Page 1 of The Couch Where It Happens

Chapter 1

Step away from the edge

“Shit, this couch isheavy.” Emma Nakamura wouldn’t describe how she let her end of the piece of furniture contact the floor as dropping it. It was more like a sudden, unplanned exit from her grip.

Yesterday afternoon, she hadn’t considered that the couch she’d nabbed for fifty bucks at the used furniture store would require burly men to carry it up the stairs. She only had Hank Kahue, her best friend. While he had the broad shoulders, long arms, tree-trunk thighs, and cardiovascular conditioning to qualify as a stellar moving man, she topped five feet by less than the thickness of two pieces of paper, three if she lifted her chin.

“I can call some players. One of the guys will show up.” Hank was the assistant special teams coordinator for the Oregon University football team, or, as she liked to tease him, her favorite assistant coach twice removed.

“Give me a minute.” She took a deep breath. “I can do it.” She pulled the hair scrunchie off her wrist and slipped it around the mess stuck to her neck. Her hair was almost long enough todonate. Thick, dark, never bleached or permed, it was perfect for a cancer wig. Right after her grandmother had died, Emma had wanted to cut it all off, but Hank had reminded her how much Obaachan had liked brushing it after her own hair had fallen out.

The couch had to make it to the balcony to anchor a cozy nook for future paying guests, part of the list of tasks to accomplish if she wanted to keep the sprawling split-level home and acre of Japanese-style gardens that her grandparents had loved. She needed the extra income from renting the upstairs bedrooms.

She closed her eyes. The bed and breakfast would happen, had to happen. “All right, I’m ready.”

When she opened her eyes and looked at Hank, she wasn’t surprised that he was smiling.

“Guide your end. I’ve got this.”

With a better-placed grip, she lifted her bit of the sofa and started the weird backward movement, placing her foot awkwardly on a tread, then shuffling her other foot up. And did it again. And again.

She focused on what she could see of Hank’s face as he leaned around the side of the couch to watch her. The thick dark eyebrows that didn’t hide his kind brown eyes. The black hair he kept too short because he buzzed it himself every other week to save time and money. His ears stuck out a tiny bit, which she thought made him look younger than her, even though they were both twenty-five. But really, what she always looked for were his smiles, especially the ones that lit up his whole face like he was about to hug the world and spin it around with him.

The support frame she gripped with her left hand was making a groove so deep in her palm, she’d be able to shelve an extra breakfast tray there tomorrow at work, but they’d get this damn thing up the stairs.

Another step conquered, and she let out a huge grunt from the effort.

“Hey, Emma, that was pretty awesome.”

“Shut. Up. Fucker.”

A trendy midcentury modern theme meant to appeal to Gen X parents of university students and visiting football fans made sense to Emma because her grandparents’ house had been trapped in time for sixty years. She’d spent six months peeling away layers to restore the midcentury glamour Obaachan and Ojiichan had long ago embraced. So far, she—well, she and Hank, if she was honest—had finished almost all the interior painting, polished the original starburst light fixtures in each of the three bathrooms, acquired new mattresses and more than half the furniture for her dream, and sourced enough breakfast dishware to double the size of her grandparents’ Heath ceramics collection.

Her schedule allotted three more weeks to finish the interior and arrange for professional photographs. She still needed a website, a business license, new bedding and towels, and a fucking fairy godmother if she wanted to be taking reservations in time for move-in, fall parents’ weekend, and home football games. Three fucking weeks.

“Shit,” she muttered.

“You okay?” Hank called from below. He supported most of the couch as easily as he provided the upward momentum.

“Yeah,” she forced out as she hunch-stepped again while gripping one armrest and one corner. She should curse less, really should. Hank never swore, or at least never in front of her, despite working around college athletes all day.

“You're almost at the turn. One more step behind you.”

She had the breath for another grunt.

To maximize open space on the first floor, the 1960s architect had fit the stairs tightly to the walls and tucked a tiny square landing in the corner. She and Hank lifted the new couch almost vertically to navigate their way through the ninety-degree turn.

Her arms were screaming noodles, her shoulders trembled, and her calves burned with the struggle. Couch moving was far, far worse than Pilates.

“Three more steps, that’s it,” he encouraged.

He was a good guy, one who had helped her clear out a half century of her grandparents’ clutter, given her the time to cry, and then painted ceilings with her. He even came over a couple of nights a week, lifting and moving and keeping her company. Someone should snatch him up and wrap him in adoration, but she was grateful he was free to help her. She needed him.

“Gotta set it down.” She staggered backward far enough that he could clear the step too. “Slipping.”

“No problem. We’re there.”

Bent over with her hands on her quads, Emma gasped for air, but Hank had the energy to turn and trot back downstairs. She watched his buttocks flex under his standard spring-summer-fall look, black sport shorts with an untucked technical T-shirt, exactly what he wore to work in the athletic department. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen him in anything more structured than an elastic waist or drawstring pants, let alone nice tight jeans. If he put that butt and thighs in faded denim, she’d guarantee he’d walk out of every microbrewery in Eugene with new contacts in his phone.

---