Milo turned his head at the same moment Arun did, and their mouths missed. It should have been funny. Years ago they would have tried again with exaggerated care, making a game of their noses and the awkward angle of Milo's glasses. Now both apologized, and something wet remained between their faces.
It was no larger than a fingertip, suspended in the air above the hotel bed. Milo thought it was saliva caught in a thread from the lampshade. He moved his hand toward it. The shape moved away without falling.
"Static," he said.
Arun nodded too quickly.
They had chosen a hotel because neither wanted the first meeting to happen in the other's home. Milo had booked two nights. Arun had brought a bag small enough for one. They had not discussed the difference.
Milo offered to make tea, then remembered there was no kettle. He put his hand on Arun's shoulder to move past him. Before the hand settled, Arun stepped aside. A shallow impression appeared above his shirt, damp and rounded at one end, shaped like the beginning of a palm.
Arun stared at it. Milo stared at the tiny wet mark that still hung over the bed.
"We should go downstairs," Arun said.
"Of course."
Milo reached for his coat. Arun reached to help him with the sleeve, then stopped when Milo drew it toward himself. Fingers formed in the air between them. They were soft and unfinished, their ends spreading like dough. The fingers closed around the empty space where Milo's wrist had been.
For a minute neither man moved.
Outside, somebody wheeled a suitcase down the corridor. A child complained about the lift. Their room remained ordinary enough to make the floating gestures look even less possible: brown curtains, a television with a red standby light, a stain beside the wardrobe that somebody had covered with a chair.
Arun took one step toward the door. The half-formed fingers opened and brushed his wrist. He cried out. A pale line appeared across the skin, deepening while the fingers found the shape they had been waiting to hold.
Milo reached to pull him back. Arun stumbled out of reach. The air between them acquired another hand, larger this time, reaching after him. Milo drew his own arm against his chest before it could touch the new one.
Arun pressed his injured wrist against his chest. Blood ran onto the cuff of his clean shirt.
"Don't touch me," he said.
Milo stood very still. The words hurt before he understood them as practical instructions. That was how badly he had wanted the weekend to work: he could still find rejection inside a warning that might save them.
They backed toward opposite walls. The shapes waited between them. Nothing new appeared when they moved without reaching for each other. Milo tested this by lifting his coat from the chair. No hand formed. Then he began to offer it to Arun and stopped himself. The coat sagged across something that had not been there before.
Arun made a small furious noise.
"Will you stop trying to make it all right?"
"I'm sorry."
"I know. You've said that all evening."
They watched a curve developing above the bed, the beginning of the embrace Milo had nearly offered when Arun arrived. It was wide enough to contain both their bodies. One end slowly found the shape of a shoulder.
Arun sat down against the wall. He said he should have cancelled. He had enjoyed their messages, the familiar jokes, the relief of talking to someone who remembered him before his work became his whole life. He had mistaken that pleasure for wanting to return.
Milo wanted to tell him that they could still have a nice weekend. The sentence was ready. He could hear how reasonable it would sound.
Instead he said he had booked the second night because he could not bear the idea of watching Arun leave after only one.
The shapes did not dissolve. The injured wrist did not heal. They sat among the things they had started and found themselves unable to finish, waiting for their breathing to become ordinary enough that they could move carefully.
There was a gap beside the wardrobe. Arun went first. Milo followed with both coats, holding them against himself. They left the bags behind and shut the door on a wet sound like someone settling comfortably into bed.
At reception, Arun asked for a taxi and something to wrap his wrist. He gave an uncomplicated explanation involving a sharp edge. Milo stood far enough away that nobody would assume they belonged together.
When the taxi came, Milo started to raise his arms. Arun's face changed. Milo lowered them and handed over the coat instead.
Arun had left a handkerchief on the reception desk. Milo put it in his pocket, intending to post it back. As the taxi pulled away, the cloth tightened slowly around his fingers. He stood beside the glass doors, feeling an unfinished goodbye find the shape of his hand.
