16. Nora
NORA
The second coat of paint dries darker than I expect and now I’m not sure if I like it.
I stand in the middle of the room with my roller hanging uselessly in my hand while I stare at the wall color Paxton picked out yesterday from a collection of tiny teal paint cards spread across my kitchen table.
The room smells like fresh paint and plastic tarps and the cheap pizza Viper insisted on ordering an hour ago.
Paxton is asleep upstairs in my bed after fighting it for nearly forty-five minutes. He’d been too excited about his room to settle down properly, which means I’d ended up laying beside him while he signed sleepy nonsense at me until his eyes finally closed.
“My room is ocean color now.”
“It is.”
“I think sharks would like it.”
“Maybe small sharks.”
“No. Big sharks.”
Then he’d yawned so hard he nearly headbutted me and passed out five minutes later with one hand tangled in my shirt.
Now the house is quiet except for the storm outside and the occasional creak from the old floorboards under Viper’s boots as he moves behind me.
“I think you missed a spot,” he says.
I glance over my shoulder to find him leaning against the doorway with a slice of pizza dangling from one hand and paint streaked across his forearm.
He changed out of his jacket an hour ago because I threatened to murder him if he got black grease stains all over the freshly painted walls.
Unfortunately, removing the jacket only made the situation worse for me because now he’s just in a fitted charcoal t-shirt that stretches across his chest every time he moves.
“I did not miss a spot.”
“You absolutely missed a spot.”
“I think you’re lying for attention.”
He grins slowly around another bite of pizza. “And yet it worked.”
I turn back toward the wall before he catches me smiling again. That’s becoming a problem around him. Blade settles me. Stryker steadies me. Viper pokes at me constantly, like he enjoys watching me lose my patience one inch at a time.
The worst part is I think he does enjoy it.
“I still don’t understand why you’re here,” I mutter while dragging the roller back over the wall.
“The storm.”
“The storm already passed.”
“The emotional storm.”
I snort before I can stop myself.
Behind me, I hear his quiet laugh. “There she is.”
I hate that my shoulders loosen a little at the sound.
The plastic tarp crackles under his boots as he walks farther into the room. I feel him before I look at him again, warm and solid suddenly beside me as he steals the roller straight out of my hand.
“You paint like a landlord trying to keep a security deposit.”
“I paint efficiently.”
“You paint with fear.”
I stare at him flatly. “You are not better at this than me.”
“Nora, sweetheart, I rebuilt a beach house in San Diego during my twenties because I got involved with a yoga instructor who believed drywall was spiritually oppressive.”
I blink slowly. “I genuinely cannot tell when you’re lying.”
“That’s because I’m not.”
He says it so casually I almost believe him.
Almost.
I cross my arms while he rolls paint onto the wall with exaggerated concentration. He’s annoyingly good at it too. Smooth strokes. No drips. No uneven patches. I hate that.
“You know,” he says after a minute, “most people say thank you when someone volunteers to help them.”
“I fed you pizza.”
“You fed yourself pizza. I happened to also be present.”
“You ate half of it.”
“I’m a growing boy.”
“You’re forty-one.”
“Still growing emotionally.”
I shake my head and crouch to grab the paint tray before he steps directly into it again. He’d already done that once, twenty minutes ago, and somehow turned it into my fault.
The room looks completely different now than it did four days ago. The old yellow wallpaper is gone. The warped shelving unit came down yesterday. The curtains are folded in a trash bag somewhere outside because they smelled like dust and mildew no matter how many times I washed them.
Now it looks lighter.
Cleaner.
Like it belongs to a little boy instead of the girl I used to be.
That thought settles strangely in my chest.
Viper immediately notices me getting quiet. I can tell because he stops talking.
“You okay?” he asks after a moment.
“Yeah.”
He watches me anyway.
I hate that they’ve all started doing that. Watching too closely. Learning my silences too quickly.
“I used to sleep in here,” I say finally, while pulling tape off the trim near the window. “When I was little.”
His roller slows. “Yeah?”
I nod once. “Before I ran away.”
The room stays quiet for a second after that.
Not awkward.
Just still.
I keep peeling tape carefully because it gives my hands something to do. “I thought repainting it would feel weirder than this.”
“And does it?”
I shrug. “A little.”
Viper sets the roller down in the tray before moving toward the window. Rain taps softly against the glass behind him now, lighter than before. He rests one shoulder against the frame and studies me with that same unreadable attention he always seems to carry around.
“You don’t talk about yourself much,” he says.
“There isn’t much to say.”
“That’s bullshit.”
I glance at him.
He shrugs lightly. “People who say there isn’t much to say usually have the longest stories.”
I pull another strip of tape free harder than necessary. “You always this nosy?”
“Yes.”
“At least you’re honest.”
“I’m selectively honest.”
“That somehow sounds worse.”
“It probably is.”
I laugh quietly despite myself, then immediately regret it when his expression shifts slightly like he won something.
“You do that a lot,” I say suspiciously.
“Do what?”
“Look pleased with yourself every time I laugh.”
“Well, yeah.”
“Why?”
“Because you spend most of your time looking like you’re preparing for tax fraud.”
I stare at him again.
He points toward me. “That face exactly.”
“I’m beginning to understand why Stryker looks tired all the time.”
“That’s fair.”
The rain picks up outside again while we work. Eventually the room settles into something calmer. He paints. I touch up trim and corners. Music plays quietly from his phone somewhere behind us, low enough that I mostly feel the bass through the floorboards instead of truly hearing the songs.
I keep catching myself looking at him.
Not intentionally.
Just accidentally enough to annoy me.
He moves through space comfortably, like he belongs anywhere he decides to stand.
Confident without being loud about it. Older than me by enough years that I should probably feel more aware of it than I do.
Instead it barely registers anymore around him, Blade, and Stryker.
They carry age differently than men my age ever did. Less performance. Less desperation.
More certainty.
It should make me nervous.
Instead it makes me reckless.
Viper catches me looking that last time.
“You keep staring at me like you’re about to either kiss me or hit me with that paint tray.”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
“Can I vote?”
“No.”
“You’re no fun.”
“That’s not what you said earlier.”
His mouth twitches.
I immediately realize what I just handed him.
“Oh, there she is again,” he says softly.
Heat crawls up my neck so fast it irritates me.
“I hate talking to you.”
“No you don’t.”
“I absolutely do.”
“You painted an entire bedroom with me voluntarily.”
“You invited yourself.”
“And you still let me stay.”
I open my mouth to argue before realizing I don’t actually have a response for that.
Because he’s right.
I did let him stay.
Hours ago I could have sent him home. I could have told him I was fine and finished alone after Paxton went to sleep.
Instead he’s still here, paint on his hands and pizza boxes on my hallway floor and his stupid boots by my bedroom door because I made him take them off after he tracked mud through the kitchen.
Domestic.
The thought hits me so suddenly I nearly drop the brush in my hand.
Viper watches something shift across my face. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Nora.”
“Nothing.”
He walks closer this time instead of letting it go.
That should probably bother me too.
Instead I stay exactly where I am while he stops directly in front of me, close enough now that I can smell rainwater and soap under the paint.
“You get this look sometimes,” he says quietly.
“What look?”
“Like you’re already halfway out the door before anything even happens.”
I busy myself rinsing the brush in the paint bucket because I suddenly don’t like how accurately he said that.
“You analyze people too much.”
“It’s literally my favorite hobby.”
“That’s concerning.”
“You should hear my less healthy hobbies.”
I snort another laugh before I can stop it. His expression softens for half a second afterward. Real enough that it catches me off guard.
“You’re pretty when you forget to be careful,” he says.
I look down automatically because I don’t know what to do with that kind of honesty when it comes from him. Blade’s honesty feels steady. Stryker’s feels deliberate. Viper’s slips under my guard before I realize it’s happening.
“You say that like careful is a bad thing.”
“No.” His voice stays calm. “I say it like you’re exhausted from always having to be that way.”
That lands too close to something I spend most days avoiding, so instead of answering I bend to grab another roll of tape just to move.
“You don’t know me well enough to psychoanalyze me,” I finally clip out.
“Probably true.”
“Then stop trying.”
He crouches beside me instead of backing off. “Can’t.”
I look at him again. There’s less amusement on his face now and that somehow feels more dangerous than the teasing.
“Why?” I ask quietly.
His eyes move over my face slowly before settling again. “Because I’ve spent six years wondering what happened to you and now I want answers to every question I had and more.”