I walked deliberately through the freezing February air, past the Vietnamese restaurant and the pet store, finally arriving at his building and pressing his buzzer, the one without a name but with a cat sticker next to it. I glanced around as I waited, rubbing my hands together, for him to buzz me in. I was glad I had stopped wearing my wedding ring; in the cold it always felt constricting on my finger. Finally I heard the buzz, quickly pushed the door open, and made a beeline for the elevator. I stepped out on the 5th floor, walked over to his apartment, and removed my loafers, leaving them arranged neatly on the rainbow-flag doormat. Then I opened the door, which he had unlocked for me, the rosary hanging from the doorknob clanking as it swung.

I silently removed my coat, laying it on the couch with my briefcase. The apartment smelled faintly of the cinnamon scented candle he always burned on our Monday evening rendezvous, knowing how much I liked it. I picked up the glass of red wine he had laid out for me on the kitchen table as I strolled over to his bedroom. He’d switched from white a few Mondays back, no explanation given, just a bottle of red sitting there one week where the usual sauvignon blanc used to be. I asked him about it once. He said his father used to drink red, and then talked over himself into some other topic before I could ask what that meant. I let it go. Some doors you learn to leave shut once you’ve knocked and nobody answered.

I glanced at my watch: plenty of time to make the 6:38 train home. A tingle ran through my spine as I stepped over the threshold and found him standing in front of the fireplace, glass in hand, in his baby blue button-down and pressed khakis. “Hey, stranger, glad you could make it” he said, and we traded a look, half smile, half smirk, taking a long sip before we laid our half-empty glasses next to each other on the nightstand. As I approached, he said “I hope you saved yourself for me,” expectantly waiting on my reaction. My wife’s nagging briefly rang in my ears—the familiar list of small disappointments, the way she never looked at me the way he was looking at me now—before I responded with “I tried to save myself, you know how it is.” Sensing the disappointment flash across his face, I closed the distance, straightened his collar and whispered in his ear “but only you will ever get this.”