Dale lights a cigarette on the back porch. It's raining out, but only just. It's that misty, dewy sort of rain that isn't really worth wearing an umbrella in but leaves your clothes damp all day. He snaps the lighter closed and puts it in his sweater pocket, staring back into my living room through the screen door. He looks contemplative, taking a drag like he doesn't need to, letting the acrid blue-grey smoke drift out of his mouth of its own accord. Effortless.
When I come out of the kitchen with two beers, I'm thankful that he's finally taken to smoking on the porch. He used to do it in my living room, without regard to what we were doing, or who was there. It pissed me off having to tell him I didn't like it. He says I'm a hypocrite because I smoke pot in my bathroom. He doesn't argue, though. Just points it out, so I know.
I bring the beer out onto the porch, closing the screen behind my back. Dale turns to me slowly and smiles, tiny puffs of smoke drifting up from his hand and hair, diluted by the mist. He offers me a cigarette for the thousandth time, and I shake my head. I hold out the beer to him and he takes it.
"I've been thinking," he says, putting the smoke in his mouth and twisting off the beer cap, "about Christine."
He doesn't look at me directly when he says it, because he knows I won't smile.
"Why would you tell me that?"
"I don't know, I'm just thinking about her. She said all this fucked up shit yesterday, about us."
"About you and I?"
"No," he says, as if he hadn't considered it, "about me and her. About our relationship. About commitment."
"She doesn't know, does she?"
I put down my beer and step closer to him, putting my hand on his waist, moving it towards the front of his jeans.
