He watches us on the blank screen of his TV. We are sat apart, far corners of the sofa denting with our weight. I have busied myself with the rip in my skirt from earlier that evening. Oslo had wrapped his bony white limbs around my waist as I had entered- canine saliva running down my left wrist and onto the fabric, forming a dark, wet patch at the fringe of my t-shirt. He sits between us now. His bony white head rests between his bony white wrists and his tail hangs off the sofa’s edge in a rare moment of stillness. There is a faint hum in the distance, some lovesick lyric wringing its burden into the damp July air.

The city is dense in the same way as this night- sticky from the intimacy forced upon it, and then the rain. Seventy seconds of respite- his finger tracing the edges of my hairline- skinny arm stretched across the distance between us- across Oslo, the grey upholstery, Bright Lights by the Cannons and the promise of having someone to spend this night with. There is something to be said about such company- about sharing a cigarette with someone who rolled it for two people. In other words, Oslo can now smell me from behind a closed door and I know where to find the coffee.

There is a polished dark wood shelf above the microwave where he keeps the Sleepy Owl, but the tins look unused. He drinks tea on most mornings. In the same shelf, is his Sriracha or a jar of almond butter and a large packet of Parle g biscuits that has seemingly never been opened. It is a well-practiced idea and common among practiced romantics, but he makes my eggs just the way I like them.

There is a table at a restaurant we frequent as a ‘provisional unit’. He made me a painting of it once- the oil kind, told me it would take four months to dry. I wonder who we would be then- how our affiliation will alter. The memory would be fond- familiar like the first riff of a Floyd song or the bus route home from school.

He watches us in the blackness. I imagine Kath Bloom’s ‘Come Here’ in the background like in that Ethan Hawke movie. Two young lovers, the light is obscure and golden, there is thunder or Roman candles or perhaps the rest of the world bleating outside. His fingers tread lightly, they have reached the cusp of my jaw and wrap ever so gently around the back of my neck as if to say, “Darling.”

My arm lifts itself over his elbow and across the distance between us- across Oslo, the grey upholstery, and the last seconds of Bright Lights by the Cannons. I hold his neck and he holds mine, from the far corners of his sofa, denting with our weight.