Afterwards, dressed but still toweling his hair with one hand, he follows his nose into the kitchen. The pot is half-full, though it smells a little burned; an empty cup sits in the sink. He slings the towel over his shoulder, pours coffee into two clean mugs, and heads out back.
The sun's just beginning to clear the pines. The pond is still except for a small flock of geese, so accustomed to humans they don't even honk.
"I'm around front," Carter calls.
Jack steps carefully, barefoot, over the gravel in the driveway. He finds Carter on her knees beside a half-empty bag of topsoil, a trowel in her hand and six bright seed packets on the porch. "I found this in the shed," she says without turning, "so I stopped this morning and bought some seeds."
Jack doesn't say anything. For one thing, it's more interesting to watch her, hunched over as she is, in tight black workout shorts and a ratty t-shirt that says "Princeton Department of Physics." She's still wearing her running shoes, along with dark smears of dirt on her face and neck, and her biceps are working hard. It's a nice view.
For another thing, he has no idea what to say.
"I brought you more coffee," he tries.
She sits back on her heels, wiping sweat from her forehead with the back of one hand and leaving another smudge in its wake, and thanks him eagerly as she accepts the cup.
There hasn't been a garden here in decades. Jack's grandmother had kept a few nice plots, including this one, but after she died the cabin slowly became more of a hunting and fishing lodge, an almost entirely male preserve. Jack's mother never liked the woods much.
He hears the geese take off, splashing along the water, and sees them flying southwest in a V. He says, "The soil was on sale a few years back," which was the only reason Jack bought it. It just seemed like something every shed should have.
Carter takes one last sip before setting her coffee down and getting back to work. "It's still in good shape," she says, punching holes in neat little rows. "I'm not so sure about these seeds, though."
Jack walks around her and sits on the porch, admiring her biceps and bottom again. He should, he thinks, probably feel threatened, maybe make some vague plans to bolt. It's only been a few months, after all.
She shakes out a few seeds and pats the soil down over them.
"We should plant some on the other side of the porch," Jack says. "To match."
Carter doesn't look up, but he can see one corner of her bright-white smile. "Maybe next year," she says, and pours more seeds into her palm.
Thanks for reading!