The Extra Night: Glad of the Delay - by Diana Piner

The napkin had not fallen. Maren’s hand went down anyway, and for one second her fingers rested in the fur at his neck while rice steam lifted and a story about a closed exit went around the table. He leaned into the palm, polite. No one saw. Under the cloth her knees stayed locked around a tenderness that did not belong to conversation. She had taken the key to keep a borrowed kitchen until the others came back: plants, tile, a shepherd mix the shelter had called steady. The schedule was simple. Feed him. Leave no problem for someone else to solve. Heat in the rooms and a chain on the back door did the rest. A nose at the seam of her shorts could still be laughed off. A breath on wet skin after a shower could still be balance. Then the laugh stopped fitting, and the hours before their return turned a held collar into a poor kind of proof. What she wants from him is repetition without a witness.