62. Jeremy

“You owe me,” Yuna said by way of greeting, showing up in sunglasses at Jeremy’s doorstep.

“You’re my only friend that doesn’t work with me or know people I work with,” Jeremy explained as he let her in and led her to the backyard. “If this goes wrong, they’ll never let me live it down, and I’ll have to move to a different state.” He paused, then added, “Probably a different country.”

“Okay, so what’s the plan?” she asked, putting her hands on her hips and surveying the two large boxes in front of them.

It had been a middle-of-the night idea, something that Jeremy hadn’t had since undergrad, back when his sleep schedule was less regular. Foster had come over before and insisted on watching a series of increasingly corny romance movies, telling Jeremy that it helps him deal with shit. Jeremy wasn’t sure why he needed to watch another straight couple figure out how to make their bookshop-slash-cheese shop work, but he was humoring Foster. And maybe it was because he thought constantly about Davis and wanted to know how to reach out to him, or maybe it was because he saw that the Pine Valley fire had been 100 percent contained, but when he’d woken up at midnight, Jeremy wanted to make a grand gesture. Something that would make even the most hard-hearted of big city businesswoman realize that her dream was to own a specialty cupcake store.

Or something that would make a Country Forest Ranger give a Big City Exhibit Designer another chance.

Which is how Jeremy— and now Yuna— ended up with two boxes to build one large rocking chair that could fit two people.

“Did you do any big sculptural projects during your MFA?” Yuna asked, cutting open one of the boxes.

“Unless you count the furniture I assembled with an Allen wrench? No,” Jeremy replied, taking out a booklet of instructions that seemed to be roughly the size of a Cheesecake Factory menu.

“We’re smart, though,” Yuna said. “Two artists, understanding of spatial relationships and scale? We’ll be done in no time.”

An hour later, Jeremy and Yuna had managed to do…nothing significant.

“Call someone,” Yuna said, throwing a piece of wood across the lawn. “These instructions are too difficult to follow.”

“The website said that even a child could put it together,” Jeremy said, setting down two pieces of wood that he couldn’t figure out how to assemble correctly.

“Well, maybe you need to call your friend who’s most childlike,” Yuna suggested.

Within fifteen minutes, Foster was knocking on Jeremy’s door, holding a drill. But he wasn’t alone.

“What part of don’t tell anyone did you not understand?” Jeremy asked, looking past him to see seven people that he knew and loved and did not want to see.

“Well, I figured I’d ask Dec a question about some tool-related things, and then he offered to help because he fixes things at the bar all the time. And then he told Phoebe, who told Emmy, so she and Ryan joined, too. And Dec asked to borrow a tool from Joe, and Lina said she had some in her car, but Joe said that Cynthia was curious about it when Dec explained it, so…” He gave the drill trigger a squeeze for emphasis.

“Y’all need more lesbians in your life,” Lina said, rolling her eyes. “Foster, give me that drill before you hurt yourself.”

“Yuna hasn’t been helping,” Jeremy muttered, standing to the side to allow everyone to parade into his house.

The assembled group was, in Jeremy’s estimation, one of the smartest groups of people in Colorado at any given moment, and it still took them the better part of a day to finish the rocking chair. June and Colin had even come down. In the end, Jeremy’s biggest contribution was ordering food and drinks for the group and making sure Dec didn’t accidentally take a hammer to Ryan’s head for being a “back seat carpenter.” Davis would have loved it here, and, honestly, probably would have assembled the chair faster than the entire group combined.

Next time, Jeremy told himself.

Some force inside Jeremy told him that this entire plan would work. It was the same sense of calm, some silly breeze of assurance, that Jeremy felt when he had first looked at his house.

The same scratch at the back of his brain that Jeremy had felt when he looked at Davis the first time.

He knew.

This matters.

Later, as six large pizzas were consumed in record time, Jeremy took a moment to look around at his friends. Phoebe and Dec sat on the floor. Emmy and Ryan each had brought a chair in from the dining room. Flo had taken a pillow from the couch and was using it as a chair. Joe leaned against the wall while his new wife, Cynthia, leaned against his legs. June, eight months pregnant, sat in the Eames chair while Colin took the footstool. He turned to Foster, who had joined him on the couch.

“I need a big dining room table, huh?” Jeremy asked him.

“Yeah,” Foster said around a piece of crust. “I don’t know why you don’t have more people over. You have the best space of all of us that isn’t the bar or the brewery.”

“I want to have people over,” Jeremy said, then, louder, to the rest of the group, he asked, “Would y’all like to do a weekly dinner here?”

“Potluck?” Phoebe suggested.

“Are dogs welcome?” Emmy asked.

“Can we bring kids?” Dec and Colin asked in unison.

“Yes, yes, and yes,” Jeremy said. “I’ll bring Davis.”