“The internet is stupid,” Dustin said.
The router went dark.
“Thank you.”
Then the overhead lights went out.
“Don’t get carried away.”
The lamp at the piano came on.
He stood in the living room holding his phone, still angry enough to keep checking the thing that had pissed him off.
The piano played one low D.
Dustin looked at it.
A second note.
“You’re being very fucking obvious.”
The high E sounded.
He put the phone facedown.
The bench was warm.
He noticed that before he sat down, when he rested his hand on it. Warm enough that he glanced toward the hall to see who had just stood up.
Nobody.
He sat anyway.
His shirt pulled across his shoulders as he reached for the keys. He rolled them once, trying to work out the evening. The uploads. The waiting. The ridiculous little messages assuring him that something was happening.
He played the chord.
Badly.
“Shit.”
He tried again, softer.
This time he let his fingers stay down. He could feel the vibration coming up through the bench.
Behind him, someone exhaled.
Dustin’s hands stopped.
The breath had been close enough to move the hair at the back of his neck.
He looked over his shoulder.
The room was empty.
“Do that again.”
It took its time.
He sat with his hands resting on his thighs, suddenly aware of how much noise he made. Swallowing. Breathing. The small movement of his shoes against the floor.
Then warmth gathered behind him.
He felt it through his shirt first: a palm settling between his shoulders.
His back straightened.
The pressure withdrew.
“No,” he said. “That was good.”
It returned.
Slowly, this time, it traveled down his spine.
Dustin gripped the edge of the bench.
“Jesus.”
The piano answered with a low wooden sound.
He laughed, caught off guard.
“Don’t start.”
The warmth stopped at his waist.
He could have stood up. There was room on either side of the bench. His keys were by the door. Outside, a car went past with somebody’s music playing too loudly.
He stayed.
On the piano, beside his right hand, lay the roof key.
He picked it up.
The brass was hot.
Underneath it was a slip of paper with seventeen dates written in a narrow column.
October 15 through October 31.
Beside the first date, someone had made a mark.
Dustin ran his thumb over the key’s teeth.
He thought of the voice they had given the dark. The chair they had left empty. The name they had started taking away.
They had spent the afternoon making an entrance.
Apparently something had used it.
“You’ve been waiting for me to notice.”
The pressure at his waist tightened.
He shut his eyes.
“Yeah. Okay. I’ve noticed.”
The dining room smelled of bread and butter.
He hadn’t heard the oven.
When he stood, the warmth stayed with him for half a step, reluctant to let him go. He reached back without thinking.
His fingers closed on air.
That hurt more than it should have.
At the table, a chair scraped out.
“Come here, then.”
A second chair moved beside it.
Dustin sat.
There was a pear on his plate, cut open, the flesh shining. He picked up one half and bit into it.
Juice ran over his thumb.
Before he could lick it away, something warm touched the inside of his wrist.
His breath caught.
The contact lingered over his pulse.
He lowered the pear.
“Oh, you bastard.”
The lamp dimmed.
“No. Leave it.”
The light steadied.
He wanted to see what little there was to see.
A depression formed in the cushion beside him.
Dustin watched it deepen.
He put his hand there.
For a moment he felt only upholstery. Then something shifted beneath his palm, solid enough that his fingers spread.
A thigh.
The shape of one, anyway.
Warm through fabric he couldn’t see.
He stared at his hand.
The House was so quiet he could hear the lamp.
“Is this all right?” he asked.
The unseen leg pressed up into his palm.
He rubbed his thumb once, carefully.
The glass beside him tipped, struck the table, and rolled.
Dustin caught it before it fell.
He started laughing.
The cushion shook beneath his other hand.
“Good,” he said. “You’re having a normal evening too.”
He ate the bread in small pieces.
Every time he leaned forward, warmth followed the open collar of his shirt. Sometimes it stayed at his neck. Sometimes it moved lower, just far enough that he forgot what he had been about to say.
He stopped trying to finish sentences.
Outside, the hallway light switched off.
Under the table, something brushed his ankle.
Dustin slipped off one shoe.
Then the other.
The contact returned, bare and warm.
He leaned back in the chair.
“There.”
His hand was still resting on the cushion beside him.
He could feel movement beneath it. A slight tension. Something waiting on him now.
He turned his palm upward.
Whatever was there took his hand.
He almost said the name.
He had the first sound in his mouth when the grip changed.
Dustin felt the hesitation.
He swallowed the rest.
For a while he listened to the refrigerator. The plumbing in the wall. Somebody upstairs dropping something and swearing at it.
His own ordinary building went on around him.
He lifted the hand he couldn’t see and brought it toward his mouth.
Warmth touched his lips.
He kissed it.
The chair beside him gave a sharp, ugly creak.
Dustin smiled against his knuckles.
“Too much?”
The fingers tightened.
“All right.”
He kissed them again.
Later, at the piano, he played the chord with one hand.
The other rested behind him on the bench.
Something leaned against his shoulder.
He had stopped looking for it every time it moved. He could feel the difference now between an empty room and this.
This had weight.
This got impatient when he took his hand away.
This liked the low notes.
“You understand we have to keep doing it,” he said.
The E trembled above the chord.
“Tomorrow. The day after. All the way to Halloween.”
Warmth settled against his neck.
Dustin tipped his head, giving it room.
“We started something.”
The roof key turned beneath his wrist.
He let the chord die.
Then he played it again.
When he finally went to bed, he left his phone in the living room.
At the bedroom door, he stopped.
The air behind him was warm.
He pulled his shirt over his head and dropped it on the chair.
Then he waited.
The floorboard gave.
One step.
Another.
He backed into the room, smiling now, feeling a little ridiculous and too good to care.
“Come on.”
The mattress dipped while he was still standing beside it.
Dustin looked at the hollow in the sheet.
He reached down.
This time, when his hand closed, something held on.
He climbed into bed.
Behind him, the door began to swing shut.
“Leave it open.”
It stopped.
From the living room came one soft piano note.
Neither of them got up to see who had played it.