20. Marsh

TWENTY

Marsh

Here's the thing you need to know about Data: he's one of those people who reads the obituaries. For fun. We'd be eating breakfast, and I'd look over and find a tear rolling down his face onto the newspaper.

"Darryl Washington died," he'd say.

"Who?"

"Seventy-four. Father of three girls. Grandfather to five. He was in the crowd when Martin Luther King Jr. gave his I Have a Dream speech. What a life."

He'd stare at the page intently, a sense of melancholy glazing on his eyes, perhaps wondering whether his life would ever be worthy of a New York Times obit.

At the moment, I'm sixty-five percent sure I'm dying. My body is rising up from the ground to the sky, to meet my maker. What will they write in my obit? Will it make Data cry? Will they misspell my name on my tombstone like poor Elvis?

I thought this would be a more profound moment, that I would use these final seconds on earth to flash back on my life. But instead, all I can think about is that something is digging into my back. And there's a loud creaky noise ringing in my ears.

I also thought I would be greeted by dead loved ones like my Grandma Anita and my old dog Kahn—named after Madeline Kahn, not the Star Trek guy. But it's Data's face that's hovering over me. I'm pretty sure he's still alive because he doesn't have that serene look that people in heaven must have.

I blink twice and realize that I'm not dying, but that I am being raised into the air. Data sticks an inhaler into my mouth and shoots my lungs full of slightly sweet, powdery medicine.

"Again." His fingers comb through my hair and it's damp, either from almost dying, the snow, or both.

He shoots another whoosh of medicine from the inhaler into my mouth, which quite literally gives me life. I begin to sit up but can't feel the ground under me. I'm floating in the air. Wait, am I dying? I'm so confused. Is God gaslighting me?

"What's going on?" I look behind me and see Duffy at the controls of a forklift. Once the oxygen hits my brain, it clicks that I am the thing being lifted.

"What the fuck?" I try to sit up, but my huge ass is precariously balanced between the prongs of the lift.

"A few more seconds and we'll put you down," Duffy calls out from the controls. No matter the weather outside, he has on his trusty University of Maine baseball cap. He smiles at me, his fuzzy chinstrap of dark hair curling as well.

Data jogs alongside me as if this forklift is the presidential motorcade. Duffy backs us up out of the woods, The General Store parking lot a few feet away.

"You collapsed. I had to run to the store and get you a new inhaler."

"You left me on the side of the road?"

"You didn't fill up your inhaler!" Data shakes his head, cheeks red. Oops. My bad. "We were almost to the store. It was faster to run there myself than try and carry you. Time was ticking, Marsh. You were turning blue."

We roll over a bump in the path, and the forklift prongs lance my back. I suppose I deserve that for not staying back. Even though I've had asthma for most of my life, I don't like to admit that it has a hold on me. I'm very much my father's son. Stubborn is as much in our DNA as our big bones.

Fortunately, I was very close to the General Store's parking lot before I gave out. It only takes another minute for Duffy to back us into civilization, a sigh of relief coming over Data and me when we reach pavement. I'm not sure why Duffy owns a forklift since he runs the General Store with Maddi. People in the sticks tend to scoop up big, unnecessary machinery the way urbanites are perpetually obsessed with collecting the latest Apple products.

Duffy lowers me to the ground. Data takes both of my hands and helps me up, our stomachs bumping against each other in the process. Being this close to Data is perhaps the nearest I'll get to heaven before finally kicking the bucket.

He puts his hands on my hips to balance me, and hangs on for an extra moment, staring into my eyes. His lips pout, making them eminently kissable.

"You okay?" he asks softly. "That was scary."

I nod yes. Concern rings his pupils, but also a touch of something else, a flicker of a feeling that's been skirting around the edges of the weekend.

"Thank you," I say. No smirk. No tacked-on joke. Just a terse nod to underline my genuine appreciation. The realization of how close I came to death hits me.

And then, because I'm me, I tack on a joke, because real life is really scary.

"You're the wind—" I stick my inhaler in my mouth and give it a puff as I wink at Data. "Beneath my wings."

"Lord, you're gay." Data chuckles to himself, then turns to Duffy. "Thank you so much."

"Duffy the Asthma Slayer!" I give him a thumbs up.

"Of course. I'm glad you're okay, Marsh." Duffy dips his head and taps the brim of his hat. "It's not easy walking through knee-high snow."

"The power's out at the cabin," Data says.

"And we needed Mallomars."

Data rolls his eyes at me in that way that gets my dick hard. "And to charge our phones."

"Huh." Duffy wiggles his finger between us. "Maddi said you boys had broken up."

"We did," Data interjects more quickly than I'd like. "We're getting the cabin ready to be sold."

"Oh." Duffy's face drops. His bushy hair curling up from under his hat makes him look like a sad dog with floppy ears. It's funny how people can feel like family. We've been coming up here for years, spending summers and winters getting to know Maddi and Duffy. Consistency breeds friendship. Without the cabin to bring us here, they'll likely dissolve out of our lives.

"We'll come back to visit," I say, my voice cracking as I throw an arm around Data. "Just not together."

I drop my arm, realizing that's not selling our not togetherness. My gaze shifts to the mountain of snow taking up a parking spot, remembering why we're here. "Your parking lot is cleared already. Did you do this yourself?"

"Yeah. Thanks to this sucker right here." Duffy backs up and pats the snow plow attachment on his truck with a sense of pride not unlike when I got my first pair of AirPods. "It can take a while for the regular plow to come through. I swear, plowing can be a real pain in the ass."

Data elbows my side to preemptively shut me up. He knows me so well.

"The plowing service that we usually use is going to take days," Data says. The access road to a single cabin owned by non-billionaires is the lowest of low priorities for street plows. "I don't know when it's going to come."

"They might wait until the snow is done." Duffy sticks his hands under his armpits Mary Catherine Gallagher-style to keep warm. His flannel shirt and puffy vest are clearly not doing the trick.

"Done?" I ask Duffy.

"Yeah, the weatherman says we're getting another doozy of a storm sometime on Tuesday."

"Fucking chickens." Data's face goes cold, and I watch his eyes fill with anxiety. "I need to get out of here."

I know Data has a life and a job back in the city, but still. It can't help but sting to have a guy clamor to get the hell away from you the morning after mind-blowing sex.

"Duffy, can you plow our road today?" he asks.

He responds by scratching his head under his hat, really digging in there. "I'd like to. I don't know if this baby can handle your twisty, windy road and pushing through all that snow."

"But you did the main road," Data points out.

"I was able to clear it when the snow was still coming down, so it wasn't as bad."

"You sure? We trekked all the way here in the snow."

"Yeah, I know other customers have been doing that, too. I really wish I could help you guys. I do. But I think it's too big of a job for this girl." He gives his plow a loving fist bang. "We can call around to other plow companies inside."

"Yeah. I see." Data's jaw goes tight.

I was the one who dragged him out here in this storm. I'm not going to leave him in the lurch.

"Duff. Dufftacular. Duffy Day-Lewis. The Great British Duff Off." I nudge his elbow with mine and stroll toward his newest pride and joy. "Your snowplow is gorgeous. That is a beautiful piece of equipment. I can see you not wanting to tarnish it. Is it new?"

"No. I got it off a guy in Waterville. "

"Whoa! What a steal. You have a great eye." I do a chef's kiss to his snowplow.

"We can call around to plowing services, see if there's anyone who can help you out sooner," he says.

I squat down and admire the metal of the snowplow. Or at least pretend to because I'm not sure how one admires a snow plow.

"Usually, I'd say you were right. Our access road is tricky. If only we knew the guy who once drove up Great Bear Mountain in a torrential rainstorm because Maddi left her favorite sweater up there, who once floored his truck through Owego Pond on a dare. That guy would think one puny access road was nothing. That guy didn't let nature stand in his way. That guy would be a hero to his woman, saving two of their friends. I'm positive the schmuck in Waterville couldn't do that, but I think I know somebody who could." I shrug, playing up the moment, my minimal acting training coming in handy. "Or, I thought I knew."

Duffy's eyes widen. I can hear the triumphant music playing in his head—maybe a banjo version of "Lose Yourself." I walk around him in a compelling circle. It's not every day one gets to improvise a monologue.

"If there's one thing I know about Duffy Monroe, it's that he powers through where others are afraid to travel and that he looks out for his fellow Mainers. Actually, that's two things, but the point still stands."

Duffy claps my shoulder and squeezes. "I'm going to get you boys back to your cabin."

"Really?" Data asks.

"I sure will. You hang out in the store, and I'll swing up there right now and clear it out." Duffy licks his hand and smooths it over the brim of his hat. He pounds his plow with two more loving fist bangs. "We got this. "

"Thanks, buddy. You da man!" I clap his back as he hops into his truck.

I rest my arm on Data's shoulder as we watch him pull out. He glances up at me, his lips curling into a small-but-grateful smile. The littlest gestures from him can send my heart into the stratosphere, even if he wants to get the hell away from me. From us.

Duffy sticks his head out the window and looks back at us. "For a pair of guys who say they aren't together, you're acting awfully … together."