The Douglas Fir (8 page)

Chapter Eleven

“Dave,” I said as soon as he swung open the door I’d been pounding on insistently for the last minute. With sleep-tousled hair and a scrunched sheet pattern indenting his cheek, Dave’s glare was a major fail. “Teach me to swim.”

He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes.
“You couldn’t have rung? At a more humane time? Jeez, it’s still dark.”

“
Teach me to swim right now.” I lifted my prepared bag.

“
Are you high? What brought this on so suddenly? I haven’t heard from you in months.”

“Not high.” I hadn’t slept last
night thinking about things, and then as I was transplanting a fir, I realized: I wanted something to change. I wanted to have a reason to speak to Noah again. I wanted us to get back to talking. Get back that friendship we used to have . . .

This was my brilliant opening. If I could swim,
it might amaze him. I could get him to give me surfing lessons, and let him laugh as I ate the ankle busters. “I just need to learn. Will you help?”

Dave grumbled and moaned, but he packed his gear and we jumped in his car and drove up to the town belt. He stopped outside Trackensy School and lifted
the single key he’d brought with him. “We’ll have it all to ourselves.”

* * *

August, September, October, November . . . four months, and even though we didn’t see each other—save the occasional acknowledging nod on the street—I still snuck into his backyard once every few weeks, when he was at work, to transplant the fir.

I’d almost done it
.

Three more fir swaps, and it’d be Christmas.

Noah would have his nine-foot tall Douglas Fir.

And I would have
 . . . have . . .

W
hat?

* * *

Dave was firm with his instructions, but the grin he kept giving me each time I hopped into the water for a lesson made him seem more of a . . . mate than a teacher. And after each lesson, he’d clap a hand on my shoulder and say I’d done a good job.
“Bit by bit does it—just practice a little every week. You might not even notice how much you’re improving until, bam, one day you’re swimming length after length with ease.”

At first I thought it was patronizing, and brushed him off. But he kept doing it
, until I got familiar with the nuances in his tones and knew he actually meant it. The smiles he gave in those moments weren’t cheek-filled, but simple and—well, sweet.

I finished a length of freestyle
in the almost empty Trackensy School pool. Panting, I looked up at Dave sitting at the edge of the pool with his legs dangling in the water. “That was great,” he said with an encouraging nod. “Just remember to come up for breath.”

“Right.”

He slid himself into the pool and waded over to me. “And Jase? You’ve got a lot of strength in your upper body, but that doesn’t mean you can neglect making your legs do some of the work.” He gripped the back of my neck and steered my head toward the other end of the pool. “Try two lengths this time.”

I started my two laps, remembering to breathe on every third stroke this time
—and use my legs. When I finished, Dave was staring into space across the pool.

“
Dave, what’s up?” I asked, shaking my wet hair out of my eyes.

He turned to me slowly and smiled, but it was sort of, well, sad-looking. “Your lessons are really coming along. I don’t think you’ll need my help much longer.”

“Then you’ll be free of me; isn’t that a good thing?”

He chuckled. “Yeah
.” But as soon as he said it, his face fell, growing sullen. He flicked at the surface of the water and watched it spray. “Except that’s it then.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, pulling myself out of the pool until I was the one sitting with my feet dangling over the edge. I could only see the rise and fall of
Dave’s back as he sighed.

“Nothing. I guess I just
 . . . maybe I’ll miss teaching you.”

“We haven’t finished up yet.” I pointed toward where the ocean had to be. “We’ve still got to practice one time out there. At least.”

He shook his head, laughing quietly to himself. “How could I let it happen again?”

“Sorry?” I pushed myself to my feet as he waded toward the steps, and I met him over there. “How could you let what happen?”

He took the handrail and pulled himself up with a force that made water slam over the side and onto my feet. His jaw was set, his hazel gaze darker than usual. He glanced to the side of the room for a few moments before answering. “We ran the lesson too long. I’ll be late for work again.”

With that, he towed
himself out of the pool. We walked to the changing rooms side-by-side, as we always did, and as per tradition, he clasped his hand on my shoulder before I moved to the showers. “You really are great,” he said and squeezed, perhaps more softly than usual. “I mean, you’re as good a swimmer now as most. If not better.”

The praise tickled at my pride, and
without a second thought, I wrapped him into a wet, chlorine-rich hug. “Thanks to you, Dave.”

Then I let him go and hummed my way into the
shower. Heck yeah, I could swim. A right fish in the water . . .

* * *

“Jeez, you’re chipper.” Mr. Cole hefted the fir out of the ground. The fir pot was brown and sticky with dirt, and a crack ran down one side. I’d have to transplant it later into a larger pot. “It’s like you got yourself some glow-in-the-dark booty last night.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m just feeling good, is all.”
The swim lesson today had been great. Dave had been . . . I bit my lip . . . well, he’d done it. He’d given me the most amazing gift I could have asked for.

And that meant it was time to get things
back on track with Noah. I was going to talk to him as soon as he came home.

My boss
carefully set the tree down next to a lazing Tool, and gave the dog a quick pat. “Okay, Jase.”

“Okay, Jase, what?” I said as I picked up a shovel and widened the hole where the new potted fir would go
.

“
Okay, I’ll buy this fir from you.” He looked over at me and the third-to-last Douglas Fir. “You’ve got enough going on, and you sure have planted enough of these. Besides, this’ll fit nicely in my attic.”

With a grunt, I picked up the next potted fir and moved it to the hole. Mr. Cole grabbed the other side of the pot and we gently lowered it into the ground. “Thanks,” I said, wiping the dirt off my hands onto my pants.
“Especially since you must be sick of my firs by now.”

He shrugged and then
, after a moment, laughed. “This really is the most ludicrous way to get laid ever.”

“It’s not to get laid,” I said, packing composted soil around the
pot. “I just . . .” Maybe it’d make him feel as amazing as I did now that I could swim. “I want him to have the most surprising, unique gift ever.”

For once, Mr. Cole had nothin
g to say to that. “Pass that spade over there, would you?”

I gave him the wood-handled spade, and he got to work pressing soil around the base of the tree.
“So is this the last fir?”

I
rocked back on my heels and took in the thick tree with bushy needle-branches. “She’s almost there,” I said. “Just two more to go.”

“W
hy not just settle for this one? It’ll be easier.”

But I didn’t want
to just settle. I knew what I wanted; I’d been working almost a year toward it. I’d do everything I could to get it.

“She needs another hal
f-foot,” I said. “That’ll make her nine feet tall.” The same length as Noah’s surfboard.

Chapter Twelve

Two hours and a shower later, I was at Noah’s front door.

“Noah
,” I said, the moment he opened.

Like so many times bef
ore, his eyes were warm and lit up as if he had a hundred things he wanted to share with me and didn’t know where to begin.

He
blinked them all back, as if he just remembered we hadn’t shared anything for months. A sad look crossed his face, the same look I’d been wearing for months.

I w
ished the light in his eyes would shine again, and I wished I could reach out and touch him. Just to be sure he was really there in front of me. That this moment was happening, and not just some dream.

“Can I come in
?” I asked, a wave of nervousness coming over me.

He blinked a moment, and then
lurched forward and pulled me into his house.

“Jase!
What . . . This is . . .” He was speechless, and it brought a faint smile to my lips. I followed him to the lounge.

“
What are you doing here? I mean, shit, this is great, but . . . I thought I’d effed it up forever.”

I looked at him as he sat on one end of the couch. He was bronzed, his hair glittered even inside, and he smelled faintly of ocean and aftershave. Beautiful as he always was, he looked at me sadly. Like he was seeing something he’d accidentally broken
and wishing he could put it back together, but was clueless as to how.

“
I’m interested in some surfing lessons.”

Noah
frowned. “For Scotty? Of course I’ll keep teaching him. I’m sorry things have been weird. Shit. I didn’t mean for—”

“
The lessons aren’t for Scott.”

He gestured to the couch for me to sit. “Then, who?”

I sat at the other end, keeping a good distance between us. It bothered him, I could tell, but he let it go. “For me.”

“For you
? But—?”

I was still nervous as shit
e about swimming in the ocean, let alone surfing, but if I could face one fear, I could face another. I picked up a cushion and flipped it. “I hope you’ll teach me.”

He cast his gaze down the length of me, and then shook himself back to the moment. “How’d you
 . . . I mean, who taught you—”

“
Dave taught me to swim.”

Noah’s jaw dropped, leaving a slip of space between his top and bottom lip. The perfect amount of space for another set of lips to lock into.

A pitter-patter of light feet came across the room, and Stripy jumped onto the sofa and boldly curled up on my lap. I petted him while Noah recovered from his surprise.

“
So he taught you, then?”

I kept patting Stripy. “
You were right.”

Noah’s lips twitched, as if he didn’t know whether or not to laugh.
“He is the better teacher?”

“Yeah, he was really amazing.”

“Oh. Are, um, you and he—”

I jerked so quickly,
Stripy tried to flee, his claws biting into my lap. “No!” I calmed Stripy with a long stroke over his back. “I mean, no,” I said more quietly. “He’s just an awesome guy—
friend
, who helped me out.”

And yet the blush that rocketed up my neck wouldn’t cease.

Dave was an awesome guy. Really, freaking awesome—

D
amn
 . . .

I
shook off the sense memory of his hand clasping mine at the end of our last lesson, and then our hug . . .

Noah sighed.
“I’m sorry, Jase.” His gaze skimmed over Stripy to my face. “I miss you.”

I swallowed the lump that punched into my throat at hearing those words.

He continued, his hands rubbing up and down his shorts. “I miss hanging out, making dinners together, watching movies, shooting the shit . . . being your mate.”

“Will you
 . . . will you come for Christmas dinner? I invited Dave, but I want both my friends there.”

My voice came out raspy and I cleared my throat. “Scotty and I would love to come.”

“Scotty’s down?”

“I’m picking him up from the station later today.
And I miss you, too,” I said. “Everything you said, the hanging out, the dinners, the movies. So yeah, I’d love to come for Christmas dinner.”

“It’s a date.”

And though it pleased me to hear it, the words didn’t hit home in quite the same way they had half a year ago.

* * *

Scott, Dave, and I were at Lyall Bay, at a time I was sure Noah wouldn’t be. Scott had decided to show off and raced ahead. Chest deep in the sea, Dave and I watched him go.

Using breaststroke, I closed the ten yards of distance between Dave and I. The waves were calm and the water slid smoothly over me. It tingled all over.

Dave laughed. He lifted his arm from his side and accidentally scraped his fingers over my stomach. He pulled back quickly. “You swim well,” he said in a quiet voice that drew me even closer. “Looks like you’re all ready for surf lessons.”

I froze. “How’d you—”

“Know that’s why you so badly wanted to learn to swim?”

I swallowed.

“Because I understand the way of this.” He reached out with the same hand that had tickled my stomach and brought it firmly against my chest. “I got it since the first lesson.”

“You didn’t say anything.” His hand was still there, warm against me, and Dave seemed to be staring at it.

“What’s to say?” he said. “Besides, I wanted to teach you how. Maybe you aren’t the only one who wants to give something special—”

Scotty splashed our sides. “Dudes, get a room.”

Dave let his hand drop, and twisted away, but not before I caught the blush coloring his smooth cheeks.

Scotty tried and failed to vault over me, managing only to dunk us both under
the water. We came up, him laughing, me coughing up more sea. “It totally pisses me off you can swim,” he said. “Now what do I have over you?” But he elbowed my side and smiled.

Dave had started hauling his arse out of the water.

“Wait up,” I called after him, wanting—needing—to catch up with him. Though to say what, I wasn’t sure.

Scott clambered on
to my back, half-strangling me to stay on. With every step my feet sank into sand that seemed to want to suck me down deeper and deeper. I pulled and resisted, and at the same time managed to unlatch Scott’s death grip. He fell back into the water with a giggle and a splash.

“Dave!”

He paused, ankle deep, and looked back. The smile he wore didn’t reach his eyes. “What?”

“This isn’t it,” I said.

Water laced its way down his swimmer’s body and dripped from his hair, and he pushed it back as he glanced to shore. “It’s not?” he said slowly.

“No. I
—uh, I like hanging out with you.”

I could only see a slip of his face, but from the way his cheek was angled, I knew that had made him smile. A smile that was suddenly really important for me to keep there
.

“
Can we do that some more?” I said. “We can chat, hang out and watch a movie, or I could show you a gardening trick or two?”

He turned that smile toward me, and shrugg
ed. “Sure, maybe. If I get bored sometime.”

“Well if you do,” I said
, trudging out of the sea with him. “Then you know where I live.”