I suddenly realized, 'I might never go visit Lin again.'
We're moving in together. I won't have to go anywhere.
She had rented a nice two-bedroom, an easy walk to commuter rail, and an easy commute to her new job. Just outside the city, she found a good bit more apartment for a good bit less money, and in a quiet residential neighborhood.
I got there just before noon, following her map from the train, The building looked even nicer than her pictures had shown it. Smallish, just eight units, with a lot of single family homes on the street. I walked up the one floor to our unit, faced away from the street, and knocked on the door. Now our door.
I barely had time to set my bag down before she wrapped herself around me. First, she pressed the side of her head against my shoulder, just to get the most contact between us. After a moment, she tipped her face up toward mine, and it must have been instinct: I leaned down to kiss that sweet, soft mouth before I had any conscious thought of doing it.
Her grip loosened and shifted as we kissed, One hand slid from my waist to my hip. The other moved down a little, from my shoulder to that place under my arm, where she found that first softness of breast. ("Side-boob." Gawd, that sounds so icky.) I started to feel that tingle in a lot of places she wasn't touching.
My rational mind woke up at that moment. I leaned back and said, "We have some work to do, don't we?"
After a moment, Lin released me. "Yeah, I never thought there would be that much stuff to unpack."
She was well settled in, but the movers had left my stuff two days ago -- now, a heap of boxes in the second bedroom. It wasn't that much, really. A few things from my old bedroom at my parents' place, desk and chair, and my books. Oh, yes, the books. "It's not hoarding if it's books." And that was even before my grad program. Sometimes, I felt I was reading the way they feed geese for foie gras.
We stepped in, and I opened my travel bag for the jeans and t-shirt I'd want for the heavy lifting. Lin interfered affectionately as I undressed. She even undid my bra clasp from behind, when I wasn't looking. I looked back at her, gave her a smile, and took it the rest of the way off. If she really wanted to see me bouncing all over the place as we worked, well, that was OK. She was bra-less too, but it looks very different on her.
The bed, nightstands, dresser, and desk set fell into place easily. For the moment, we just unboxed the books and stood them up in rows. I had packed them by subject, so that went quickly except for the few stragglers. You know, the ones that didn't fit in the box with the others, or were the wrong size, or that had been in the wrong places when I was packing.
Lin got out a tape measure, and gaped when she added up how long the rows were. "11 meters? That's how much shelf space you need?" Maybe it was the idea of anyone needing that much.
"I guess. Let's call it 12 or 13, allowing room to expand." We went out to the Home Depot for boards and cinder blocks for shelving -- what grad students do. When we saw the standard sizes, we rounded up to 14 meters. Silently, I knew that meant "14, for now." It's books, after all.
The blocks filled the trunk and the back seat foot space of her car, and the boards stuck out the window a bit. I had to scrunch sideways to fit them and me into the car, but it wasn't too bad. The shelves went together quickly, and filing the books went fast, too, since I already had them organized. Even so, it took a while and was heavy work. The day was hot, and we ended up as sweaty messes.
She asked, "Eat first, or shower?"
We had missed lunch. "Let's eat. How does pizza sound?"
"Great. Mushroom and onion?"
"You know me too well. Sounds good."
She dialed the order in, and I started knocking down the boxes. We worked together comfortably. For me, that means not getting in each other's way. She rounded up the stray packing material while I worked on the boxes, then bundled the ones I was done with and took them out to the recycling bin.
We were about done when the doorbell rang. Lin grabbed her wallet and paid, then put it on the table. She locked the door behind her and stripped off her shirt t-shirt. That surprised me for a moment, but she was right. Sun filled the room, a warm breeze played through the window, and it was just us. And, as always, I melted a little at seeing her undress. I followed suit and, like her, hung my damp shirt over the back of my chair. Warm air on bare skin felt light and clean.