He was tight but thrilled in his navy blue suit.
He could almost read his lips.
“Don’t even think of hugging me.”
“Don’t worry,” she’d said, “not this time.”
* * *
—
Afterwards, Clay walked home.
He crossed the Hennessey floodgates, out through the smoke of the car park, and the bright red rows of taillights. He turned onto Gloaming Road, which was suitably noisy and choked.
Hands in pockets.
The city folding in, at evening, then—
“Hey!”
He turned.
“Clay!”
She appeared from around the gate.
She’d changed from out of her racing silks, in jeans and shirt, but barefoot. Her smile, again, like the straight.
“Wait up, Clay! Wait up—” And he could feel the heat and blood in her, as she caught him and stood five meters away, and he said to her, “Blood on the Brain.” Then smiled, and told her, “Arkansas.”
* * *
—
She stepped through the dark, and half leapt at him.
She almost tackled him down.
Her heartbeat like a storm front—but warm, inside his jacket—and that traffic still trapped, still standstill.
She hugged him terribly hard.
People walked past and saw, but neither of them cared to notice.
Her feet were on his shoes.
What she said in the pool of his collarbone.
He felt the beams of her bony ribcage, a scaffolding all of its own, as she hugged him fierce and friendless:
“I missed you, do you know that?”
He squeezed her and it hurt but they liked it; and the soft of her chest hardened flat.
He said, “I missed you, too.”
When they lessened, she asked him, “Later?”