Chapter 12
Squeaksqueaksqueak.
The bed squeaks as I press down on it, the mattress rebounding quickly, giving my hands repeated high fives. As I bounce faster, the noises become more intense.
SQUEAKSQUEAKSQUEAK.
I take my hands off the mattress, and the bed frame gives off one last whispered squeal as I stand up straight and put my hands on my hips.
“Yeah, we’re going to need to fix that,” Harrison says, studying my bed with his hands on his hips. I would pay a monthly streaming fee to see this man in a renovation show. He wouldn’t even need a cohost.
A moderately pornographic image of Harrison wearing a tool belt flashes through my mind, and I tuck it away in the Fantasy Corner.
“I swear I followed the instructions,” I tell him. This may be true, but it is also true that when I was done building the bed frame, I had four leftover screws. I have no idea where they were supposed to go.
“You should’ve asked me for help.”
“You took me to get this. You helped enough already.”
I should’ve asked him anyway, and the look on his face tells me he agrees.[*1] It took me four hours, six YouTube videos, and two bouts of tears, but I did it. I built the freaking bed frame. Am I proud of my work? No. Am I glad I pushed myself out of my comfort zone and did it anyway? Also no.
It’s barely been a week since then, and the bed frame is already on its last legs.
Every time I sat down on my bed? Squeak. Every time I rolled over at night? Squeak. Every time I breathed? Squeak.
All I have to do is think about the bed, and it squeaks.
“I’m going to be honest,” Harrison says, kneeling to inspect the frame, his ears turning faintly pink. “When I started hearing this through the floor, I assumed you had a guy over.”
You know when you open your mouth to gasp, but your throat muscles are so tight it ends up sounding like a frog noise? That is the sound that comes out of me.
I slap a hand over my mouth, trying to cover my initial reaction by letting out a string of extremely forced chuckles. Even to my own ears, it sounds more like hyperventilating than laughing.
I have probably spent a combined five hours over the last couple days bouncing on my bed, trying to determine where the noise was coming from.
I have essentially been break-dancing on my mattress.
And never once did it occur to me Harrison could hear those noises through his floor the same way I could hear his thumpthumpthumping through my ceiling.
I clear my throat. “Well,” ahem, “you know me! Different guy every night!”
Harrison gives a friendly chuckle. “Such a heartbreaker.”
I don’t know what it says about our relationship that he can chuckle about this possibility.
If I heard Harrison having loud sex through the ceiling (again!
I hate my life!) I would spiral. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I would break my lease.
I do not have the mental strength to withstand that.
Then again, what does it say about our relationship that I have a date with another man this weekend?
Also: What relationship?
“You said you don’t have any tools?” Harrison asks.
He had come to Jo Jo’s when his workday was over, and it just so happened my shift was ending, so we got to walk home together.
(Rose glared at me as I was leaving.) On the walk home, I had told him I needed to go to the hardware store to get tools to fix my bed, and when he asked me what was wrong with it, and I said, “I’m buying tools to figure it out,” he’d given me a concerned look and then offered to help.
Apparently assisting with bed frame reconstruction does fall within the allowed boundaries of Friends with Limitations.
“Uh—yeah, no.”
He side-eyes me from his spot on the floor. “And you’re aware that this came with all the tools you should’ve needed to construct it?”
“It did. But then I accidentally threw them out when I was cleaning up the packaging.” I hold my hands up, forming a heart.
He laughs unexpectedly, and a glitter bomb goes off in my brain. “I’m going to go grab my toolbox,” he says. “I’ll be right back.”
He leaves the apartment, and I pound my fist against my forehead several times to erase the image of Harrison as the star of an HGTV show. Harrison’s Home, maybe. Carter Construction. Hot Nerd Home Renovations. HarrisOn the Job. Straight back to the Fantasy Corner.
My phone buzzes from its spot on my new (soundly constructed, thank you very much!) nightstand.
Jo: we still on for evening yoga?
“Shit,” I murmur. I’d completely forgotten.
Emma: Hate to say it, but having a furniture emergency. Bed frame on the brink of collapse. Need to fix it so I can sleep tonight. Rain check?
Bubbles appear, then disappear, then reappear. A full minute later, she finally responds.
Jo: yep no worries
As I fling my phone back onto the table, Harrison walks back into my apartment, toolbox in hand. He sets it down, then moves over to my bed.
“Help me get the mattress off ?” he asks. I oblige, stifling several loud grunts as I push the mattress off the frame and help him prop it against my wall. Harrison returns his attention to the bed frame, kneeling and giving the shoddy construction a firm shake.
SQUEAKSQUEAKSQUEAK.
I now have the unfortunate image of Harrison listening to these noises from upstairs and thinking it’s the sounds of passionate lovemaking. Of course, thinking about it from that lens, the noises are extremely embarrassing, and I, by extension, am extremely embarrassed.
As Harrison starts to fiddle with screws and metal and whatever else is in the bed frame, I sit down with my back against the wall, legs stretched out toward him.
“Helpful,” he says, dimples appearing.
“I got the sense that you do not want my help reconstructing this bed.”
Without looking away from the bed, Harrison leans over and flicks my ankle. It’s gentle, more of a tap than a real flick, but it still sends pinpoints of sensation all the way up to my pelvic floor.
I let out a shriek of laughter and pull my legs up toward my chest. “Asshole!”
“She says, as I’m deconstructing and reconstructing her bed frame.”
“Are you actually going to have to take it apart?”
“Come look,” he says, waving me over to his side. I slide my butt across the floor, settling in next to him.
“See this?” he says, pointing at a place where two metal bars intersect. I lean forward to look, our heads only a few inches apart.
“Yes…? But I don’t see what’s wrong.”
He shifts to point, moving his body closer to mine. I can feel the gentle in and out of his breath against me. “I have to add screws there, and to the three other similar places where screws are missing,” he says. “But in order to get the metal bars aligned, I need to loosen everything else up.”
“This is a disaster. I can’t thank you enough for helping.”
“Seriously, don’t worry about it,” he says, starting to do something with his tools. “Now I won’t have to listen to squeaking noises at all hours of the day.”
“You must’ve been the best boyfriend in the world,” I say. Harrison’s unscrewing pauses.
He doesn’t look up at me, but his ears turn pink as he continues to stare at the screw and the screwdriver. Finally, he collects himself. “It wasn’t quite that simple.”
“Well. Maybe not.” I study him as he fiddles with the bed, remaining silent as if he doesn’t know how to fill the space. “I hope you’re doing okay. I can’t imagine breaking up with someone is easy.”
I track the movement in his throat as he swallows. Eventually, he continues. “Stephanie deserved better.”
I snort. “That’s such a ridiculous thing to say. What does that even mean, anyway?”
“Well,” he says, “for starters, she definitely deserved someone who actually loved her.”
Silence fills the room as I stop breathing and Harrison stops unscrewing. Neither of us dares to make eye contact, as if both of us—Harrison included—are shocked by the words that just came out of his mouth.
“Well,” I say, then stop talking.
If he didn’t love her, why was he dating her? Did he think he was in love with her and realize he wasn’t, or did he start dating her thinking he could fall in love with her, then realize it wasn’t possible? And why did he break up with her when he did? Or—
My phone buzzes from its spot on my bedside table, next to Harrison. He starts to grab it for me, but I brush him aside. “Don’t worry about it. It’s just Jo.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Actually, it’s your dad.”
I don’t want to pick it up, but I don’t really want to answer questions about why I don’t want to pick it up, so I pick it up.
“Hello?”
“Emma!” My dad’s voice crackles through my phone’s speaker, so loud Harrison can probably hear it even though it’s not on speakerphone. “How’s it going, sweetheart?”
We exchange pleasantries, and I offer a brief description of my bed frame issues, leaving out the part about my Friend with Limitations helping me.
“Well, you know,” he says, chuckling, “that’s what you get for buying the cheapest bed frame you could.”
I clear my throat. “Well, I didn’t need a nice one. This one holds a mattress, and that’s really all I wanted.”
There’s a momentary pause, like he’s choosing his words. “You know, if you need help buying—”
“No, really, I’m good—”
“I know, I know you’re good, I just worry—”
“Seriously, Dad,” I say, my tone final. “I’m good.”
He pauses again before responding. “Okay. Okay, I know you’re good. I’m glad to hear that.”
“I have to go. But say hi to Mom for me?” I ask.
“You got it, kiddo. Love you.”
“Love you, too,” I say, hanging up the phone.
Harrison stares at me for a moment, then goes back to fiddling with the bed frame. Only when I think his attention is fully diverted does he surprise me by speaking.
“Can I ask you something?”
“No.”
He nods and keeps screwing, and then I sigh loudly. “Yes, fine. What.”
“Why did you actually move back to Boston?” he asks, his attention still on the bed frame.
“I quit my teaching job,” I tell him. “And Jo was taking over Jo Jo’s, and I knew she was lonely after Macy left, and I wanted to help her. So I moved.”