5
Avery stared in dismay at the flat-pack boxes sticking out of the back of his Mazda. They fit, barely. Driving with the open hatchback on the highway had been kind of terrifying. The trip home took him nearly three hours, because he’d been too worried about the packages shifting if he drove above the speed limit.
So, now, at almost five o’clock, he had an entire couch to unload and assemble, and he wasn’t sure he’d be able to get the boxes out of the car and down the stairs by himself. The guy at IKEA who’d helped him load up had asked if he had anyone to assist him at home. Avery assured him he did, but when he’d called his aunt and uncle, they didn’t answer. Then he remembered Uncle Theo had taken Aunt Brenda away for the weekend to celebrate their anniversary.
Avery chewed on his lip. He could wait and get them to help when they got back tomorrow, but he wasn’t comfortable leaving the packages in the car overnight if he couldn’t lock it. Seacroft was pretty safe, but the risk seemed unnecessary. He could already picture the cop’s patient annoyance as Avery explained why he thought no one would steal his couch or his car, but why he also hadn’t done anything to secure either. He’d seen that kind of expression a lot in his lifetime.
While he tried to puzzle it out, a car drove by. It got to the curve of the dead-end street but came back around before stopping opposite Avery.
“Do you need a hand?” The firefighter—the one with the shrink-wrapped abs—was leaning on his elbow in the car window.
Scott. The woman firefighter had called him Scott. Because calling him Shrink-Wrap would be weird.
“What are you doing here?” The question wasn’t weird, but maybe kinda rude. Aunt Brenda had taught him better.
Scott grinned like he thought Avery was funny, not impolite. “I was in the neighborhood and saw you standing there.”
“Are you lost?”
Scott laughed. The warm sound made some of the anxiety prickling over Avery’s skin settle. Lots of people laughed at him, but Scott’s laughter had none of the normal patronizing tolerance.
Scott pointed at Avery’s car. “Do you need a hand with those?”
He wanted to help? Like some fairy futon godfather? Avery was shaking his head before he could think. “Oh, no, you don’t have to do that.”
But Scott was pulling his car to the curb and getting out as if Avery hadn’t said anything. His jeans and plain navy tee fit him like an Instagram model. Avery’s heart thudded in his chest. For a while the previous summer, Avery had been obsessed—but not in a weird way, Avery was just a big fan, and anyway he’d been busy crushing on an older guy named Oliver who ran a juice bar in town—with Damian Marshall, the movie star with a huge online following. One day, Damian had posted a video on Instagram walking his dog. He was all soft brown hair and toothy smiles for the people asking for autographs.
Scott looked exactly like that as he came toward Avery.
“Whatcha got?” He placed one large hand on a box.
“A sofa?”
“You’re not sure?” Scott’s grin was still all patient amusement, rather than the waning indulgence Avery had grown used to.
The unexpected thrill of someone who genuinely seemed to want to help, instead of feeling obliged—because sometimes it seemed like Avery needed help with literally everything—made him stand up straighter. “No, I’m sure. It’s a sofa. Just—” He waved at all the flat-packs. “A sofa in pieces.”
“So let me help you.”
Avery eyed him. The “in the neighborhood” bit still seemed sketchy somehow, but Avery wasn’t getting any weird serial-killer vibes either. And the boxes weren’t going to unload themselves. “I’ll go unlock the front door.”
By the time Avery got back, Scott had pulled out all but the biggest box and stacked them on the lawn. He hadn’t even broken a sweat.
“You take those.” He nudged the two smallest boxes. Avery nearly protested. He was small, but he wasn’t a weakling. He could pull his weight. But then Scott bent and hefted the two longest boxes, one under each arm, biceps bulging.
“Um...” Avery swallowed hard at the firefighter straining and looking so social media-perfect on Avery’s front yard.
“Lead the way,” Scott said.
Avery nearly dropped his boxes, fumbling with the door to his apartment. Scott expertly maneuvered his two boxes through the exterior door without even breathing hard or anything.
“You lived here long?” Scott asked.
“A couple weeks.” Avery set his load down on the floor by the TV stand. The top box slid, and he had to catch it before it knocked over his Xbox.
“Where were you before?” Scott set his own boxes down. They leaned solidly against the wall as if they’d always been there.
“I’ve lived in Seacroft since I was fifteen.” He didn’t want to admit he had only just moved out of his aunt and uncle’s house at twenty-six years old. Well, technically, he’d been to UNC Wilmington for college, but that was only a hundred miles away, and he’d been home almost every weekend for the whole four years.
