The Co-op

Chapter Thirty-Three

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

L A RYNN

It’s somehow both harder and easier to pretend at the barbecue tonight.

When he tosses anyone around the dance floor that comes within his reach, it’s easy to laugh and smile from a distance. He’s switched out his work boots for cowboy boots and it’s all too easy to laugh at those, in addition to the patriotic printed shirt he has on over another one of his tank tops. He’s got a cowboy hat on to complete the ensemble, and it is shameful how much it revs my engine.

But it’s harder when he loops around and finds me as a slow song comes on, pulls me up from where I’m perched on a hay bale between Sally and Macy, and drags me out onto the blacktop. “Unchained Melody” hums through the speakers, full of yearning and hope. It’s one of those songs that I feel in my gut, feels like it latches onto my ribs and pumps my heart from within.

I turn to see Jensen pulling Elyse out to the floor, too, just as Deacon slips a palm around my lower back and cups my other hand in his. He’s flushed from exertion, cheeks glistening. Eyes dark and full of glitter in the string lights. His stubble is already peeking through, his curls going crazier than normal beneath that damned cowboy hat.

“Having fun?” he asks with a bright, open smile.

I press my lips together to keep from beaming back nonsensically, before I reconsider and let it go instead. His hand splays wider when I do, the full force of his warmth making me dozy. “I am. I saw Mrs. Gold pelt her husband with a cornhole beanbag and he shoved a piece of pie in her face,” I say.

He tsks and shakes his head. “I’ve told them time and time again to save the foreplay for their RV. There are families. ” He mimics her tone and expression with frightening accuracy, and I have to press my forehead into his rumbling chest to hide my laugh.

“Only you would think shoving pie in someone’s face is foreplay.”

“Only your pie, Larry,” he says.

The laugh bubbles out of me like champagne, fizzy from drinks and fun. “I’m not sure how that’s even a line but it works.”

“None of my lines work on you,” he says. His thumb strokes across my hand and he brings it to his chest. It’s hard to pretend in this moment that I don’t want everything from him. That I’d be okay only being his friend. But, knowing how I made him feel before, I refuse to make him feel like that’s all he is to me. I don’t feel guilt or an ounce of regret over what we did last night with each other. Denying the attraction I have for him would be pointless. But I cannot stand the idea that he could think that’s all I want.

I do regret the times I could have kissed him in front of everyone, claiming him for myself, and didn’t. I don’t care if most of the people here think we’re traditional newlyweds, I’m not going to risk letting him think my affection is ever only sexual again.

When the last rays of sun disappear from the sky, our party walks down the cliff trail to the beach that hugs one side of the campground, about a hundred yards or so from the first row of campsites.

It’s easy to be his friend down here, where we all light our sparklers before Jensen plays the national anthem on a portable speaker. It’s more difficult when he holds my hand on the walk back because I’m worried he’s only doing it for his mom, but it feels too good to me.

The more I let little memories of our past slip through—some of the things I said and did and how I perceived them versus how they must’ve made him feel—the more desperately I want to be his friend. He’s charming and generous to a fault, to the point that he’s bound himself to me, and I want him to feel that from me, too, somehow. I want to show him that I like him. That I see him.

“I’m sorry about Helena,” I decide to blurt out now. He stops and lets the group continue past us, maintaining his grip on my hand. I can’t get a full breath, I feel myself unspooling. His brow furrows in confusion, so I press on. “I’m sorry I didn’t call. I got sick.” Oh god, I’m about to cry in front of him for the second time in under twenty-four hours. “I wasn’t taking care of myself and I wasn’t doing well after my grandma. I got fired from, like, three really garbage jobs in a row and I was selling off all my furniture just to get by. And I got here and you had so much together, you know? You owned this place and were so competent and, I don’t know. I still… I should have called.” I peel my hand away to tuck my jacket tighter around me and to grind the heel of my palm at a tear.

“It’s okay,” he tells me urgently. “I’m sorry you were sick and alone.” He grabs my hand back and something crackles through me. “That’s why you were sleeping on a couch for six months,” he says, eyes darting back and forth between my own. The gratitude on his face right now decimates me. What a fucking treasure he is, to want all the pieces of the people he cares for, the inconvenient and painful parts, too.

“I just… I was so sad some days I was drowning in grief and I didn’t want to get out of bed,” I admit. My voice wheezes out of me. “Or I’d manage to get where I needed to be but I couldn’t do my job. And God, everything was so expensive and no one would hire me for anything decent because I was either overqualified in some way or didn’t have the right education in another. And then my dad took back my car, so I had to sell more stuff to get that Accord, and I was just so tired all the time. And then I got sick and just couldn’t kick it. I ended up in the hospital with pneumonia. Elyse drove down to Sac and made me go. That’s where I was when Hel passed, Deacon, I’m so sorry. And the only p-person I wanted to talk to about everything was gone —”

“Hey, shh, it’s okay,” he says, pulling me into his chest. When he kisses my temple I squeak out another cry.

“You wanted me to open up,” I say, trying to lighten the mood, voice muffled in one of his pecs. “Remember that when you clean the snot off your shirt, okay?” His laugh reverberates through my sternum.

“I’m fine with your snot,” he says. And I remember him saying I don’t mind your mess.

I let myself cry a little longer, surrendering to tears. It’s not the cleansing sob I know I need, but the slow roll of the excess, some splinter of relief.

“Hey, Rynn,” he says after a few, my head still tucked under his chin. He has to lift it a little, but I don’t feel like he minds. “I know they said they didn’t want anything before, but, we could do something to celebrate the grands if you want. Just you and me.”

There’s more of that brittle feeling, tiny hot sparks popping in my chest like kindling. I try to see his face, but with the moon behind him he’s mostly in shadow. “I’d like that,” I say.

He tucks me into his side, rubs a palm up and down my arm. “Whenever you’re ready.”