The Co-op

Chapter Six

CHAPTER SIX

L A RYNN

It takes longer than normal for me to get my bearings in the morning. When my eyes slit open, they’re staring out through open French doors—one missing multiple panes and half-covered in a tarp—over the small balcony beyond. I can make out the tower of the old mission-style church and see a slice of the pier to the right of it, palm trees framing the entire picture. I already hear faint screams from people on the rides, sea lions barking from their posts.

I’m in my old room at the grands’, but…

The day before filters in through the fugue, just as Deacon steps around the broken door and lays his hands on the frame, obscuring the view.

“Coffee?” he asks. And maybe it’s the stillness of the morning, or the fact that despite also drinking yesterday he is up and looks perfectly fine… unbothered. As unaffected as ever. I’m tired of being so affected . By him, by my parents, by my own brain.

Also making itself known through the din of my hangover: the memory of Deacon nudging me awake on the couch and herding me into his room, a glass of water and an aspirin plopped onto the nightstand beside me. I sit up and reach for both, then head to the pile of my luggage in the living room without responding.

Oh my god, where am I supposed to change in this place?! The only room with a door is the bathroom, which forces me to do some sort of awkward shame-walk past him again, where he’s still hovering in the open doorway. Now only one hand reaches up to brace himself against it, a steaming mug in the other hand. He raises it in cheers from across the room when I shuffle past him again. I shut myself into the bathroom. Ugh.

I take my time brushing my teeth and changing into fresh clothes. Scrub my face clean. I study my reflection and silently ask myself, what would you do if you weren’t so bothered? If he didn’t get to you so? How would you behave? You know better than anyone that the opposite of love isn’t hate. It’s indifference. You can manage to be cool and calm, even if you can’t manage that. I promise myself I’ll at least try, and make my way out onto the balcony.

He’s set up a camp chair beside his, two coffees placed next to each other on a stool between. We sit in silence for a few minutes, drinking from our cups slowly. And I’m unsure if it’s just to give the other the floor first, or if it’s to prep for battle again. I have the oddest sense that he doesn’t know, either.

“I want to continue our conversation,” he begins, squinting into the sun.

“Which one?” I ask, keeping my eyes on the horizon.

“The one where we agree to get married for a set amount of time so that we can access your trust, pool our funds to finish renovations on this building before we agree to keep it as a rental together, or even if we have to ultimately sell our grandmothers’ home for what it’s worth, which also happens to be a life-changing sum of money.”

Unaffected, goddamn it! I mentally chant it like a mantra. “How much time did you have in mind?”

He looks like I’ve successfully thrown him off-kilter with the ease and speediness of this response, and I feel a momentary surge of victory before he recovers himself. “I guess it depends on how much money you have,” he says. “If it’s enough to completely finish things, then we’ll end it when the house is finished, too. If not, we’ll have to supplement it as we go, and I guess… well, I’m guessing after six months we’d have to be close, at least. Close enough that if the shit hits the fan and we want out, we can then split and sell it as is, and it’ll be significantly more than what it’d be if we did that now.”

“And where would Sal go? You know no one else would keep her rent the same.”

“I’ll worry about Sal if it comes to that,” he says, a little firmly. I suppose that’s his right, since he’s been here for her far more than I have the last few years.

“If we were to start this, and I’m not saying I’ll agree, but even if we were to,” I tell him, “I’m not leaving this place unfinished.” If we do this, if I were to truly set aside my pride and agree to this proposal, I cannot fail.

“Understood.” He nods.

“There’s just one teeny, tiny, minor detail you’re forgetting,” I say.

“What?”

“That you and I cannot stand each other,” I say. “That you think I’m a spoiled brat and I think you’re a cocky turd. That construction projects ruin real marriages, so working on one together within whatever this slipshod situationship you’re proposing is, would be…” I shake my head, trying to find the best word. “Cataclysmic.”

His lip has curled and his eyes are appalled. “A ‘cocky turd’ ?”

“‘Obnoxious slut’ felt too affectionate. Some of my favorite people are obnoxious sluts.”

He cracks a smile. “Oh yeah? Who?”

“ See?! We can’t even get through one conversation without you derailing it.” I push up from my chair and his hand wraps around my wrist to stop me.

“I’m sorry, alright?” he laughs. He takes his hand back and holds his palms up in surrender. “I’m done. I swear.”

I eye him suspiciously and he lets a long, weary breath. A curl that’s springier than the rest falls forward on his brow. I dig my nails into my palms to stop the itch to brush it away. “Don’t you ever just want to see something through?” he asks. “Letting this place go would be one thing, but letting it go in this state?” I watch his throat work. “I would do just about anything to avoid that.”

Including marrying me, apparently.

“It’s not like either of us holds marriage itself in high regard,” he continues. He’s got me there. “It’s just a piece of paper, Lar.”

And it was just sex before. Something we both agreed to, but I misconstrued.

“I just can’t see us being able to get through it without killing each other,” I say. The first two weeks we ever spent together over Christmas break, we ended up fighting over countless stupid things, including what had always been my spot at the dinner table. Once he caught on to the fact that it was mine, it became a competition every night to see who could get to it first. One dinner culminated in a mad dash that accidentally landed my elbow in his eye and gave him a shiner through New Year’s. Such a pointless, small thing to fight about. This project would provide hundreds of opportunities for fights just like those.

He tosses a shoulder. “I have great life insurance. You’d be the beneficiary.”

This earns a surprised chuckle from me, which earns a delighted grin from him. And damn if he isn’t an upgraded version of the tempting asshole who had me skipping out on Elyse and canceling plans with my grandmothers for a summer, all so he could twist me up like a pretzel. Who had me turning myself into a lust-crazed, angst-laden, lovestruck idiot. I feel exactly like I did anytime I stood in front of the Fireball ride over at the park and tried to gather my courage. Terrified, exhilarated. I can practically hear Grandma’s voice in my ear say, You’ll be so happy you were brave.

In reality, I tended to have about two minutes of unmitigated joy in between sheer terror, and my motion sickness usually got the better of me when I was done. And yet, she was always right. I still felt like I’d done something.

“We’d need to have some very specific contract requirements,” I say.

“Agreed. A full, comprehensive plan.”

“I’d want a say in how we do things, too. Like, finishes and everything.” I want to do right by this place, and by the grands.

“Obviously we’d have to account for budget, but that seems reasonable enough to me.”

I huff at this. “Reasonable is not what you and I typically inspire in one another.”

He stands with me, chest to chest. “Maybe we treat it like one long, asexual, role-playing situation?”

“Oh, so, exactly what most marriages are at some point?”

“Play house with me,” he says.

I cock a brow. “Huh?”

“Come on. You never played house growing up?” One corner of his mouth kicks higher. I drink my coffee down to the dregs. “You pretend to be husband and wife and run the house how you see fit. Anytime one of us wants to throttle the other, we pretend we’re in a real couple-y fight and handle it accordingly.”

Unless you count swapping out house after house for bigger and better so you can retreat to farther opposite corners… then I’d say I have very few examples to draw from as far as healthy conflict resolution skills within a marriage go.

Memories rise, unbidden and superimposed against one another: different houses and different ages, me alone in my room with some form of music on high volume, surrounded by stuffed animals or shiny things that served as stand-ins for family. My version of playing house consisted of this and watching my bedroom door, wait ing for one of them to choose me, to have some emotional energy to spare. I remember getting older and developing an awareness of money. Realizing we had plenty of that, and yet nowhere felt as empty as my home.

I’m sure it built over time and not in one handful of moments, but I remember the day my own loneliness shifted and began to feel like anger, too. The tutor I was bused directly to three days a week had a vacation booked off, so I let my parents know that I’d need to be picked up from school. When no one showed up, I used the phone in the main office to call my mom multiple times, but never got an answer, so the school had to call my dad. He came and collected me in a palpable fury, and my mom pulled into the driveway right behind us a few minutes later, oblivious.

Apparently, her phone had been on Do Not Disturb for a session with her trainer, and she’d stayed long to get a late lunch and catch up with friends, forgetting to turn her notifications back on. She reached the end of this explanation and still did not realize or acknowledge that she’d also forgotten me. Dad laid into her about being pulled out of a meeting, and I was pointed in the direction of my room.

I always thought if I could do everything expected of me, if I was good, if I caused as little inconvenience as possible and needed as little as possible, then maybe I’d fit somewhere between them. Instead, anger became my quiet companion, something I’d wear like a shroud. I’d take their love where I could get it, which usually came in the form of pride whenever I did manage to do something impressive.

I’d like to impress myself for a change.

“I think if it’s for the grands, we can manage. Don’t you?” Deacon says.

The irony is not lost on me when I reply, “I do.”