Spill

I really didn’t mean to spill it.

I had been mixing a glaze for the night’s dinner when I got a text and reached for my phone. My elbow went errant, knocked over the bowl full of miso paste and soy sauce and it spilled – all over your fresh new button-up shirt.

Fuck.

I grabbed for a kitchen rag and began blotting, but the stain only settled in. The clock glared at me - Daddy was going to be home in 30 minutes. I flung open the fridge - did we buy any seltzer? For any reason? Of course not. Daddy was going to be mad…she had been planning on wearing that shirt for a big meeting tomorrow. I’d taken it out and ironed it an hour ago; dropped it on the kitchen table when I got distracted, like Daddy always scolds me not to do. I’d planned on surprising her, in a good way.

Fuck.

The metal of your key scratches in the lock and I’m caught, red-handed and sticky, burning from embarrassment and excitement and a little bit of fear. You shove the door open with the brunt of your shoulder and stomp your shoes on the mat. I’m frozen when I look at you like this – existing so wholly without me, this beautiful woman with strong, calloused hands and freckles and this way of taking off a belt that makes me drool. How can I have claim to you, in any way at all? You...