, cool, no rush, be careful

Of course the traffic was a slog and slowed me down. It wasn’t entirely unwelcome to have a little time to myself, a chance to shake off the peculiarness—if that was a word—of waking up alone in a strange house and come back to myself again.

By the time I parked next to Aaron’s car and opened the front door, I was good and tired in a way I hadn’t been when I left. Batman thumped his tail from his bed in the corner. Aaron had heard me pull up and already had a Sierra Nevada in a holder
for me.

“You’re the best,” I said, reaching for it, but he held it above him until I kissed him. He was tall, like me, so we were always knocking our heads into the cupboards.

“I need a shower,” I said. “And then I want to eat a lot of whatever is in the oven.”

“Enchiladas. Chicken with green chiles. Hurry up, I’m hungry.”

Maybe this day was turning out well after all. I stooped to pet Batman. He was an eight-year-old German shepherd, getting gray around his muzzle. He was Aaron’s dog, at least to start with. I was still getting used to the idea of things that were his, things that might now be ours. We’d been living together almost a year now. A year seemed like an important marker.

The shower felt good, it melted the soreness right out of me. I knew I’d struggle to stay awake after dinner. It was hard to be good company during the week. Aaron had an office job, in the IT department of a banking headquarters in Santa Rosa. Computers. Smart guy, or at least, smarter than me.

“Hard day in the field?” Aaron asked me as we ate. He had a shaved head and a dark moustache and beard that he kept trimmed short, and people sometimes mistook him for a biker if he wasn’t cleaned up for work, and maybe even then. He was so not like a biker. He was a total sweetie.

“It shouldn’t have been that hard, but it stretched out longer than I wanted.” I wasn’t going to talk about falling asleep, literally, on the job. It was embarrassing. “I have to go back tomorrow and finish up. Ricky will be unhappy. How was work for you?”