The Philco had the back on. Luke tightened the last chassis screw, flipped the rotary toggle, and waited for the tubes to draw power.
Static rustled through the speaker cloth, followed by a thin AM voice selling agricultural supplies. Not livestock futures this time. Fence posts. T-posts, five to a bundle, delivered south of the county line.
“Romantic,” I said.
“You came to the garage.”
“I was already in the house.”
He set the driver down on the steel tray. Flux, machine oil, and a gray film of dust across the bench. His knuckles were dark with grease near the cuticles. On his kitchen table thirty feet away, the twenty-dollar multi-spectral sensor box was sitting unopened next to a stack of napkins.
He stepped in. I was already against the long workbench, its timber edge catching the backs of my thighs. No speech.
The kiss wasn't a first, and it wasn't tentative. My hands found his shirt, bunching the flannel in my fists. He let out a rough, ragged breath against my mouth, hands locking onto my hips.
The radio kept hawking treated pine and galvanized wire.
“Here?” he murmured against my lips.
“I’m not walking across the gravel like this.”
“Fair enough.”
Buttons first. Mine, then the heavy brass zipper of my jeans. My shirt ended up draped over a metal stool by the drill press. My glasses stayed on because I wanted to see the sharp, focused line of his jaw when his hand slid beneath the cotton of my underwear and found me already soaked and waiting.
“Claire.”
“If you stop to fill out a requisition form, Hayes, I'll pull the power cord.”
He laughed into the curve of my neck, then stopped laughing. Fingers, steady and deliberate, the solid heel of his palm right where the pressure counted, the edge of the heavy bench holding my weight.
It was a harder, sharper angle than the flat at home. I came hard against his hand, one boot hooked behind his calf, my teeth catching the fabric over his shoulder so the quiet neighborhood wouldn't get an unscheduled status report.
He kissed the corner of my mouth, his own breathing heavy and rough against my cheek.
“Still here,” I managed.
“Yeah.”
My jeans shoved down past my knees, not off. He lifted me onto the timber top, wood and steel under my palms, an eight-millimeter socket digging into my hip until I shoved it off the edge with a flick of my wrist.
When he pushed into me, the depth was sudden and full. My fingers locked into the short hair at the nape of his neck. The radio popped with a tiny burst of static and kept right on broadcasting.
I told him harder. He listened. The second wave hit without warning—shorter, sharper, my heel catching the metal drawer handle below the frame. He followed it with a broken groan against my hair, dropping his full weight against me for a second before he caught himself on the rigid pine surface and let out a wrecked, breathless laugh.
“Your structural engineering is terrible,” I said.
“It’s a heavy-duty workbench, Mercer.”
“Passing grade.”
He reached behind him and clicked the Philco off. The amber filament glow inside the chassis began to cool.
I pulled his spare work shirt on off the peg because mine was across the room on the stool and the driveway was fifteen feet of open Saturday daylight. It smelled like cedar shavings and solder. We walked up the gravel path to the side door.
The white sensor box was still sitting on the kitchen table.
I touched the cardboard edge.
Left it.