Linc’s skin was darker than Avery’s—honestly, everyone’s skin was darker than Avery’s; he could get a sunburn sitting too close to the TV—but it showed a faint tinge of pink now. “Because of...” He gestured toward Avery’s head. “Because of your hair.”
Avery frowned, like he’d never heard that reference before. The discomfort creeping over Linc’s face was fun to watch, but Avery couldn’t keep the charade going long. He burst into laughter as he bumped gently against Linc. “Yeah. I get that one a lot. Red. Rusty. Rooster. Carrots. Ginger. Ginger beer. Ginger muffin.”
“Ginger muffin?”
Avery clacked his mouth shut. Back when he’d attempted Grindr that one and only time, he’d been bombarded with messages from guys as far away as Florida and Missouri. Gay men, or the ones on Grindr anyway,reallyliked a guy with red hair. He’d heard all the names. Not that Linc needed to know. Or that Avery should be bringing up his misadventures with gay dating apps to a near-stranger. A straight near-stranger, most likely. Avery risked one hopeful glance, looking for any signal that Linc was on his team, but you couldn’t exactly identify gayness by the way a man stood in your kitchen.
Weird. He was making this weird. The longer he didn’t say anything, the worse it would get. He moved their glasses to the sink. “Should we get started?”
* * *
Linc hadn’t even planned to be there, but Jordan had come home from a long shift and said he and Chelsea were going to need some “personal time” that afternoon—all Linc needed to hear to make a beeline for the door.
Except where did he go in the middle of the day in a tiny town he barely knew? He’d been working so much, he still hadn’t figured out how to make friends outside the fire station. Brian’s weekends were filled with his wife and their upcoming offspring. Vasquez didn’t talk much about her personal life, but she undoubtedly spent her downtime karate-chopping boards with her bare hands and bench-pressing St. Bernards.
And somehow he’d wound up driving past Avery’s house for no good reason other than he didn’t know where else to go, and Avery had been there, staring at the flat-packs as if strategizing his next Jenga move, and Linc saw an opportunity to be useful.
It turned out to be harder than he expected. The couch was...Well, to start, the thing wasn’t even a couch. As they opened boxes, metal springs and frames appeared, along with cushions and hinges. Avery said it was a futon.
“So, if I have company, they have somewhere to sleep.” He smiled widely, like he already had a list of people waiting for an invitation. But where had those people been as Avery stood there, trying to figure out how he was going to get all of this down to his apartment?
The two of them got it organized with only minimal swearing, and somehow what looked like a gigantic pile of random parts took shape. Avery was pretty good to have around. Linc was handy with tools, but the little stick figure drawings in the instructions frustrated him.
“You’ve got it upside down,” Avery said.
“No, I don’t.” Linc lined up the two parts of the frame.
“No, you totally do. See?” He pointed at the stick man, who held what was either a screwdriver or a really skinny dildo and was jamming it into one end of the slats. The stick man had a weird smile on his face while he did it too.
“What does that even mean?”
“Look.” Avery rattled the page in front of him, as if that would help, then leaned over the half-assembled sofa to point at the piece Linc had just fit into place. His T-shirt rode up while he stretched, revealing a half-moon of skin along the small of his back. He didn’t seem to notice, but Linc sure as hell did. The skin was pale and smooth. Running a hand over it, just to see if it was warm or cool to the touch, would be so easy. He glanced away quickly, looking anywhere but at Avery, who was still innocently trying to explain the basics of furniture assembly. “You see these grooves? They’re supposed to go on the bottom.”
Linc narrowed his eyes, struggling to regain his calm. Avery sat up on his heels, letting the T-shirt shimmy back down over his torso and pulling at it so it covered his body. Now instead, it sagged at the neck, exposing a line of freckles and a few coppery hairs just below his throat.
Linc coughed, focusing on breathing and doing normal things acquaintances did. The longer he glanced between the page with the happy Scandinavian dildo man and the frame on the floor, the more it looked like Avery was right.
Which was how it went. Linc did most of the heavy lifting, while Avery pointed at pieces and gave instructions. When Linc tried to guess what came next, he almost always got it wrong or backwards. And every time Avery pointed out that he’d missed a step, he did it with this endless patience, like he didn’t care how long this was taking or that Linc had basically invaded his house out of boredom.
The sun went down. The futon got made.
And it was purple.
Avery wore a wobbly frown. “It looked gray in the showroom.”
“It’s pretty purple.” Linc tried not to laugh at the open disappointment on Avery’s face. “Do you want to take it back?” A mountain of cardboard was neatly cut down and stacked by the door—Avery’s doing. No way could they pack the bits of the futon back.
“No.” Avery flopped down onto the new piece of furniture. Linc half expected the whole thing to collapse back into its original pile of bits and hardware, but it didn’t even creak.
“We did a pretty good job.”
Avery spread his arms over the back of it and grinned enthusiastically up at Linc. “We did. I’m so glad you were in the neighborhood.”
When had someone been so happy to be in Linc’s company? Smiled up at him like Linc had anything more to offer than a history of moving a lot and vague answers about his background?
Avery said, “Do you play?” before Linc could work out his words.
“Play what?”
