Page 27 of Summer Skin
AVEN IS STRUGGLING, man versus IKEA, with Justin standing directly over him, preaching patience as the number one tool required when assembling furniture.
His stomach is waging a protest against the three chocolate-chip muffins he shoveled down a few minutes after Ben pulled them from the oven. Everyone is watching him wrestle with a coffee table that splits into two halves, so the upper half lifts towards you—though he remains clueless over which one of his roommates deemed this a necessity, because, seriously, what for?
Chase is standing over in the corner looking calm, cool, and collected with his beautiful face and his shiny hair and his lean, muscled body, all while Aven is down on all fours sweating like a pig on a cruel summer day. And what on earth does that phrase even mean? As far as he’s aware, pigs don’t sweat at all.
But nevertheless, Aven does. Sweat that is, and as he tries for zillionth time to properly insert an unthreaded screw using the extremely tight space the design allows for, he lets out a curse. “Why?” he asks. “Why did we buy something we knew we’d have to put together ourselves? Who the hell do we think we are, Bobby from Queer Eye?”
“I didn’t think about it,” Tyler says, wiping muffin crumbles from his mouth. “Veena always took care of putting our furniture together. She knew what she was doing.”
“Okay, so,” Ben says, “maybe we should have added Taskrabbit for assembly at checkout.”
“Who would have paid for that?” Tyler asks.
Chase raises his hand.
Oh. Right. Mr. Rags-to-Rock-Star.
“It’s just a coffee table,” Justin puts in, as though none of them have noticed this specific detail until right now. “How hard can it be?”
Aven counts to ten, gritting his teeth. He tosses the screwdriver to one side and scoots back, resting against the sofa. “I’m taking a break,” he announces in a tone meant to imply that everyone had best dial it back if they have anything they would like to add about how difficult it may or may not be to perform manual labor while they crowd around, watching someone else do all the work, like it’s some sort of reality game show where Aven tries not to lose his shit for a prize valued up to ten-thousand dollars.
“Go somewhere else in your head,” Ben suggests. He closes his eyes, breathing deeply. “Ahh, I can smell the ceder trees!”
“Yeah, okay,” Aven says, biting back his laughter.
“This weekend we’ll all be at the cabin,” Ben goes on, “and so at one with the harmony of nature that we won’t even remember this coffee table exists.”
And like a record scratch has echoed through the room, Aven startles. “Wait, what cabin?”
“Your parents’ cabin,” Ben reminds him. “Our annual trip the first weekend of summer?”
Aven shakes his head. There’s no way he’s going glamping with his ex, where it’s all day, every day group activities and outings. Nope. “We’re not going this year.”
“Um, yeah we are,” Tyler chimes in. “We talked about this a couple of months back, remember?”
Oh, right. BC—Before Chase. Shit. Maybe Chase isn’t into tagging along, maybe he’ll—
“Chase agreed to play Paranormal Romance tunes around the fire,” Ben adds happily, like they’re all getting VIP wristbands to see their favorite show.
Oh my fucking god.
He’s going to be forced to cut off his right pinkie toe to avoid the horrors of spending this weekend with his roommates. “Yeah, I don’t know,” he tries. “Maybe I’ll stay home this year.”
“It’s tradition,” Ben insists. He looks genuinely offended Aven would even dare suggest ditching.
“I’ve been looking forward to it,” Justin tells him. “Come on, man, s’mores around a campfire.”
“It’s your parents’ cabin and we can’t go without you.” Tyler gives excellent logic and sad boy eyes.
Fine, jesus. He can always feign a stomach bug and sequester himself in his room for the trip, like that sickly little boy from The Secret Garden, while the others kumbaya or what-the-fuck-ever. “Right, right. Well … yay,” he says weakly. “Such fun.”
“Let’s get this table done before the next batch of muffins comes out of the oven,” Justin suggests. “Once you finish this part, Aven, we can team up for the rest.”
Aven nods, grabbing the assembly instructions and going over them again to reacquaint himself. There’s no written guidance, just two cartoon men putting this thing together on first try. The how appears just this side of impossible. Apparently, you need an advanced degree in insane troll logic to make a table from a box.
“I’m going to murder this table,” he grumbles. “Somebody fetch me an axe. I’m no Thoren Bradley, but I can hack the shit out of a weak piece of particleboard.”
“Hand it over, Neanderthal,” Chase says, rolling his eyes and reaching for the instruction manual, and then he freezes. Like he forgot for a second that they’re not exactly on name-calling terms.
Aven slides him the guide with no comment, and Chase studies it, brow crinkled in concentration. “Okay, first try twisting the screwdriver with your fingers instead of your whole hand. Yeah,” he says, “yeah, that’s it,” and Aven finds doing it that way actually is the trick. It’s awkward, but it works. “You got this,” Chase tells him.
They fall into an easy rhythm, Chase explaining the diagrams in a way Aven can understand, talking him through it step-by-step. It feels familiar and right teaming up with him this way, working together to puzzle a problem out. His body relaxes into the work and his breathing slows down, the pounding in his head dropping off.
It’s easy, Aven thinks, as Chase makes a joke about screwing holes, to remember why he fell in love. He knocks the thought out of his head. If he has to, he’ll remind himself until the cows come home, or the cat, rather, that having any feelings for Chase other than the polite cordiality required as his roommate would be a gruesome type of torture.
Once it’s time for Justin to join in, the project flies by quickly, and they finish with a few seconds to spare before the oven timer goes off, announcing a new batch of muffins.
The boys dash out to the kitchen, like they’ve spent a day on the ranch and heard the dinner bell calling them home, leaving only Aven and Chase behind, surrounded by cardboard and scattered pieces of Styrofoam.
Aven sinks onto the couch, testing the new coffee table by putting his feet up, and Chase sets the assembly instructions down on the opposite end, brushing a strand of hair behind his ear, and that simple, thoughtless gesture sends a tangle of longing through Aven’s entire body. Remembering how that silk-soft hair felt between his fingertips, those nights Chase let him run a brush through it, like it was Aven’s job to take care of him.
Chase looks up and meets his eyes.
Look away.
Blinks at him with those ridiculously long lashes.
He’s not good for you.
Pulls out a soft smile.
Don’t be a fool.
His cheeks go rosy, like he can read every messed-up thought circling Aven’s head.
He. Is. Not. Yours.
Chase clears his throat. “Need any help cleaning up?”
“I got it.”
Chase is not for you.
Chase is not for you.
Chase is—
So fucking gorgeous standing there with his hands shoved into his pockets. There’s this single ray of sunlight painting a streak across his face, and Aven’s breath is stolen right from his chest.
“I didn’t tell Ben I’d sing any Paranormal Romance songs.” His throat works as he swallows. “I wouldn’t do that. He asked if I’d play, and I said yes. I was actually thinking we might try out some of our old songs, see if they’ve still got some bite?”
God. Chase really doesn’t get that would be even more painful for Aven to go through than watching him play through the entire Paranormal Romance catalog. It took years before he allowed himself to realize they’d never play those songs together again. That Chase is here, now, bringing it up so casually, as if there’s not an excruciating amount of history attached is, well. He must think Aven has a heart of stone.
“No need to lower yourself to such amateur songwriting on my account.”
“Aven,” he says miserably. “You know I don’t feel that way about what we wrote. It was … you and I were ….”
Whatever Chase is thinking, it doesn’t make it all the way out of his mouth, and Aven knows he’s not making it easy on the other man. He deflates after Chase’s expression closes down and he draws in on himself.
Andi’s right. Being a dick to Chase isn’t making Aven feel any better, it’s only making him feel like, well, a dick.
“I can stay here this weekend,” Chase offers. “I’ll stay behind and watch the cat.”
“Andi feeds Petal while we’re gone.” Aven takes a breath and sighs it out. “You should come, everyone is excited for you to be there.”
“You’re not.” His brow furrows. “You hate me.”
Aven winces. It sounds brutal, hearing him say it out loud.
It sounds untrue.
Aven doesn’t hate Chase at all.
He only wishes he did.