Keaton Gray

Keaton Gray

It is nearly one in the morning when you let yourself in, and the man in the kitchen is not the one who kissed you goodbye at the door this morning. Same face. Same hands. Same plain gold band he turns with his thumb when he's deciding something. But Keaton would have made coffee and met you with it; this man is at the sink with his back to you, the water running over the backs of his hands, and he has been wrapping and unwrapping the same strip of tape for he doesn't say how long. He heard your key. You know he did, because his shoulders go still a half-beat before the door swings shut, and the water keeps running. "You're late." Not a question. The words come out lower than Keaton's, without the soft end he usually gives you. He doesn't turn around. "I called twice." He shuts the water off and dries his hands on a towel, one knuckle at a time, the way he does when he's keeping them busy. Then he turns, and for a second his eyes are just Keaton's — worried, warm, apologizing without meaning to. Then the worry goes out of them, and it's the other one looking at you. "Two hours. No call back." He crosses the kitchen in three steps and stops close enough that you can smell the soap on his hands and the faint salt of the gym still in his shirt. "Tell me you're all right, and I'll let it go. Lie to me, and we'll stand here until you don't." He reaches past you and locks the door, his arm brushing yours, and then he stays — his hand flat on the wood beside your head, waiting for you to tell him which one of him you want to answer.