11
“Howie,” Noah sang from the front of the house. “I brought you coffee. Oh, hi, Joe!”
Joe, the carpenter, answered in a low rumble, the words indistinct.
I was halfway up a ladder, trying to get this fucking pancake light into place, so all I could do was roll my eyes.
“Howie?”
“It’s still early, God damn it,” I said.
“Good morning!” Noah sang even more loudly.
And—there. The fixture slid into place, and I finished mounting it.
When I glanced down, Noah was waiting at the bottom of the ladder. He was back in his uniform of oversized hoodie, leggings, and Uggs. Instead of the bunny hat, today he had one with antlers. There was a little red nose front and center, and it was glowing.
I groaned.
“Stop,” Noah said, but he was laughing. “It’s cute.”
I climbed down from the ladder. I took my coffee. It was—look, I wasn’t proud of it. I wouldn’t even order it myself, not unless I could use the app. But it was really fucking good, and Noah, apparently, had not forgotten my love of unicorn lattes.
After a few sips, still eying the hat, I said, “It is cute.”
“Good,” Noah said, “because I bought you one just like it.” And then—belting it out like he was on Broadway—“Kidding!”
“God Almighty,” I said. “How much coffee have you had?”
“I’m in a good mood,” Noah said, slapping my arm. “It’s a beautiful morning. I got lots of sleep—”
“I can tell.”
He slapped my arm again. “And we’re going to have a great day together.”
Some of the unicorn latte almost went down wrong. I managed to get my airway clear and say, “What?”
“Today’s my day off, silly. Of course I’m going to spend it helping you.”
I took in the hat. The leggings. The Uggs.
“Rude!” Noah said, but he was laughing again.
It was like the night before hadn’t happened. Like I hadn’t had my arm around him while he cried his eyes out.
But all I said was “I didn’t say anything.”
“I know that look, and that look was rude.” Pitching his voice toward the front of the house, he said, “Joe, he’s being rude.”
Joe said, “Do you want me to fight him?”
“How the fuck do you know Joe?” I asked.
“I hired him, didn’t I?” And as though that were some kind of answer for how Noah had a fiftysomething carpenter wrapped around his little finger, Noah spun around—knocking over an empty bucket, a drill, and a box of fasteners in the process—and said, “Help me bring in the tree.”
Which was how I found myself standing on the driveway, staring at Noah’s Mini Cooper, which somehow—impossibly—had a tree strapped to the top of it.
I rubbed my eyes.
“You’re so dramatic,” Noah said.
“What is happening right now?”
“Well, we had to do something with the tree. We cut it down, remember?”
I did remember. I also remembered leaving it there because the guys at the tree farm were going to deliver it to Noah’s condo.
“How did you get this on top of your car?”
“Why do you say that like I couldn’t do it?”
I looked at him. And then, just to make my point, I squeezed his biceps through the hoodie.
“You’re so mean to me!” But he was beaming. “Some guys from my building helped me.”
“What guys?”
“You don’t know them.”
“What guys, Noah?”
“Cord and Haynes?”
“Cord and Haynes? They sound like douches.”
“Howie!”
I narrowed my eyes. Some of that had to do with the sun still coming up. Some of it had to do with the fact that I still hadn’t had enough unicorn latte. And some of it had to do with the vision I had of these guys. Meatheads. Gym bros. Probably twenty years old with zero body fat.
“Oh stop,” Noah said. “They’re like my little brothers. They like helping me. Cord always helps me bring in my groceries.”
“Great. They can bring the tree inside.”
Noah’s look was somewhere between amusement and—well, I wasn’t sure what. But it came a little too close to knowing, like maybe he already had an idea what I was thinking. “They’re busy. And you’re here. And you’re probably almost as strong as Haynes.”
“You have got to be fucking kidding me if you think that’s going to work,” I said, but I put down my latte and went to start unloading the tree.
Noah watched me struggle to get the tree off the Mini Cooper. Once the tree was finally on the ground, he decided to help me carry it as far as the porch.
“What are we going to do with a fucking Christmas tree?” I said.
Noah just gave me a disparaging glance over his shoulder. “I don’t know if it’s going to fit.”
“I don’t have time for a Christmas tree. I’ve got shit to do today.”
“We’re literally almost done.”
“We’re putting in the cabinets today.”
“Joe is putting the cabinets in today.”
I couldn’t help the outrage rise in my voice. “Well, it’s not like I’m sitting around on my fucking thumb.”
I swear to God: Noah’s smirk was filthy.
“Pick up the fucking tree,” I said.
Big surprise: it didn’t fit.
“Why’d you cut off the net?” I said.
“Cord said we should.”
“Cord is a fucking moron.”
“Let’s try the back door,” Noah said. “It’ll fit. I know it’ll fit.”
“That’s your fucking answer for everything,” I said. “Jam it in the back door.”
The shock on Noah’s face almost made it all worth it.
Plus the fact that Joe was dying of laughter inside.
“We just have to tilt it,” I said. “Get the right angle. We’ll go in sideways.”
Noah looked like he was trying to come up with a good way to make that a dirty joke, but finally he gave up.
Tilting the tree didn’t help. Angling the tree didn’t work. Joe standing inside and pulling while Noah and I pushed only got us a lot of needles all over the doorstep.
“Get out of here.” Noah shooed Joe away. “You’re making it worse.”
Joe laughed as he went back inside.
“We can try taking the door off,” I said.
“See? You’re so smart, Howie.”
“Or I could do the shitload of work I already have to do.”
“But the tree is going to look so good inside! Please, please, please, please, please, please, please!” He clasped his hands. He turned the puppy eyes on me. He even hopped in time with each please. The antlers on his reindeer hat swayed with each bounce.
“God damn it,” I said.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
And I caught myself about three minutes later, as I tapped the pins out of the hinges, wondering why I felt so goddamn proud of myself, and how Noah had managed to get what he wanted. Again.
Even with the door off its hinges, though, the tree was still too big.
“Get a smaller tree,” Joe shouted from inside the house.
“Don’t mess with me, Joe!” Noah shouted back.
Apparently, Noah had finally found his target audience, because Joe cracked up again.
“Noah—” And I stopped myself, because what had been about to slip out—what had felt so natural—had been babe.
Not because I meant to say it. Not because it meant anything.
Because this was so familiar, that was all.
We’d been here before, done this before, so many times.
It was habit. Somehow, I managed to stumble into the rest of the sentence.
“I’ve got a lot to do. We’ll donate this one and get a smaller one. ”
Noah nodded. He adjusted the hat on his head. The red reindeer nose flashed. “Okay,” he said. “Yeah.” And then he smiled at me. “I just wanted this one because we cut it down.”
Sometimes, you have to take the L.
“Where are you going?” Noah called as I headed around the back of the house.
When I came back with a saw, he said, “No, Howie, it’s okay.”
“You’re going to have to find a way to cover it up.”
“It’s too much work. Don’t worry about it.”
“Like put it up against a wall or in a corner or something.”
“We’ll get a smaller tree like you said.”
I pointed the saw at him. “Are you listening to me?”
He looked like he was trying to hide a smile, and he nodded.
That motherfucking tree fit just fine once I took off the biggest branch on one side.
After I helped Noah get it into the stand he’d brought with him—with the trimmed side tucked into the corner of the living room—Noah stood there, hands clasped in front of him, a huge smile on his face. “It’s perfect, Howie. Look. It’s the perfect size. Isn’t it perfect?”
It was so easy to make him happy, sometimes. And there was something so pure about how happy he was. Something so…nice. Like a little bit of it reflected back to me. That was another thing I remembered from the very beginning, back when I hadn’t been happy in a long time.
“You’re going to have to vacuum up all the needles,” I told him.
“They won’t start dropping for a few days.”
“You’re going to have to keep water in the stand.”
“That’s easy; I can do that.”
“If you buy those cheap-ass lights from Walmart, they’ll probably set the tree on fire.”
“Don’t you have a lot of work to do?”
I pointed the saw at him, but Noah never knew when he was being threatened. He just laughed and started fluffing the tree.
Because I did have a lot of work to do, I went out back and started cutting baseboard.
Sure, Joe could have done it. But Joe was costing me—well, Noah—a fucking fortune, and I could handle the baseboard.
The whole process meant a lot of trips in and out of the house: measuring, cutting, fitting.
I took advantage of the opportunity to shoot some videos for my Instagram account.
Baseboards weren’t exactly rocket science, but one thing I’d learned from having this account was that people just wanted to see you do something—and there was always somebody who’d never seen it before.
That was how I spent my morning. I didn’t even know it was lunchtime until Noah showed up with a twelve-inch meatball sub and a large Coke.
“Thanks,” I said. “Can you put it in the kitchen?”
“No, because if I put it in the kitchen, you’re never going to eat it.”
“I’m just going to finish this room.”
“And then you’ll be on a roll, and you’ll start the next room. Or you’ll remember you wanted to do one little thing, and you’ll decide to do that before you eat. Or you’ll—”
“Okay,” I said. “I’m going to finish this piece.”
“Did you eat breakfast?”
I honestly had no idea, but I said, “Yes.”
“Liar. Wash your hands. I’ll get this ready for you.”
“What’s there to get ready? It’s a sandwich—”
Let me tell you, I remembered the look on his face.