How to Kill A Couch #3
I tried and failed to hold in my laugh. “Okay, I’m gonna go sort out paying for this. Try not to scandalize the entire store while I’m gone.”
“Sure thing, Dad,” Wilder said, and Danny elbowed him again.
Wilder’s laughter followed me all the way back to the salesman.
The next day Danny and Wilder wrestled the carcass of the old couch into Wilder’s truck and got rid of it.
The couch and the recliner were delivered that afternoon.
I was at work and missed it, but Cash was home and sent me a photograph of the living room’s new look.
Cash was as spare with his words when he texted me as he was in person, so I got a photo of the couch and the recliner and a thumbs-up emoji.
The recliner had a blanket draped over the back of it already.
After work, I grabbed takeout from the Greek place in Hopewell and drove to Goose Run. The drive was becoming familiar to me by now, I’d made it so often. I didn’t mind it; it gave me a chance to decompress after my day, and I enjoyed the anticipation that built as I got closer to Goose Run.
I was head over heels for Danny, no question.
I pulled into the driveway behind Danny’s truck just as my podcast on the Trans-Siberian Railroad ended.
When the hell had this little run-down house in this little run-down town started to feel more like home than my own apartment in Hopewell?
Probably about the same time as the guys inside it had started to feel like family.
I got out of the car, and the front door of the house swung open and Danny stepped out.
Just seeing him there with a big, easy grin on his face had butterflies swooping in my stomach in the best of ways.
Yeah. Head over heels.
And the way he was smiling at me told me he felt exactly the same way.
I held up the takeout bag. “I got gyros. Is everyone here?”
“You didn’t have to,” he said in that tone of voice I was used to by now. The one that was slightly more fond than exasperated, so I could live with it.
He met me as I came up the steps of the porch, and we took the time to share a kiss with my arms draped around his neck, soaking each other in, before we went inside.
The living room was full of noise and laughter, and Danny led me right there. “Miller brought food!”
Wilder and Chase stopped jostling for position on the new couch, and Chase jumped to his feet. “Miller’s my favorite!”
“Go get napkins,” Danny said. “I don’t want spills on the new couch.”
“Oh, that’s rich,” Wilder said, raising his eyebrows.
Danny flushed. “Fuck you.”
The new recliner was in the corner of the room, and Cash was sitting in it, curled up like a pill bug in the fuzzy blanket I’d seen in the photograph he’d sent me earlier. He gave me a shy, lazy smile, then tucked his chin back into the blanket.
“You must be boiling,” Danny said. “You’re gonna have to unwrap to eat, you know.”
Chase didn’t come back with napkins. He came back with a roll of paper towels, which would work just as well.
The four of us squeezed onto the couch and dug into the food while Cash proved that yes, he could eat without having to unwrap himself from his cocoon on the recliner.
He reminded me of a dragon nestled on top of a heap of gold.
I might have bought the couch for the guys, but it was obvious who the recliner already belonged to.
After we’d eaten and everyone had put their wrappers back in the trash bag, I got up and carried it out to the kitchen. Danny followed me and wrapped his arms around my waist and leaned against my back. “You know, I’m glad you’re such a good lawyer,” he said softly.
“Yeah? Why’s that, babe?”
“Because you’d make a shit criminal.”
I turned in his arms. “What?”
He grinned up at me. “I’m just saying, there were an awful lot of footprints on that old couch that nobody could account for. You broke it on purpose, didn’t you?”
“What?” I asked, trying to buy time. “I don’t—what?”
Danny rolled his eyes. “There’s those courtroom smarts you’re always talking about. Babe, they would slaughter you on Law & Order.”
I tried kissing him to shut him up.
It was a terrible kiss, because he was laughing.
“In my defense,” I said, “you never would have let me replace it otherwise. And Wilder needs a bed.”
He pushed me back gently. “Thank you. I’m not used to someone having my back, you know?” His mouth quirked. “Not when it comes to stuff that costs money, at least. But this is going to help Wilder out so much, so thank you.”
And it was still easier for him to accept charity if it was for someone else and not just him. But I didn’t point that out because we were both still learning how to be in this relationship, and how to be honest about our feelings.
“That’s okay,” I said. “I’ve got your back for as long as you’ll have me.”
“Oooh,” he teased gently. “Sounds serious.”
I didn’t take the bait. I ran my fingertips down his cheek. “Totally serious, yeah.”
Danny’s smile faded into something softer. “Yeah.”
And when I kissed him this time, it wasn’t to shut him up.