The Co-op

Chapter Thirty-Eight

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

DEACON

I manage to herd Sally and my mother inside so that Elyse and LaRynn can be left alone for a bit, but I find myself checking out the window periodically, trying to read their lips. LaRynn occasionally looks back my way, like she’s trying to see if I’m still here.

And then I decide that I’m okay with being a nosy asshole when I see both of their expressions fall, and I slide open the window.

“When?” LaRynn asks her.

“I’d have to renew my lease before the end of November. I could ask them to hold on to next door, too, but I don’t know if they will or not. If you think you’d be able to close on a loan before November thirtieth, I’ll ask,” Elyse replies. “But I just can’t hold on to it longer. I can’t afford to, if I need to also set up a new space.”

LaRynn’s eyes find mine. “I won’t be approved for anything until I can also show the rental income, and we’re not done with the house so we can’t rent it yet,” she says, her face shaded in disappointment.

“You’re losing your lease?” I ask Elyse, trying to get caught up.

“Not yet,” Elyse replies. “But with Otto leaving next door, the building management for the strip is raising prices. I can’t afford it no matter what, really… I won’t be able to afford to stay there if I don’t change something, and that’ll take an injection of money I don’t have. If LaRynn wants to do this with me…” Her eyes fill and she chokes on tears. Jensen huddles her into his side. “I love your ideas. I know they’d work. I think if we could expand and had the capacity to do more for lunch and dinner, we’d be so much more profitable. But, it’s still a gamble, and I can barely afford it through November, let alone longer than that when prices go up. I’m so sorry.”

“Stop,” LaRynn insists. “You do not need to be sorry. I’m sorry I even brought this up. I don’t even know what I’m talking about anyway.”

“What if we sold the house?” I ask. Everyone turns to face me, but I keep my eyes trained on LaRynn. “Even if we wrapped up what we can and sold it mostly finished, that’d still give you more than enough to lease next door, to buy in, and have something left over.”

“Deacon,” Elyse says, looking mystified. LaRynn is already shaking her head.

“What about Sally?” she asks.

“Macy already told me I could move in with her if need be,” says Sal.

“You need someone to look after you anyway,” says Mom. Sally rolls her eyes, but smiles a wobbly smile.

“Deacon… this is too fast to make this decision,” LaRynn says.

“We knew it was a possibility from the beginning,” I say. I want her here. I want her tied here somehow. I want her to have something she wants. I want to go visit her and sit at the counter and see that easy joy on her face. I want her latte art and I want to tease her about her tiny skirt. “We’ve already done so much with it. You know they’d want this for you. You know they’d be proud.”

“What if we couldn’t close in time?” LaRynn asks, silent tears streaming down her face. “Seriously. There are still a few major things we would need to finish before it could go on the market. And then we’d probably end up needing a sixty-day closing.”

“We could do it.”

“Rynn, don’t put this sort of pressure on yourself,” Elyse says. LaRynn keeps looking at me. “I’m going to be okay. Even if I have to move locations. Just because it’s not the main strip doesn’t mean it won’t be a success. Seriously.”

“Whatever you decide,” my mom supplies, “you don’t have to decide it this very moment. You two talk it out privately.”

“Exactly,” says LaRynn, mustering up a grin. “Not on your birthday.”

I try to enjoy the remainder of the night. But every time I look at LaRynn her eyes are already there to meet me, their corners sad. I can tell that she’s stressed about it, too, but wants to keep the night upbeat. And I’d love to be solid for her, to alleviate any of her worries and be supportive. I don’t want to be selfish, but… fuck.

Yes I do. I really do want to be selfish. I want to say fuck the house and just stay. Beg her to attach herself to something here and also stick with me. Dream and fight with me, let me dream and fight with you, too.

She stands beside me when we start to say our goodbyes, rubbing an arm self-consciously. “Hey, I feel terrible, but I think I drank too much. I know it’s your birthday, I’m so sorry, but any chance you’re okay to drive?” she asks.

I’m… not. I also drank too much in too short a time frame in my efforts to stay collected.

“I—shouldn’t.” I wince.

“Well,” she declares. “We’re a mess, aren’t we?” She tries to laugh but it dies on a sigh.

“I’ve only got the two-seater,” Jensen offers, pointing at his Jeep. “But we can squeeze Sal in and give her a ride back, at least.”

“Works for me,” Sal agrees.

“The Mystery Spot’s open tonight. You two can stay in there,” my mom decrees, and I feel the blood leave my brain.

“What’s the Mystery Spot?” LaRynn asks.

“We started naming the Airstream sites after different local landmarks or attractions,” Mom explains cheerfully. “It’s rented tomorrow, so you’ll have to replace the sheets, but it’s open.”

I catch LaRynn’s expression, her eyes closing in pain.

Yep, we’re a mess.

We make our way over to the site and into the trailer, then hover on opposite sides of the double bed, standing over it and studying it like we hope it’ll sprout wheels and carry us home. I’m buzzed and a little frantic. She’s across from me looking flushed and biting her thumbnail.

“Do you mind if I take my jeans off?” she asks.

“N-no. Not at all. Please do. You’re good.” So smooth, jackass.

“You can, too,” she adds. “I mean, like—don’t feel like you have to sleep in your jeans or anything. Be comfortable.” She undoes a button. I feel the snap of it in the tip of my dick. “Or don’t. Don’t let me make you feel like you have to strip or something.” She pulls down her zipper and I’m aware that I should be responding but my mind is a blinking cursor. I am slipping into panic. “You know what, I think I’m going to take the dining bench.” She turns to leave. “On second thought. Or third. Whatever the fuck. We can absolutely be adults about this, can’t we? I’m spiraling and I don’t spiral out loud like this so anytime you wanna chime in here and stop me would be truly wonderful—”

“We can definitely be adults about this,” I say. And then I laugh a high-pitched sound when I take off my pants.

She removes hers and laugh-snorts before she slaps a palm to her lips. “Okay, okay. We are mature enough for this,” she declares.

“If you say so,” I reply. But when I take off my shirt I lose her eyes, her laugh fading away with them. I want to catch her looking at me again, the way I’m always dying to look at her. Instead, she quickly turns around without a courtesy warning and I just about need to gag myself and grit my teeth in my shirt.

String thong.

White.

A black bow at the top.

The birthmark in perfect palm placement.

She settles backward into the bed.

I spin around and follow behind.

When I try to adjust, our asses kiss. “Sorry,” we say in unison.

Eventually, one entire side of my body goes numb, pins and needles from shoulder to hip. I roll over, and I can tell she’s already asleep, her breathing even and steady. She falls asleep so damned fast, I swear. Probably the result of being conditioned and desensitized to stress.

I, however, feel fucking desolate and out of control.

I don’t sleep a single solitary minute—the very moment I start to fade, she rolls into my back and nuzzles between my shoulders, and it might as well be a battering ram to my heart. She lets out a breathy sound and I have to fly out of the bed. The lack of sleep is going to bite me in the ass. I feel all my edges wearing thin. Feel even more wrung out when I see the sun start to rise and hear her shifting awake.

I want to pry both of our heads open and figure out where everything goes, figure out the exact right thing to say or do to make her stay, to take a chance on herself and on me.

I wish I didn’t feel the need to try to take everything apart and figure out a situation so much. It feels like that’s all I’ve been doing since Dad died. Figuring out how to fix things. Figuring out how to keep them together. Trying to make myself useful, or valuable, or important.

But it’s like LaRynn said: People aren’t houses or projects. You can’t disassemble them and find out how they operate, identify their broken bits and replace them. You can do your best to understand them as they are, but… people change. They grow. They learn. They just… are.

“You ready?” she asks me after she’s put her jeans back on. I’ve been dressed and waiting at the dining table since sometime in the night, my knee bouncing and my head spinning. So yeah, I’m fucking ready.

But I just tell her “Yes” and follow her back to the bed. We replace the sheets together, and for some reason even that action makes the cracks in me pull wider.

“Jensen asked if we wanted to pick up a few matches today,” she says to me after we pull away from the campground a few minutes later. “He said he texted you, but you didn’t reply. He says Oscar’s down, too.”

“Sure.” I try to smile. “Sounds good.”

We don’t start the conversation on the sale, and I’m grateful for it. I’m unraveling more by the minute and can’t shake the sense of desperation ripping me apart. I feel like I’m failing her if she doesn’t get to do this, and feel like I’m failing her if she does, since it means we lose the house.

I try to ground myself in the morning, in the present and some sense of routine.

We stretch and warm up at the beach for a bit with layers over our suits, until our blood pumps enough to cut the chill from the breeze.

“LaRynn with me, and Jensen with Deac?” Oscar says. “Since it brings our height average equal.”

Whatever, I guess. It irritates me more than it should that LaRynn casually agrees to be on his team. Like she’s not dying to stay together as much as possible for what little time we have left, unlike me.

And fuck, I’m sluggish. And so fucking sullen. I serve a ball low into the net and kick the sand like a toddler.

And I keep fucking up. Spike the ball a mile out of bounds, trip into the net on an easy pass. All while Oscar and LaRynn have an easy time, high-fiving and so in sync it’s like they’ve choreographed.

God I’m tired, and I feel like such a fucking baby, but she’s slipping through my fingers and even though she’s right there, she still feels so out of reach. And fucking Oscar. With his dumb blond hair and dumb affable face. The fucking guitar and his happy, relaxed vibe.

She’s going to find someone like him someday, probably. Someone who didn’t hurt her, who didn’t fuck up. Someone who’ll always be able to say the right thing, to do the right thing. Probably play her a goddamn song about it, too.

It’s easy for her to laugh with him. I don’t see her dropping his hands like they’re on fire when they brush. I don’t see her stiffening up when he does a celebratory shimmy.

They fucking chest bump when they win the second match in a row by eight points and shit, I feel like I’m an idiot teen again, but I have to get the fuck out of here. I mutter something unintelligible and grab my shirt, flinging sand up into my own face in the movement.

I can’t fucking imagine making it another second on this court and I have got to get some space because how the fuck am I going to last even another week with her in that house?

We say a few perfunctory goodbyes and I start up the hill, back to the house that broke us down and apart before it brought us together again. That damned house I don’t even get to keep with the person I want to keep more than anything I’ve ever wanted before.