It’s Thursday.

Which leaves one fair question:

      What happened to Wednesday?

Best I can tell,
     it slipped in

     after Tuesday called an audible.

Padres in town for four,
       Thursday circled…

       until the schedule put first pitch at noon—
                                 no good for Mari.

So Tuesday got the start.

Made the Battery,
     found our seats bottom of the first,
     baseball already moving below us
     while Mari and I spent half the game

                    looking at each other.

I swear there was a field.
It was that kinda night.

Afterward, a Battery bar—
              quick bite,
          cool-down brew,

          parking lot slowly clearing itself.

Nero and I had Mari’s place loaded as the next stop.

Mari threw the curveball:

            “Back to 325?”

Two nights in a row—
    a direct violation

    of at least one known Mari rule.

Unbelievable.
Then breathtaking.

Couch cuddles softened into sleep
      before either of us noticed the change.

Not a nap,
    all night,
    right there

    in each other’s arms.

Her alarm went off,
    she slept through it.

I slept through everything.

Around dawn,
       I opened my eyes
       just long enough

       to find Sleeping Beauty beside me—
                                   quiet,
                     impossibly peaceful,

                 and one thought waiting
        before the rest of me could load:

    _I never want to move from this spot._

I did move,
  morning has rules, too.

Orca walked,
     Laptop open,
     work beginning like usual,
     Mari waking here and there
     for coffee and cuddles,
     then drifting back

     into that most beautiful sleep imaginable.

Meanwhile,
     I did as little work
     as I could get away with.

Lunch finally required PetSmart,
      then Mari home to rescue Mr. Coal,
             Orca and I back to our day…

                        on Irby’s patio. (of course)

Didn’t expect Mari for trivia,
             didn’t blame her.

Two nights,
     two broken rules,
     one accidental all-nighter—

            recovery day earned.

By trivia, I’d moved inside
     with Doug and the crew.

Tied for first
     until the tiebreaker asked:

     “How many official Broadway theaters?”

Forty-two.
Correct answer: forty-one.

Off-by-one,
           couldn’t even leave
              that one at work.

Price Is Right rules handed the win
    to the team that guessed thirty.

Thirty!

Lame.

     Mari agreed.

Through the Braves game,
        Broadway injustice,
        and random nothings,

        the thread stayed awake.

Wednesday didn’t disappear.

It slept late—
   beautiful beside me,
   then stayed awake in the thread
         long after Mari went home,
                 carrying baseball,
               a stolen tiebreaker,
       and all our random nothings…

                   our everythings.