For Dave - #fridayflash

I love this photo of Dave. He's always so happy when he's fishing.

How do I know he’s the one?

He clatters the dishes out in the kitchen while I lay on the bed, outstretched, playing with my hair. It is luxuriously soft, silken in my fingers. I have just come back from the hairdresser’s and it is blown smooth, blown shiny, infused with chocolate caramel streaks, subtle, rich, delicious. 

I am here to write, ostensibly.

But the electric fireplace is on, chasing mid-September chill, and the sheets are warm and I yawn and stretch and play with my hair and listen to him doing the dishes.

I am sleepy. My belly is stretched and full. He cooked supper while I was getting my hair done. Hamburger Helper with add-ons: chopped red onion, Montreal steak spice, fresh ground pepper. When I got home he came to the door and smiled at me, kissed me soundly then pulled me into the kitchen where he could see my hair better. His eyes lit up.

“It looks great,” he said, and he pulled me close and stroked my hair and told me he was glad to see me and asked, how was my day?

I threw a salad together, because Hamburger Helper deserves crunchy iceberg lettuce slivered fine, diced carrots and onions, grated cheddar, dried cranberries, sunflower seeds and lemon poppyseed dressing.

We ate ravenously in front of the TV, watching Stargate because he loves science fiction and I love him and every once in a while he lets me watch chick flicks, even the tear-jerkers, and when we do, he cries harder than me.

When we’re done I carry the dishes over to the sink and he says, “Don’t you have a #fridayflash to write?”

So I come in here and I shut the door behind me and I turn on the computer and I start to write. But all I can hear are the rattling of the dishes; the muffled, muted rattling of dishes because he is trying not to disturb me. I listen. I feel peace soaking into my bones.

How do I know he’s the one?

How could I not know?