You're never too old to learn something. For example, I learned that, on Lee's scale of one—to the most important thing in the world—spending time with hot men trumped buying furniture for work. A mistake I will never make again. Me being tricked into attending Penn's birthday didn't go over well. Lee threw a fit the only way he knew how, dramatically with a side of passive aggressive. By the end of the night I had promised, on the grave of every family member I loved, that I would never hangout with the Knott brothers without him.
I was socialed-out and looked forward to a down weekend. I needed to recharge. But then Nathan and Kelsea called and invited us over. I'd been friends with Nathan since before I could form a sentence. Lee and Kelsea were cousin-besties. She was Lee's best-woman and Lee was slated to be her man-of-honor. So, accepting their invitation was a no-brainer. Spending time with them easy, it took no effort at all. Their home was our home and our home was their home.
Nathan and Kelsea lived in a weird area; a small canyon with no cell-service. Lee hated that every time we visited, he had to connect to Wi-Fi. I was the opposite; I loved the freedom it brought. No service, no interruptions.
"Al Borland!" Nathan shouted as we got out of the car. "Up for a little reno work?"
He was in the middle of cutting some two-by-fours in the middle of his yard. Nathan was handsome even if he was balding more than most our age. He'd taken to wearing a hat most of the time to cover it up. He put the saw down and met us halfway.
"Where's Kels?" Lee asked. Nathan motioned to the house and Lee took off, taking the porch in one leap. He loved Nathan but not enough to get roped into manual labor. Nathan and I laughed as we watched Lee disappear into the house.
"What's today's project?" I asked.
Nathan dusted his hands then his shirt. He'd been working for a while before we showed and had sweated through his armpits and the back of his shirt.
"Finally adding that small shed."
"About time," I laughed. "It's been, what—four years you've been talking about doing that?"
Nathan flipped me off. "Yeah, well, shit happens. Some of us have real jobs."
Now it was my turn to flip him off. He loved to give me a hard time about my job, in reality, he was jealous of my flexible schedule. He worked for a moving company and worked crazy, labor intensive hours.
We got to work on the shed. He had the foundation finished so we framed in the walls. It took us most of the day but we got it done. All he had left to do was the roofing. It was dark when we made it into the house. Lee and Kelsea were sitting at the table, drinking wine. Nathan grabbed himself a beer and me a water.
We ate dinner, laughed, and caught up. It was always a good time. It was two-in-the-morning when we finally pulled ourselves away.
"Let's do this every Friday night. We can make a standing date," Kelsea begged as she hugged Lee.
"Yes! No matter what happens, we have dinner," he demanded. "We can rotate houses!" It was a rehearsed speech of promises that they said every time we got together. Nathan and I could recite it verbatim, and did, when our spouses weren't looking.
"Why don't we do this more often?" Lee asked as we drove away. "We're so busy but this is good. We really need to make it a priority."
"I'm fine with that," I said. Lee was usually the one who turned it down. They were our best friends; it was easy to put them on the back burner. He knew they'd always be there.
When we finally reached cell service, my phone beeped with notifications. It solidified why I loved being out of service now and again. Being the doting husband and awesome co-pilot Lee was, he started reading the messages aloud while I drove. If a reply was necessary, he'd type it out.
"David wants to know if you're still hosting game night tomorrow? If so, do you want him to reach out to some of the guys?"
"Yes, and Yes. Tell him they can come at seven. We'll have pizza ready. They either leave before eleven or stay the night. And no more than ten guys."
Lee typed away on my phone before moving to the next message.
"There's dozens of messages from numbers you don't have logged." He held up the phone so I could see my inbox.
"'
Come over about eleven and we'll take the boat out'
'The boats warmed up, almost here?'
'Nash...'
'Tried calling you but you're not answering'
'We're waiting for you.'
He read the messages in rapid concession before flipping to another unknown sender.
'
Dude, where are you?'
'I'm going to assume your car exploded or you're dying?'"
Flip.
'
Nash, you done upset the boys. Ryan and Penn are coming after you'
Flip.
'
Promises, promises...'
"
This one has a sad face emoji and broken heart emoji," Lee described before reading off a few more messages. They were similar to the rest. When he finished, he re-read them silently to himself. "Are these from the Knotts? Were we supposed to hang out with them today?"
"Not really. I mean, they mentioned something last weekend but it was more an off-handed comment. Nothing concrete."
"It sounds like it was more than
off-handed
. Did we ghost the Knotts? Please tell me we didn't ghost the Knotts." Lee stared at me, daring me to tell him we stood them up, that we had committed the biggest crime in history by spending the day with our best friends instead.
"I think they're being a bit dramatic. Besides, Nathan needed us. They
are
our best friends after all."
"
Nash,
" Lee sighed. "You're an idiot."
I found his level of distraughtness over the matter quite amusing and squeezed his knee with a chuckle. "The summer isn't over, love."
"You better hope it's not." There was a slight rise in his voice, a warning. He covered my hand with his and squeezed. "You better fix this."
****
Tuesday was HOT. The Oregon coast was nothing like California and Florida, where the beaches were warm and the water was blue. It was more like the vampire trilogy movie where the vampires lived in an overcasted, rainy shadow of a town. Only the town stretched the entire coast line. It was rare to see anything over seventy. Seventy-five and everyone in town was dying. Literally. Heatagetten. Some places stop functioning when it rains, we stop functioning when it's hot.
I decided to blast some more high school nostalgia and power wash everything I could get my hands on while working on my tan. I hadn't run much since Seattle and the muscle strain felt good. I was belting the chorus of a song I wished I didn't know the lyrics to when the music cutout, leaving me awkwardly a cappella.
"You have interesting taste in music."
I jerked, almost dropping the wand but managing to not plummet to the ground. "Jesus—"
The amigos were standing a few yards away with their typical megawatt smiles. With shaky, scared legs, I climbed down the ladder. Logan and Penn were each holding a power cord: one to the power washer, the other, the music box.
"And you have a way of showing up at the most inopportune times. Like, when I'm singing songs that no one should sing." When I got off the ladder, I shook my hair like a wet dog then gave it a quick run through with my fingers, trying to tame the mess that was my blonde hair.
Ryan crossed his arms like an angry father and looked at me like I was busted. "What happened last weekend?"
"What?" I asked. "We were helping Nathan and Kels with their shed."
"You were supposed to come over. We were waiting for you."
I cringed. "I completely forgot."
"You promised."
"Honestly, I didn't think it was a serious invite. Kind of like a '
yeah totally, lets hangout sometime
', but then you never do and it's okay."
Ryan was genuinely taken back by my response. "Seriously? You think that us kidnapping you and forcing you to agree to come back was some kind of non-invite?" He scoffed. "If that's the case, what does a genuine invite look like?"
"A felony. Probably five-ten," Penn mumbled from beside his brother.
I pointed at him and laughed. "That's terrifyingly accurate."
Penn smirked, proud of himself for being funny. I'm not sure I'd ever seen him make a joke.
"Then stop resisting and no one gets hurt," Ryan said.
"You don't get told no very often, do you?" I asked.
"No, we really don't. But you like to be difficult, don't you?"
"I'm the difficult one?" Nash laughed. "You're the one breaking the law every time you come here."
"We wouldn't have to resort to breaking the law if you weren't such a pain in our ass. Now come along, we're going to lunch."
I wasn't the kind of guy who spent much time on presentation, but I was in no shape to go anywhere—dripping wet and wearing shorts. "I would love to, really, but I'm in the middle of—"
Umpf.
Penn flung me over his shoulder. He wasn't that much bigger than me but that it didn't stop him from tossing my grown, one-eighty-pound ass around effortlessly.
"
Really?
" I shouted. Ryan and Logan quickly locked everything in the garage before following us to the truck.
"Stop being so difficult all the time and we won't have to resort to such drastic measures. If you think about it, it's your fault," Logan said as he and Ryan climbed into the back seat. Penn flopped me in the driver's seat then motioned for me to scoot over.
"No shoes, no shirt, no service." I said, just in case they hadn't noticed my state of undress. There was a second of rustling before getting whacked in the side of my head.
"There," Ryan said. "Penn's clothes should fit better than mine."
