The Co-op

Chapter Thirty-Four

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

L A RYNN

We have to get back to working on the house. We become immersed in it. Time speeds and becomes defined by everything we have to get done.

And with each item we accomplish, it seems something else goes wrong.

We manage to stay on budget for cabinets and get those ordered, but then our garage door breaks and we have to pay for that repair from our rapidly disappearing funds.

I find and order appliances within our means, but then a small mudslide takes out part of the road heading into the campground. And though no one was hurt and he puts on a brave face, I can tell it weighs on Deacon. He spends the better part of two weeks arguing with the county on whether or not that section of road belongs to the campground or if it’s publicly maintained. He brings up plat maps and Macy tracks down every piece of literature regarding the easement. They eventually win the argument, but they get jerked around and redirected time and time again when they try to get information on when it will be fixed and what they’re supposed to do in the interim. Deacon eventually charms someone enough to come out and certify the intact part of the road safe for temporary use, and someone follows behind to place concrete pillars around the chunk that’s missing.

And with him otherwise occupied, I do everything I can to pick up most of the tasks at the house so we can maintain momentum on that front.

I record everything the plumber tells me—things that I might not understand, but know Deacon will. Apparently our block is on septic that ran down to the street, and roots closed it off. The entire thing has to be replaced. Another devastating punch to our budget. And Deacon was right before: when Grandma and Hel did their renovation years ago, some things were done poorly and corners were cut, so we end up going over our overall plumbing allowance by more than double.

To ease that particular blow, Deacon decides he’ll be the one to do the installation on all the floors, despite that being “fucking terrible, and the one thing I would always rather pay someone else to do,” he says.

I do my best to stay determined. The harder I watch him work, the more motivated I am to carry my weight, too. I stick to four shifts a week at the café and spend all my free time working on the house. I haven’t been able to finish organizing things for the live music nights, but Elyse hasn’t pushed and doesn’t seem super invested, anyway. She’s been more focused on finding other spaces.

Once we have two working toilets and I figure out an agreeable system for keeping things organized amid the chaos (thank you YouTube), I finish wrecking out the main bathroom and kitchen cabinets on my own. Deacon has to step in when it’s time to buy all of our sinks and faucets to help me determine correct measurements, but before the end of July we’ve got everything off to the fabricators for the countertops, too.

By August, we can no longer park in our garage, and we have to halt progress to install the new door so we can keep it closed off. It starts looking like something out of a serial killer show, with white tarps over the cabinets and the vanities that arrive, along with the bathtub I picked out for the master.

And though it’s clear that it isn’t always easy for us both, with each new obstacle that pops up (surprise, your windows are delayed by a month, and literally everything is more expensive than what you were originally told) we continue to work at being good friends to each other. It becomes my primary mission, really.

We lost the plot as far as planning regular team-building days went, but “such is life” becomes our shared favorite saying in the midst of our delirium. Window installers drop one and it happens to be a back-ordered size? Such is life. Seagull shit in your hair? (This happened to Deacon and he was unamused. I laughed so hard I cried.) Such is life. Get a nasty summer cold the same week you plan to put up all the new light fixtures and end up spending it on the couch bingeing all the seasons of Dollar Mountain, a pile of tissues and two containers of Sal’s chicken and dumplings on the coffee table between you instead? Such is life. The daily struggles are still there, all the small things he does that make me sick with longing. But it’d been the week we were actually sick that hurt the worst. One night on the couch in particular, when I think the cold got the best of me. We were sharing our favorite throw, legs each haphazardly tucked on the couch with us, but the couch is an average size, and we are not. My dopey NyQuil body thought that maybe he was playing footsie with me at some point, his socked foot rubbing up and down the side of my ankle. I rubbed back up the inside of his, and then dragged my sole across the top of his foot. But when I tried to peek at him from the corner of my eye, his stayed firmly planted on the TV. I determined it was either an acetaminophen-induced phantasm, or he had no idea he was even doing it.

It feels like we start to create our own soundtrack along the way, too. I start to think that maybe it won’t just be my low moments set to song, but those better, or happier parts of life, as well. Each time one of us gets home, there’s something playing. Sometimes I get a bit indulgent and put on a song that I hope he’ll read into. “Time after Time,” or “Real Love Baby,” even “… Baby One More Time.” I always feel ridiculous after. We have a running joke on the nights we don’t want to do a damn thing that “Jump in the Line” is the only song with enough pep to perk us up. It gets played regularly until we get sick of it, and we default back to Redbone, or Elvis, sometimes Fleetwood Mac.

My very favorite part of our soundtrack isn’t the songs, though. It’s all the other noise. His humming or his laughing or his frustrated curses. I even love the way he stomps his feet, how I can always hear him moving throughout the house. I know I’m lovesick when his chewing stops bothering me.

With the kitchen and our finances in shambles, we spend ten straight days eating snacks and cold items for dinner. And I’m hurtling toward my breaking point, so I know he must be, too. Not to mention I’m becoming concerned for his well-being because his go-to rummage meal is a peanut-butter-and-marshmallow-fluff sandwich. I can’t bear to make him another one. I feel like I’m poisoning the man.

It’s in the second week of August, when I trudge upstairs and find him napping on the subfloor (since of course the hardwood we tried to restore ended up being beyond repair), snoring despite Harry Belafonte blasting through the room, that I finally reach that point.

“That’s it ! I’m calling it!” I yell above the song. His eyes fly open and he jerks up to his feet, the half-eaten sandwich that had been on his chest falling to the ground with a sad little splat before he reaches me in three avid strides.

“What?! Are you okay?!” He looks me up and down, frantically patting my arms like he’s checking me for an injury. The reptilian part of my brain wants to invent one just to keep his hands on me.

“I’m calling a team-building day,” I say instead. “We need to get the fuck out of here. And we are eating out. If I have to make another microwave quesadilla, I’ll put metal spoons in instead. I want a real meal, and I want out of this house. Please. I know it’s not in budget.” I pout and try to make sad eyes.

He dusts the crumbs from his shirt as a hangdog smile parts his face. “Thank God you said it,” he relents. “I spent like forty-five minutes today looking up stuff online about how to just burn this fucker down to collect the insurance money and get away with it, but then I realized that I’d compromised myself by my search history.” He lets out an exhausted laugh. “What do you want to do?”

I’m kicking myself that I hadn’t remembered it was my turn to plan something sooner. Our last official team day may have gone a bit haywire, but it ended up leading to something good, at least. “Wait, what day is it?” I ask out loud before I check my watch. Wednesday. “It’s a residents’ day at the Boardwalk. It won’t be nearly as packed as normal.”

“Sold.”

We waste no time walking down to the amusement park after we change out of our work clothes. I go with my short black romper with some white tennis shoes, and he goes with his favorite redwood-printed shirt and shorts.

While the best part of being in a more northern area of the West Coast is how it rarely gets too hot for too long, today is one of those days that flares with the sticky heat of August.

“You mind holding my stuff?” I ask. “I hate carrying a purse.”

“No pockets in that thing, huh?” He laughs, holding out his hand. I feel his eyes scan me from behind his sunglasses and a hazy warmth ebbs across my skin where they land. I’d really love to get to a point where those small comments and touches feel less loaded to my brain—to my libido. I can only hope it’ll come in time, where my like for him isn’t quite so neck and neck with my want. Any harmless remark that could loosely be interpreted as flirting might’ve been a game to me before, something I’d try to one-up or turn on him. But that was before I knew that I’d once made him feel as used as I had, and I just can’t bring myself to play again. These last weeks have been an exercise in restraint, in throwing myself into work in any way that I can, in trying to show him I value him, this place… this opportunity. Even if it hurts me sometimes. Like when he does a sad, tired little cha-cha dance to a silly song to try and cheer us up, or when he gives me a sideways hug after I hand him some coffee in the morning, or a real bear hug for every single one of his awful sandwiches I make him, like they’re some sort of gift. It makes regret burn through me, that I ever fucked things up or mistook him so thoroughly, that I might have missed my chance with him for something real.

“Thank you,” I say as I pass my cards and a ChapStick his way.

“Hey,” he says brightly, holding up the latter. “This is my favorite kind, too.”

“Oh yeah?” I ask. As if I haven’t pined for it so badly that I went out and bought four packs for myself.

“Rides, arcade, or food first?” he asks.

“Rides, absolutely.” I want to be catapulted and flung to the point that I can’t control or resist it. Tossed around and overwhelmed by so much feeling that my mind goes euphorically blank from thinking.

“Giant Dipper first or save it?”

“First so we can go on it more than once.”

“Smart girl.” He smiles. And my steps bounce so much that I doubt my heels touch the ground.

But when we get near it we see that the line is already wrapped and twisted in a mile-long chain.

He sighs. “Food for the line, then?”

“Let’s do it.” I fist pump the air, desperately scrabbling to keep our spirits up.

Our eyes overestimate what our stomachs and hands can handle, so we end up getting a plate of buffalo tater tots, a vanilla custard cone, a plate of caramel apple nachos, and fried artichoke hearts between us.

When we get in line we look at each other at the same time. “How are we even supposed to eat all this?” I laugh. “Like, not figuratively. I mean with what mechanisms do we accomplish this?” I have something in each hand, and so does he, and clearly neither of us thought this through.

“Mouths only?” he laughs, then illustrates by leaning over and running his tongue up the cone in my hand. I think I see his eyes above his sunglasses for a fleeting half second when he does this, like maybe he’s watching me to see how I’ll react. Lust zips through me and I choke on nothing, but I manage to quell it with a cough. It could very well be that I’m looking for these things where they’re not.

“Help me finish this first since it’ll melt anyway and then I’ll have one free hand at least,” I tell him, nodding to the custard. I swear each time he runs his tongue up it he does it slower, lazier, like he could do it all day. I don’t stop myself from licking all the same spots he’s licked, too. I feel a little pathetic for it. But then, when some of it melts off the cone and I lick it off my wrist, he nearly fumbles his caramel apple nachos, and I feel an insane jolt of hope.

Alas, the custard does eventually get devoured. When I’ve got a free hand I use it to feed us both.

“Tot me,” he says after I’ve just fed him one of his artichoke hearts. I use surgical precision to avoid my fingertips touching his lips, not trusting myself.

“So,” I start. “We’re not stuck talking about cabinet colors or remeasuring the same thing seven times until we pass out from exhaustion right now. Want to tell me what else you’ve been up to these last seven years?” He uses the doorframe leading into the indoor part of the line to nudge his glasses up onto his head, and I laugh. “I could’ve helped you with that,” I say.

“Greasy fingers,” he replies, scrunching his nose at my free hand in mock disgust.

“You’ve always been so precious about that hair. You better hope you don’t lose it one day.” He’d probably still be devastating.

“Look at this hairline, woman. It hasn’t receded a millimeter.” He pouts. “And what do you mean by ‘what else’?”

“I mean aside from work and the campground and stuff. Any girlfriends?” I hope that sounded as casual as I tried to make it sound.

He hums lowly as we step farther down the line. I feel him studying my profile.

“Nothing serious. Longest girlfriend I had was a few months last year. How about you?” he says.

What a perfectly stupid conversation subject I picked. I severely underestimated that petty, nasty part of me, because she rears up with lava-hot jealousy at that mere mention. I wonder if she was short and petite and naturally sweet. Probably so quick with a smile and a laugh.

I manage to wrestle her down, and stick with honesty. “Nothing serious. Flings here and there. School took up even more of my time than it would for a normal law student.”

He tilts his head. “Why’s that?”

“I asked for special accommodations for most of my classes, and had tutors for just about everything, too,” I say. “I’m dyslexic, so studying tons of written text… takes me longer.”

His brows push together. “I never knew that.” It sounds a bit accusatory.

I shrug. “It’s not like it’s something I’m ashamed of. I just was taught from very early on that advertising it made it seem like I was asking for sympathy or making excuses. When I got to college I learned pretty quickly that that’s not the case, and that it’s okay that I learn differently, and I started to advocate for myself.… I had some great professors and tutors, but law was never something I was passionate about to begin with.” A sigh whistles through me. “So, really, I was making myself miserable for years, for more hours of my day than I was ever free.”

He rolls his lips together. “No wonder you were so cranky,” he jokes.

I laugh through my nose and shove his pec lightly, the feel of his nipple through his shirt like a brand against my palm. Great, now I’m this hot for his nipples?

His expression changes, though, pulling down at the edges. “What’s the face?” I ask.

He looks at my mouth for a heartbeat before he squints at something far off in the distance, like he’s trying to look back in time, too. “I just… I said stupid shit to you about reading. Pretty sure I even yelled something at you about it earlier this summer.” A sigh huffs out of him. “I took you to the bingo hall for a date back then. I thought you were just being stuck-up about it.” His expression turns apologetic when he faces me again, still holding a plate in each hand. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s not on you, Deacon,” I tell him. “I had to learn to communicate that and you had no way to know.” And I might always regret that it could’ve been different if I had told him. “There’s nothing to be sorry for.”

I nudge his hip with mine when he won’t look at me. “Hey,” I say. “I’m sorry, too.”

He only smiles softly and nods. “It’s okay.”

I’m still looking for a way to recover the mood when he says, “Here, hold this for me for a second?” and hands me the plate of artichoke hearts, grabbing my ChapStick from his pocket and applying with his freed hand.

“’Choke me,” I say when he slips it back into his pocket.

He fully drops the nachos he still had, dives down and starts trying to slide the plate back under the mess like a dustpan without a broom. A park attendee comes by and tells him to move along.

He stands up and looks at me, still flustered. Some part of me is actually whooping inside. Fist pumping and singing the chorus to a victory song.

“ Artichoke me, please,” I amend. He looks at the plate still in my hand, realization dawning on his face, picks one up and gingerly places it in my open, smiling mouth.

I hold up the plate of tots in offering, then throw it away when he shakes his head.

“Still, time for a relationship or not, I’m sure you had plenty of guys fawning over you,” he says.

“Want the last one?” I hold up the last artichoke, and he declines again. “And not really. I’m usually too mean or too tall for anyone to fawn over.” I toss the plate in the nearest bin.

“Too tall ? ” he says. I’m tempted to huff about the lack of shock regarding the other point, but refrain. We get called forward for our turn. “What do you mean ‘too tall’?”

“I’m roughly six foot, Deacon. I’ve been told many times that I’m too tall.” He snorts in disbelief and I follow him as he steps down into the little roller-coaster car. I shift in the seat and our knees knock together—ironically. He snorts a laugh when he registers this, too. His thigh pressed up against mine is warm, coarse hairs against smooth skin.

His eyes cut over to mine as the lap bar locks into place. “Those are the same kinds of small-minded people that say there’s such a thing as too much money, or too much time. They just don’t know what to do with all of it. All of those.” He nods to my legs and I’m instantly engulfed in the memory of him coasting the tip of the vibrator up my leg, inch by inch. That calm, deferential look in his eyes.

My mind short-circuits even before the ride jerks forward, before it’s filled with laugh-screaming in delight, or the rattling of the coaster flying over the tracks with every dip and turn.