The Couch Where It Happens

1. Step away from the edge

Chapter 1

Step away from the edge

“Shit, this couch is heavy.” 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 to donate. 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.

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 of you’re welcome into 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 empty left 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. Had he 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.

In that final year with her grandmother, Hank had come over weekly, gardened alongside Emma, and eaten whatever Obaachan offered. Her grandmother had loved to make a simple box of Golden Curry with chicken, carrots, and potatoes and watch Hank feast on the entire pot. The rest of their friends had come in a distant third for a long time, but now that Emma was alone, she’d switched to working at a waffle place because it offered a daytime schedule, leaving her evenings free to rebuild friendships or work on the house. For all that time, she and Hank had shared the same friends, a small group that either had never left their college town after graduation or strayed only as far as Portland, but they'd never dated.

Maybe they should have.

She didn’t look directly at him, more like a half-rotation of her head paired with a sideways glance disguised as a shoulder stretch, but she watched him.

He finished his drink.

“Back hurting?” he asked.

“Yeah.” She nodded. “I think after rollering ceilings with my arms raised and then the weird grip on the couch, my spine must be all wonky.”

“I can help. Turn around.”

They looked at the railing at the same time.

“We should step away from the edge,” he said.

“I can’t afford to rebuild it.” She sighed. “Maybe I need to paint a yellow ‘do not cross’ line on the floor.”

“Guests won’t be that stupid.”

She snorted and moved toward the couch. “You optimist, you. All your players must have shown up today.” Summer workouts had started last week.

“An optimist? Me?” His gaze flicked sideways to look at her. “Sure, why not.”

They circled the couch from different directions and met again in the middle, almost like dance choreography. An odd bubble filled her chest. She’d been alone with Hank dozens or even hundreds of times, hours and hours of working side by side, eating, watching movies, even running to Home Depot together, but tonight felt different from other nights. Like Hank was a stranger and she was trying to make a good impression. Maybe if she locked eyes with him again, she wouldn’t be able to speak.

Stop freaking the fuck out. This is Hank.

Before she could ask him where she should stand or what to do, and if he was really going to give her a massage, he took her bottle and waved his hand to indicate she should lean forward and brace herself on the back of the couch.

“Sure.” The top of the cushions hit her across the pelvis, and she dug her fingertips into the padding on either side of her hips. The upholstery was a pristine, slightly nubby orange fabric that encapsulated the happy palette she’d chosen for the house refresh.

The small jangle of Hank setting the can and bottle on the floor made her oddly jumpy, so she hunted for conversation. “I guess I’m going to need a side table up here.”

She tried not to audibly inhale when his hands found the tight band of muscle circling above her waist, but the weight and heat of those palms and fingers felt good.

“Uh-huh.” He talked a lot less than she did, which had never bothered her before, but tonight, it was making her anxious enough that she was, of course, talking more.

“And coasters for drinks. People still use those, right?” Each time he dug his thumbs into her tight muscles, the force pushed her into the supporting couch. “I wonder if I should get custom ones made with photos? Or a logo? That would be nice.” Nice was Hank’s hands. In her back. Digging at the bands of tension. Like, really fucking nice. The push-and-release rhythm of his hands was making it a challenge to keep her eyes open.

“Emma.”

“What?” The reply came out breathier than she’d expected.

“You don’t have to be on.”

Her mouth closed, lips stuck together as if with glue. She suddenly felt like an annoyingly talky cartoon sidekick, Donkey to Hank’s Shrek. The force he put into her back thrust her against the couch with each dig, and she had to push back to prevent flopping over. He was big. And quiet. A hero to help her. Hank was like Shrek, if Shrek had been making Donkey feel all squishy inside. She might not be able to remain standing for much longer; possibly, her knees would buckle as he worked on her back. Or maybe he was more like The Rock’s character in Moana . Shit, that might make her the stupid chicken and shit, shit, shit, her thoughts were a mess. A fucking mess.

She squeezed her eyes shut, hoping that would throttle her racing brain.

The Rock’s character talked a lot, so Hank was definitely Shrek.

“You’re tight.”

Her breath caught. Hank didn’t speak much, but what he said, fuuuuck .