Page 2 of The Couch Where It Happens

Maybe it was better that he stuck with loose workout gear. And maybe she should look up photos of Jason Momoa or The Rock in jeans, but knowing her recent track record, even her fantasies probably schlepped around in baggy cargo pants.

She moved to the balcony railing a moment before Hank bounded up the stairs a second time, as if he hadn’t worked all day and then carried a shit-ton of couch.

He held a cold bottle of her favorite yuzu citrus fizz and a can of the Hawaiian poha berry and basil soda she kept in the fridge for him. “Here.”

“Thank you.” She straightened and put the damp glass bottle on her neck, welcome relief in this heat. The hair that had escaped her hasty ponytail stuck to her temple.

Standing on the balcony with Hank, the new couch behind them where it belonged, made her smile. Looking at Hank’s ears made her smile. His smile made her smile. And his fucking dimple was, like always, the best thing left in her world. She needed to tell him how much his dependability meant to her, but beyond pizza, drinks, and all the baked goods he could carry, she had no idea how to thank him. No one else in their circle of friends ever seemed to be available when she asked, so she’d stopped mentioning her bed and breakfast plans in the group chat. But Hank made up for all of them. Hank.

“Another task checked off because of you.”

His dimple went away, and he braced his hip on the railing while he popped the tab on his beverage.

She sensed she’d made a mistake, but wasn’t sure how. And she also wasn’t certain that the balcony’s sixty-year-old wooden railings were up to the task of holding Hank. Even though he was light on his feet and nimble enough to dance over football linemen, Hank Kahue was big, former-Division I-defensive-end kind of big.

She tried to open her bottle by using leverage from her whole arm as she squeezed the crimped metal cap, but it didn’t work. “Tools. This is why we have tools.”

Hank held out his empty palm.

Continuing to wrestle with her drink when her hands were damp and felt like the couch corner had given one of them a permanent divot was silly, so she surrendered.

The bottle’s pale green and yellow label was too cute for hands that she suspected could remove a hubcap without a tire iron. Unlike her, Hank could open the bottle and simultaneously hold his own can. They’d been spending a lot of time together lately,most of it alone, and he had such nice big hands. There were still a couple of flecks of pale paint on the side of one wrist, as if he’d missed scrubbing them off last night and the paint hadn’t come off in his shower. He must not have taken a long one, or must not have really rubbed at himself or paid attention, but she could point the spots out and—

What the FUCK, Emma girl?What, exactly, could she do here, huh?

She realized Hank had cleared his throat. He was offering her the open bottle and probably had been for she didn’t know how long.

“Thanks.”Stop staring at Hank’s hands, Emma.“I say that to you a lot, don’t I?”

“You’re always welcome.”

He held her gaze while she brought the bottle to her lips. Fizzy. Tart. Wet. Maybe now she’d feel more normal, less…stareful. Not even a word, but it was how she felt around Hank today. And what did that “always” mean? It seemed to her like it changed the perfunctory meaninglessness ofyou’re welcomeinto something more open-ended, more inviting, but what that was, exactly, eluded her.

He was watching her mouth on the bottle, wasn’t he?

He was.

“Well!” That came out so fucking perky, even her inner animated movie princess cringed with embarrassment. “I’m amazed I can still stand, between work today and painting the dining room ceiling last night and moving that fucking couch.”

Hank said nothing. He took another swig from his can. His throat moved as he swallowed.

Realizing her comment hadn’t been filler chatter, she flexed her spine and rotated her shoulders to try to loosen something, anything, in her back. It didn’t work. So she twisted her emptyleft hand around behind herself to dig her fingers into the cramped muscles above her waistband.

Hank made an odd sort of noise, like a large gulp or a gasp. She turned her head to glance at him. “You okay?”

He was staring at the floor, but she thought maybe he’d glanced away from her chest. That didn’t seem like him.

“Is it the pop?” She would never, ever reveal that she ordered those artisanal four-fifty-a-can berry-basil drinks on the internet and paid shipping from Hawaii specifically for him. He’d be self-conscious if he knew she was spending so much money.

“It’s fine,” he muttered, then raised the can to his mouth.

She saw finger dents in the aluminum.

She froze, the air in her chest trapped there while she tried to process why the sight of the rippled metal squeezed her too.Hadhe been looking at her chest? Hank?

They'd been friends for seven years, since they’d met in the dorms their freshman year. After graduation, he’d taken a job in the athletic department and remained in Eugene, and Emma had started an American History PhD, but then her grandmother had been diagnosed. When she was in elementary school, her grandparents had scrapped their retirement goals to raise her and never made her feel unwanted, so without even making a plan, Emma had cleared out her apartment and set up in her old bedroom. She’d lost so much—sex with her boyfriend, then the boyfriend who went with the sex, and finally even the grad school spot. But she’d been able to share meals that Obaachan had the energy to cook, cook the others herself, and learn Ojiichan’s gardening skills from him until the day he settled into his recliner for his final nap.

Emma had kept the house filled with all the flowers her grandfather had loved to cut for his wife—sprigs of vanilla-fragranced sarcococca in the winter, clusters of nodding purple hellebores as the frost left, tall branches of cherry blossoms,massive bundles of hydrangea, and vases of merlot-colored dahlias. She’d also ended up managing a pub downtown, which let her have the mornings free with Obaachan.

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