Page 45 of Always Us

“You’re so bossy.” She smiles, then flips around and turns on the TV.

I get the pins in the base and the wobbling is fixed. Then I find the second piece of the tree and slip it into place. This is way easier when Jade’s not watching.

“Are you going to put together other stuff?” she asks.

“Like what?” I slip the third tree section in place.

“I don’t know. Like tables and stuff.” She lies down, her legs dangling off the arm of the couch, swinging back and forth.

“We’re not buying furniture we have to assemble. We have plenty of money to buy furniture that’s already put together.” I slip the last piece of the tree in place.

“Well, other stuff has to be put together, like lawnmowers. Outdoor furniture. Cribs.”

I freeze, my hand still on the tree. Cribs? Is she trying to tell me something?

“Jade, you’re not—”

Her head pops up over the couch. “No. I was just using that as an example.”

I breathe again. Neither one of us is ready for a baby. Jade still hasn’t told me for sure if she even wants one.

“Maybe use a different example next time,” I tell her as I push down on the tree, locking the pieces in place.

Jade does this all the time now. She brings up the baby topic out of the blue, like she did at Frank’s house. And all it does is confuse me and get my hopes up. Then she says she needs more time to think about it, which is fine, but I kind of wish she’d stop bringing up the topic until she’s made a decision.

“Okay, I got the tree together.”

“Already?” She looks back at it. “How’d you do that so fast?”

“Because I didn’t have someone watching me, criticizing everything I did.”

“I wasn’t criticizing. I was helping.”

“You weren’t helping.” I go sit next to her on the couch and kiss her cheek. “But now you can. You get to fluff all the branches. They’re all matted down from being in the box. Have fun.” I put my feet up on the table and flip to a sports channel.

She stands up, her hands on her hips. “You’re not going to help?”

“I did my part. Now it’s your turn. Tell me when you’re done and we’ll do the lights together.”

She goes over to the tree. I’m quietly laughing as I listen to her complain.

“This is going to take a really long time. There are a lot of branches here.”

“You can do it,” I yell back at her. I have to give her a hard time after she acted like I was too incompetent to put the tree together.

“I can’t reach the top branches. I might need a ladder.” She mumbles it to herself and I hear her straining to reach.

I flip around and check her progress. “What’s taking so long?”

“I just started!” She’s so annoyed with me I want to laugh but I try to be serious.

“I would’ve been done by now.” I give her my cocky smile.

“There’s no way you would’ve been done by now.”

“That branch in the middle isn’t fluffed enough.” I point to it.

“How do you know if it’s fluffed enough?” She actually takes me seriously, so I play along.

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