The Douglas Fir (7 page)

A chair scraped over the wooden floors
, and then Dave padded after me. “Sorry,” he said, clutching my arm in a warm, solid grip. “I have no right to butt in.” He let go and shrugged. “I’ll send you the money for the garden.”
You don’t ever have to see me again
went unsaid. “But if you ever want to just . . . I don’t know, chat, hang out and watch a movie, or get those swim lessons Noah keeps telling me he wants you to do, then you know where I live.”

“Right,” I said,
“I’ll keep it in mind.” And with a hurried goodbye, I left Dave’s and avoided him for the next two months.

Chapter
Nine

Winter.
It was effing freezing. I knew the guys were out there in their wetsuits, but they had to be icicles by now. I zipped my coat right up to my chin and rubbed my hands together. Maybe if I weren’t just sitting here, if I was thrashing about in the water, I’d be warmer too.

I picked up a flat stone and threw it at the tide line. My brother was getting better with his surfing. He wasn’t falling off the board as often
 . . . he was determined to get good.

And how pathetic did that make me? I g
ave up on swimming after one failed lesson.

I threw another stone. If I wanted a change, if I wanted more than my gardening job and pining after a
straight man, I had to grow some balls and do something about it.

“You
r brother was amped out there,” Noah said as he and Scott dripped their way out of the sea and to the towels I was sitting on. Scott set down his surfboard and dove onto his outstretched towel.

“I’m done. Those waves were cranking.”

Noah laughed and carefully rested his board next to me, then sat himself on the other side. “They weren’t bad. For a gremlin.” He looked at me, his eyes lit and smiling. “Nice that you came along.” He blinked away from me and focused on Scott, though I had that prickly feeling he was still very aware of me. No, actually, I didn’t. I just wished it. “How about tomorrow we do some Dawn Patrol?”

“For sure,” Scott
said, beaming as he jumped to his feet again. “Come on, Jase, let’s get back. I’m freezing.”

We carried our things back to the truck, me trailing behind, watching Noah rib my brother.
We piled into the front, Scott squeezed between Noah and I, still wearing his wetsuit. It was like I was transporting fish, with the salty smell of the sea coming off both of them and their slick hair.

I started the
truck and glanced over Scott at Noah. He faced me, one eyebrow rising. In a nervous bout, I laughed and gripped the wheel. “I’ll get him to teach me,” I said, and Noah immediately straightened. He knew exactly what I was saying. He opened his mouth to add something as Scott reached forward and turned on the radio, pop rock blasting out of the speakers.

Noah quickly turned down the volume. “
Great,” he said. “It’s the right choice.”

And then he cranked up the music once more and grinned all the way home.

* * *

“Feeding him is easy,”
Scott said as he rationed out flies for Dusky. “It’s not like I’d forget or anything.”

Noah briefly stopped chopping potatoes to shake his head. “Not happening. You know my rule.”

I grinned at the two of them and started chopping a celery stick for the soup we were making. Scott was trying hard to get what he wanted, and somehow I had to do the same. As subtly as I could manage, I had to find out his weekend plans so I could figure out when to transplant the next fir. Now that the tree was getting so much bigger, I needed more time. Noah had to be out of the house.

Problem was,
I was crammed up with work commitments during the next few weeks.

I dumped the celery
into the pot of sautéing onions. It sizzled and curls of garlic steam rose to my nose. Noah was whistling as he cut up potatoes and pumpkin. He sure was in a good mood.

I stirred the pot and peeked at him
from the corner of my eye. “So what’re your plans for the weekend?” I asked.

His grin widened. “
Dunno, yet. But you’re getting started swimming this weekend.”

He came over c
radling a bunch of cut potatoes and dropped them into the pot. Oil spat at him, and he jerked his arm back, brushing against mine. He watched me stir, and said low, “Thanks for giving this another try.”

I shrugged. “
So long as I end up beating my brother at something soon. He’s making me feel so bloody old.”

He laughed. “Sounds like a plan.”

Sure did. But it still didn’t help me figure out when I could plant the fir. “But you don’t have any other plans this weekend?”

Scott
glanced over his shoulder and butted in. “More surfing, I hope. Oh, and Jase, you promised to take me to the movies.”

“Crap!” That meant even less flexibility.

Scott snorted. “Sounds like that ruins your plans.”

Noah took the wooden spoon from me. “
And what plans would those be?”

I shrugged. “
Nothing special. Just bits and pieces. Swimming lessons, movies, hanging out with you guys . . .”

Scott
dragged a chair to the corner of the room and collapsed into it to watch Dusky eat. “You’re so lame, bro.”

I moved to the table
to scoop up another handful of potatoes and dumped all but one of them into the pot. That one I tossed at the back of my brother’s head.

“Hey!” He laughed and picked up the offending potato.
Then he glanced from the lizard to Noah. “Can I feed this to him?” Noah nodded and dropped the last of the vegetables into the pot as I filled up the jug. Scott continued to yap. “And lame is an
understatement
. You wouldn’t have a life if it weren’t for me and Noah here. Maybe it’s time you got yourself a date with a nice guy who
actually
digs you?”

Noah blinked a few times. I
glared at Scott, who’d shut right the heck up. I skirted around the table to get to him, narrowly managing not to slap the back of his head. Scott choked up an apology, but he was also scowling at me.

“Could you flick the jug on?” I
said to Noah hurriedly as I steered Scott out of the kitchen.

My brother muttered under his breath
and went.

I turned to the cupboards behind me and pretended to search them.
There was a giant elephant sucking the air out of the room, and somehow I thought there might be a way to ignore it. Why bring up something that didn’t matter for us? “Where would I find your chicken stock?” I asked.

Noah was quiet for a moment. I peeked
through the side of an open cupboard and caught his frown. Slowly, he gestured with the wooden spoon toward a corner cupboard. “In there.”

Scott
let out a
burgk, burgk, burgk
from the hall. I grabbed the stock and a spoon. “Back in a tick. Nature calls.”

I
grabbed the back of Scott’s T-shirt and hauled him to the front room, furthest away from the kitchen. Scott budged free and stood looking at me with his hands on his hips. “It’s been half a year. You’re like the stripiest zebra
ever
. I knew you’d chicken out.”

“Yeah, well—”

“I don’t get it. You said he’s not gay, so who cares if he knows you are?”

The problem was
I’d been crushing on him. What if he figured it out? What if things got so weird between us after that we didn’t stay friends?

It
worked with him and Dave . . . but, shit. Why had I waited so bloody long to tell him about me?

“Shite. I effed up.”

Scott glanced over my shoulder and focused on me again. “I’d say to spit that out and tell him, but I don’t think you have to anymore.”

His glace flickered again over my shoulder, and I whisked around
.

Noah stood in the hall, hands in his pockets
, staring at us. His expression was unreadable, but when I stepped toward him, he stepped back, twisted, and walked away.

Chapter
Ten

I followed him all the way out to the fir, where he swung around.
His hands met my chest but stopped short of shoving me. He dropped them. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

I
braced myself. “I . . . didn’t know how. Or when.”

“How about when I told you
Dave was into me, when I wondered if I was coming across gay? Or anytime in the months after that when you could see I didn’t act differently around Dave?” He spat out his words, but behind the anger I detected hurt. “I don’t understand. Why didn’t you trust me? Just because I’m straight, doesn’t mean I can’t understand. Doesn’t mean I won’t be cool with it.”

Tool bounded between us with a happy bark and butted his head against Noah’s leg. Maybe he could feel the guy’s tension and wanted to break it. I hoped it helped.
“It had nothing to do with trust,” I said. “I was just . . . I couldn’t.”

Noah
absently stroked Tool. His fingers dug into the soft fur and teased all the way up to the tip of Tool’s ear. He repeated the caress on the other ear and then scratched under his collar.

Noah’s
shoulders drooped until he was almost eye level with the tip of the fir.

Tool nudged my leg and I worked my fingers through his coat as well.
I wanted to stretch mine down the back of his head until I brushed Noah’s. I wanted to slide my fingers through his and squeeze.

And then I wanted him to squeeze back. Tell me he felt the way I did about him. That he always had, just didn’t know how to admit it
.

But
telling him I liked him in
that
way was more than inappropriate. Noah liked girls, and—“I’m sorry,” I said, “that I never said anything earlier. I should have. I just didn’t want things to get awkward between us.”

Noah lifted his fingers from Tool.
“Or for me to freak out and act differently around you, right?”

“No.”

He raised a brow, like he wasn’t sure he believed me.

How did this evening end up like this?
It was supposed to be fun and relaxed. We should have eaten a lovely soup together with freshly baked bread, and I should have slyly figured out when best to sneak over for the next fir transplant. We should have each gone home content and ready for a good night’s sleep, where I would have dreamed of swimming next to Noah . . .

I sighed.
“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, so am I. I
just . . . I thought we were friends.”

“We are—”

“But are we?” He stared at the fir and the edges of his eyes were wet. Shite. I wanted to change that. Wanted to see the smile in them again. I moved around Tool to stand in front of him. He stared at me and then looked away.

It hurt to see, and I hated this half-truth that was spilling out of me. Let the cards land how they will.
No more being a damn zebra.

“Look, it had nothing to do with not trusting you, not thinking we were friends. I just
 . . . I sort of . . .” Just say it. Admit it and maybe you’d be a step closer to getting the heck over it. I sighed. “Look, I like you, and that . . . made it hard to tell you the truth.”

“Oh.
” He glanced at me and then away again. “
Oh
, you do?”

I
bent, picked up a piece of bark and tossed it across the yard as hard as I could. “Yeah. I’ll get over it, though. Don’t worry.”

“No, I mean,” he cleared his throat and rocked back on his heels. “That’s cool. I’m flattered.”

My insides had plummeted to my feet, making each step away from him heavy.

“Jase.”

I kept walking.

“I’m sorry, really. You’re a great guy.”

I paused and glanced over my shoulder. What else was he going to say? Noah wasn’t a dick. But though he was nice, I could hear the strain in his voice as he spoke. The “just not that way” clearly came through. “Sure. I’m a great guy. I know.”

“Can we just forget about all this and get back to dinner?”

I nodded, and moved into the house. We ate dinner with forced conversation and gave awkward goodbyes.

“This doesn’t have to change anything,” he said.

But it would. It already had.

* * *

Scott
still got up at the crack of dawn the next morning for Dawn Patrol with Noah. I wearily climbed into my gardening clothes, and once my brother had left, drove to Mr. Cole’s for the next fir. This was the only time I knew for sure Noah wouldn’t be at home, and though time was tight, I had to take it.

When I returned to
Noah’s house with the next fir, I had only about a half hour or so to make the swap.

A part of me wanted to get caught, so I could just give up the charade, and maybe with it the unrequited love I had
for him.

Or maybe
 . . . maybe because I hoped he’d laugh and we’d break the ice that had frosted over us yesterday.

I
sighed and worked the shovel swiftly and aggressively into the soil; it seemed the bigger part of me wanted to keep the magic alive.

I had just removed the old fir, and was wrapping it
s roots in wet cloth, when I heard it. The
pflomp, pflomp, pflomp
of footsteps down the side of the house that had my heart racing double to none.

So there it was,
I’d been caught for sure. And suddenly that was the last thing I wanted; it would come out all wrong. Maybe he’d think I wanted him to catch me so he’d fall in love with me for being so romantic, and that just seemed too damn stupid.

I eyed the large hole in the ground and thought about curling up into it
. It was the closest I’d get to having the ground suck me up.

Pflomp, pflomp
. The sound was softened by grass. He was half the yard away.

Was it possible he’d set his surfboard in the shed and not see me? If he didn’t glance in this direction, maybe
 . . . I had to be still. Very—

“Jase?”

I jumped. It was Scott’s voice. And there he was, trudging to the shed with one of the boards Noah lent him.

Scott
took one look at me and the firs at my feet and I could see his mind ticking. I also heard a second set of footsteps approaching.

Scott
shook his head, and then straightened his shoulders as if preparing himself for the ultimate intervention. “You’ll owe me for this, bro.” And I was sure he mouthed the word “lizard.”

He set his surfboard down on the deck and bounded back to where Noah was, just out of sight.

“Let me take this,” Scott said, “and then since you said I did better today, I reckon we celebrate with an ice cream.”

“Ice cream for breakfast?” Noah’s laugh rumbled softly, and though it must only have been a breeze, I felt the laugh skating over my arms and making my skin prickle.
“Your brother wouldn’t like that.”

There
was the briefest pause before Scott said, “All the more reason to do it.”

I watched as
Scott sent Noah inside for his wallet, and put away both of their boards. He sent me a satisfied grin and rubbed his hands together. The cheeky little bugger. Then he dashed toward the back of the house and Noah, leaving me with the magic of the fir still alive at my feet and the unanswered question:

And so what?

* * *

Scott
left the next week, and I’d barely seen Noah during it. I wanted to go over there and fix this weird spell between us, but work excuses on both our sides got in the way. And after three weeks, then four, and five, it felt too late to pick up what we’d once had.

I stared at a picture of a guy surfing on the front of a cereal box. The surfer had his back turned, and for a moment I imagined it was Noah. A
shopping cart bumped into my backside, bringing me sharply back to reality. Fluorescent lights, shiny floors with rubber scuffmarks, squealing shopping carts, shelves and shelves of food—and none of it enticed me.

I had to f
ill my near-empty fridge though; a few heavy yard jobs were coming up, and Mr. Cole had told me to stock up on my strength. It was just . . . it was so easy to eat crap living alone, cooking for one.

Frozen dinner-for-one meals it was, then. I pushed my
shopping cart to the frozen section and stacked two dozen meals into it. Okay, so maybe if I went back to the fresh produce section and got some fruit, this wouldn’t be half so bad.

I pushed my way back through a throng of people to the fruit and veg
etables. Now what did I want? Apples? Bananas? Melon—

There, across from the m
elons and picking up a container of pre-cut fruit, was my neighbor. The light shone on his hair, illuminating the strawberry in his strawberry blond. He wore a long-sleeved maroon T-shirt that had stray bits of cat fur on the arms.

A guy called out his name, and the voice was familiar. I cringed, and followed it to Dave trying to open a plastic bag for his green apples. “Noah, can you bloody well open these things?” He studied his fingertips, and let loose one of those classic Dave grins. “Maybe I’ve worn out my fingers
with typing.” He jiggled the bag once more and then chucked it and the apples in the crate. “Way too healthy for a movie night anyway.”

S
omeone nearly rammed into me again. I moved out of the way, and as if the movement had caught Noah’s eye, he looked up. His turquoise gaze was warm for a moment, and I thought . . . maybe here was a chance—

Then he glanced away, biting his lip as he placed his fruit into the basket. I pushed my
shopping cart a step forward, but Noah continued to face away from me.

Dave gave me a smaller smile as my gaze washed over him on the way back to focusing really, ridiculously hard on the bananas right next to me.

With a tight throat, I reached for a bunch and dropped them into my shopping cart. After one last look in Noah’s direction—getting a visible wince from Dave—I turned away, merging with the flow of people toward the checkouts.

It was one of those sad
life facts: things change, and people who might have once been close, now were no more than neighbors.