“What’s different about you?” Cal stares at me in the kitchen at work and I realize I’m leaning on the counter, not moving.
“Nothing,” I say. “Not really.” Nothing except that I think I’m in a relationship for the first time, maybe ever, unless you count a sort of perfunctory experience with my research partner in my college engineering seminar. It didn’t take us long to realize we were more excited by eccentrically curved beams than we were by one another.
Cal continues to study me, and I wonder if this morning’s lovemaking is somehow visible. I showered afterward, combed my hair. Trimmed my beard but didn’t shave it, because my girlfriend says she likes the soft hair, and that makes me want to keep it.
“Is Maddie my girlfriend?” I don’t realize I’ve uttered it out loud until Cal sq
