One Last Set

You know how it goes when the house gets quiet? I didn't. Not for twenty-two years. Then my son Danny packed up his Corolla in June and drove off to his new job in Columbus, and it was just me and a fridge full of food for one. I'm forty-three now, and let me tell you, the silence in that house had weight to it. Like a cat sitting on your chest.

So yeah, that's how I ended up parked outside the warehouse gym at eleven on a Friday night, texting my ex.

The gym is part of the distribution center where I work. Weird setup, but the company owns the whole building, and the gym runs twenty-four hours for the shift workers. I supervise nights in the warehouse side, so I've got keys to everything, including the back storage room nobody uses. Old spools of strapping, torn up mats, one beat up fold-out cot that's been back there since before I got hired.

Micheal and I met at one of those stupid team-building things three years ago. He was a contractor doing inventory software, I was the supervisor herding forty warehouse workers through a trust fall exercise. We dated about a year, broke up two years ago, and kept kind of loosely in touch since. Birthday texts. That kind of thing.

I sat in my Camry and typed: You busy?

He answered in under a minute. For you? Never. Same back room?

See, that's the thing about Micheal. No illusions. No "oh wow, great to hear from you, what's this about?" Just straight to it, like we'd never stopped talking. I laughed right there in the car, alone, as if I were insane.

I typed back: Same back room. One night. No future. You in?

He sent: You know I am. Bring the good lights this time.

We'd had a whole argument once about that bulb. It's a bare bulb, hangs from a cord, buzzes like a hornet. He hated it. I said it was atmospheric. He said it was a fire code violation with a personality. We were both right, honestly.

Then I did something bold. I called him and let it go to voicemail, because I wanted to say my piece without him talking back at me. I whispered it, too, because the parking lot was empty but you never know.

"Hey, it's me. Here's the list. One, you bring condoms, don't argue. Two, no talking about Danny, my mother, or why we broke up. Three, you can leave the light on, I decided the bulb stays. Four, I still like my shoulders done first, you remember. Five, this ends at sunrise and we both act like adults about it. Okay. Bye."

I hung up before the beep. Very mature. Then I sat there grinning at my steering wheel like a fool.

He texted: That was a good voicemail. Should I be taking notes?

Me: Yes. There will not be a quiz but there will be consequences.

Him: My favorite kind. Twenty minutes.

I went inside and did my rounds first, because I'm a supervisor before I'm anything else. The main floor hums even when it's empty, you know? Forklifts parked and charging, that low electrical whine, the faint clang of weights from the gym side where some night-shift guy was still lifting. I checked the cooler temps, checked the dock doors, checked everything twice like I was procrastinating, which, fine, maybe I was.

Because here's what nobody tells you about being forty-three and single. Your body doesn't just sit there waiting politely. It starts making demands. And after Danny left, those demands got loud. I'd spent two years being reasonable and sporadic and adult about Micheal, and I was done being adult about anything for one night.

He knocked on the storage room door at eleven forty. I'll say this, the man aged well. He's forty-five, still has all his hair, still does that thing where he stands in a doorway like he's deciding whether the room is worth entering. I made him wait a second on purpose. Petty? Sure. Satisfying? Also sure.

"Hey, Carlotta," he said, and his voice did that warm thing it always did. "You look good."

"You look old," I said.

"Wow. Straight to it."

"I'm kidding! You look fine. You look like a guy who still pays for a gym membership he doesn't use."

He came in and dropped his duffel on a spool. "I use it twice a week. And I brought the condoms, and I wrote down the list, and I have questions about item four."

"No questions. You remember what to do."

"I remember everything," he said, and that shut me up for a second, because he does, and that's the problem with history, isn't it? You can't text someone 'you busy?' without all that history climbing in the window with you.

We talked a little first. Not about the banned topics. About the guy at the team-building event who fell into the snack table, about his ridiculous new apartment with the exposed pipes, about whether spools of strapping count as furniture. We sat on the cot, which complains under two people, and our knees knocked together like they used to, and I thought, okay, enough texting, the hands should take over now.

So they did. Mine first, I'll admit. I put my hand on his chest and he stopped talking mid-sentence about plumbing codes, which is a trick I recommend to everyone.

"Is this the yes?" he asked. "Or do I need to hear a word?"

"This is the yes. The word is yes, if you want it formal."

"Consequences, Carlotta. You promised consequences."

He kissed me then, and I want to be accurate here, it was exactly as good as it used to be, which annoyed me. Some things should rust. He got my shirt up over my head and I got his belt, and we were trading jokes between breaths like a couple of people who don't know how to be serious.

"Remember when we locked keys in your truck," he