Casey holds out his hand.
It is just there, in the space between us. Palm up, open, resting on the kitchen table next to the Uncrustables box and his WORLD'S OKAYEST DOCTOR mug. His fingers are relaxed, slightly curled, and there is a pale scar on his index finger that I have never noticed before, probably from a skate blade, a thin silver line that catches the grey light from the window.
“Start simple,” he says. His voice is gentle. Patient. Like he is approaching a frightened animal, which, if I am being perfectly honest with myself, is not an inaccurate assessment of my current psychological state.
I look at his hand. I look at my hand, resting on my leather notebook, the fingers long and precise and currently experiencing a micro-tremor that I am choosing to attribute to caffeine intake.
This is practice; a strategic rehearsal. This is two colleagues calibrating physical parameters for a professional deception.
I place my hand in his.
His palm is warm. Not warm like a normal human hand. Warm like standing too close to a fireplace, warm like sunlight on tile, warm like the man is generating his own localized weather system. I have, in the course of my career, palpated thousands of hands. I have assessed capillary refill, checked radial pulses, tested grip strength in patients recovering from craniotomies. I have, in other words, a robust and well-calibrated baseline for what a hand is supposed to feel like, and Casey Welling's hand has just rendered that baseline professionally useless. His fingers close around mine with a gentleness that is at odds with their size, and his thumb settles against the back of my hand, right over the tendon of my extensor digitorum, and I can feel my own pulse against his skin.
His hand, calloused and rough, is twice the width of mine; my whole hand vanishes within it, leaving me feeling simultaneously silly and profoundly secure.
“See?” Casey says, and his voice is very, very quiet. “Not so bad.”
I look at our hands. His aremassive, scarred, warm. Mine are narrow, precise. They look wrong together. They look like two hands that do not belong in the same sentence.
And yet, despite all this, they look as if they fit.
“No,” I say, and my voice is a whisper that I did not authorize. “Not so bad.”
Oliver snores. The radiator hisses. Outside, a streetcar rattles down Dundas, its bell clanging in the freezing February air.
Casey does not let go of my hand.
I do not pull it away.
My phone buzzes on the table. A text from my mother:
Darling, what is your fiancé's suit size? Tarun will need measurements.
Reality crashes back in.
“I need your suit measurements,” I say, pulling my hand free with a steadiness I do not feel. I flip open my notebook to a fresh page. Pen ready. Parameters restored. “Chest, waist, inseam, shoulder width, and sleeve length.”
Casey blinks, clearly recalibrating from the hand-holding to the suit measurements at whiplash speed. “Uh. Fifty-two chest? Thirty-four waist? I think? Honestly, most things I try on don't fit, so I've kind of given up on suits.”
“You've given up on suits.”
“The shoulders don't work. Nothing off the rack fits.”
I look at his shoulders. They are approximately the width of a compact car. I look back at my notebook.
“I'll have Tarun handle it,” I say. “He once tailored a suit for a Bollywood actor who gained thirty pounds of muscle for a role. He enjoys a challenge.”
“Is Tarun going to be okay? Like, emotionally?”
“Tarun is going to be ecstatic. He lives for spectacle.” I stand, tucking the notebook into my coat pocket. Oliver lifts his head from my knee, looks up at me with those enormous, liquid brown eyes, and lets out a soft, mournful whine, as if I am abandoning him to a life of profound suffering rather than simply walking to the door.
I reach down and scratch behind his ear. The whine transforms into a groan of bliss. His tail thumps twice against the floor.
“I'll send you the flight details by tomorrow evening,” I say, straightening my coat, which now contains enough golden fur to construct an entirely separate dog. I pause. “I will require your number.”
Casey blinks. “Right, you don't have my number.”
“I have your pager. I have your work email. I have, on one regrettable occasion, your fax extension. I do not have your personal mobile number.”