Chapter 11
Willow
Painting
First kiss
I wiggled my hips and rolled a Z shape in paint onto the wall.
The dark red against the dusty white made me want to dance, and an old Missy Elliott song filled the room from my workout playlist. The song fit the way the paint transformed the wall, and I was here for it, singing along, mumbling through the parts I didn’t know as I started covering the south-facing wall.
Cruz had repeatedly told me to make the room my own.
He said the walls needed color and he hadn’t gotten around to it, but I was certain that this was his way of luring me to move to Iowa and live in his place permanently.
I hadn’t planned to take him up on it, but with the roller in my hand and the cans of paint at my feet, I wondered if he’d come home to every room in his house painted.
I liked how the color looked on the walls, how clear and stark the change was.
It’s how I wanted to feel about myself—a clear before and after, a new and improved Willow.
The next time I dated someone, I’d have a cache of memories that had nothing to do with my ex.
Before the song ended, I gave one last swipe of the roller and stepped back, scanning my work.
Spencer had always said that beige and light gray and white were universal, drama-free, and made it easier to cover mistakes.
He wasn’t wrong, and I’d tried to be beige for a long time, wanting to fit into his world.
They were boring colors, though, and if I was going to be alone, I wouldn’t be alone and beige.
Setting the roller down, I turned to grab a glass of water and screamed in surprise at the hulking form in the doorway.
“Shit, you scared me!” I held my hand over my heart, feeling the splatters of wet paint under my fingertips on my old tank top.
Deacon was leaning one well-developed shoulder against the wood. He was in old sweats, and his arms were crossed over a plain white tank top covering his chest. That damn smirk on his lips.
“Work it,” he sang, mirroring my dance moves and going into an exaggerated body roll. “You asked if I could bring the ladder up from the garage. Here to serve.”
I swatted his arm. “How long were you spying on me?”
He shrugged, stepping into the bedroom. “Not that long. I knocked, but you probably couldn’t hear me over the music.” He swung his hips in my direction, mimicking my dance moves. “It looks good in here, Low.”
I examined my handiwork again. “It does.” Deacon’s arm brushed mine when he took a step forward. He’d showered before coming over, and I inhaled the clean scent of his soap. “It’s a re-do,” I said, putting my hands on my hips.
“Third,” he said, setting the ladder up near the partially painted wall. “Dancing with yours truly was number one, and you changed your hair.” He motioned to where my new short hair was pushed off my face with a headband.
“True.” I bit the corner of my lower lip. “You don’t think Cruz will mind the change, do you?”
“Nah,” he said. “He needs color in this place, and he’s always called this your room. It’s quite a red.”
“It’s my favorite color.” I studied a line of blue painting tape along the windowsill. “It makes me feel happy and brave.”
“You should wear red more often,” he said, crouching to look at the paint along the baseboard. “You’d look really good in red.”
My face heated at his comment, and I looked down at my clothes self-consciously. Gray sweats and a light pink tank top. I wasn’t sure I owned anything red, and I wasn’t sure why. “Thank you,” I said, feeling a few butterflies in my stomach that he’d noticed me like that at all.
He didn’t seem to pick up on it and stood, clapping his hands together. “I brought the ladder up, so you might as well put me to work. You want me to paint everything higher than…” He eyed me up and down. “How high can you reach? Six feet?”
I wanted to say something snarky, but that was exactly what I needed. He pulled the ladder in from the hallway and started taping near the ceiling while I worked on the lower part of the wall. The playlist kept cycling through the hits of the late nineties and early aughts.
“Low, do you like any songs from after 2010?” Deacon had rolled paint onto a good portion of the wall, biceps flexing as he held the roller on a long pole, bringing it back and forth. Every time he did that, his T-shirt revealed a sliver of his back or obliques.
“Yes,” I said, hopeful he wouldn’t ask too many follow-up questions. “I like these songs, though. I’m an old soul.”
“Not that old,” he said, recognizing the opening beats of the next song. “This came out my senior year of high school. Between you and Jayden, I’m getting a little tired of being called old.”
“You’re only ten years older than me,” I said.
“That’s not even half the run of Grey’s Anatomy!
” I grinned, tracing along the baseboard, focusing on keeping my brush moving in a straight line.
“That’s a show from your era, right?” He’d glanced down from his perch on the ladder, and I paused my painting to look up and avoid the rag he’d tossed at me.
“Sorry!” I yelped and shifted to avoid the paint on the rag.
“I was kidding!” I paused my brushwork again, watching him move the roller along the wall, his sweatpants hanging low on his hips.
I shot my eyes back down to the wall, focusing on my work.
“Thank you for helping me. You really are pretty great.”
He stretched over me with the roller, revealing a sliver of taut stomach. “I know.”
“And cocky.”
“You have no idea. But I would be the man to ask if you wanted to find out about cocky.” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.
I tossed a nearby rag at him and he laughed, dodging the throw. “Just when I think you’re so nice, out comes your dick.”
“I would never whip it out in front of you. I’m a gentleman.
” He rolled more paint into the space closest to the window expertly, the line almost exactly straight.
“Of course, if I did, you wouldn’t need to make this list of things to re-do, because you would immediately forget all other men. It’s a dangerous power to have.”
“Thank you for sparing me?” I kept my gaze trained on the wall. I didn’t want to chance my eyes accidentally falling to his crotch and giving him more ammunition to tease me.
Deacon climbed down the ladder and began painting the middle of the wall, standing closer to me. “Do you think this will need another coat?” His bare arm grazed mine, and I snuck a peek at the tattoo on his shoulder reading “That Others May Live” under a mountain range.
He repeated the question about another coat, and I jumped, knowing for sure he’d caught me looking at his arm.
“Um, yeah.” I dropped to my knees to examine a few uneven spots and to take myself away from the temptation to look at him.
“I think so.” I followed my brushstrokes up the wall looking for imperfections I’d need to touch up later.
I could get lost in the red color. It was perfect, even without the touch-ups.
“Everything I read said this kind of paint needs a few hours between coats.”
“Perfect,” he said. “How about we make dinner and then finish up?”
At the word “we,” I whipped my head up. And, oh wow. What did Julia Roberts say in Pretty Woman? Big mistake. Big. Huge. I was face-to-face with Deacon’s crotch. I shot my eyes from straight ahead up to his face, where he was blessedly not smirking, though he had to see my eyes widen. “What?”
“Food? We could consume it before painting more? I was supposed to meet someone, but we’re already covered in paint. Might as well finish the job, right?” He motioned to the wall as if I’d forgotten what we were doing, which I actually had a little, not that I could admit he was right.
“Oh. Yeah.” I covered the brush and positioned the rolling pan and paint can on the tarp. “Sure.” I looked up again, though this time he’d stepped back and something other than his penis filled my vision. “But it’s okay if you have to go to meet someone. I can finish alone.”
“Low, you’re like four feet tall. I can’t in good conscience leave you alone, plus I want to see the first project come to completion.
” He held out a hand to me, pulling me to my feet, but instead of pulling me against his chest, he steadied me and offered his palm for a high five. “Third re-do in the books!”
I grinned, looking around. He was right. I returned his high five and pointed my shoulder toward the kitchen. “I probably have stuff to make pasta.”
“Sweet.” He followed me to the doorway. “Then you can tell me what’s next on your list.”