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I gave her a flat look. “We’re not using that primer.”
“Why not? He said we needed it.”
“We don’t, I promise.”
“Poor Ralph,” she sighed. “He’s just trying to do his job,and I can only imagine what kind of men ignore him all the time because they don’t like following directions.”
“You know his name?”
Poppy’s responding facial expression was all incredulity. “Don’t you? He’s worked there for ten years.”
I rubbed my forehead. “I don’t make it a habit of … talking when I go in there.”
“Really? How surprising.”
With a slight roll of my eyes, I went back out to my truck, unloading the rest of the items in a couple of trips. Before I went upstairs, I took the box of tools and emergency supplies into the laundry room, quickly tucking them into the empty cabinets above the washer and dryer.
The two gallons of paint were at the bottom of the other box, and I slipped them out, carrying both in one hand as I walked upstairs. When I turned the corner, she wasn’t in the green bedroom, but I could hear her across the hall in the room that would be hers.
She played some music on her phone, humming softly while I heard the occasional snap of the measuring tape. Having this sort of uninterrupted time with her was soothing in an incredibly foreign way.
“I think I’ll move in midweek if that works for you,” she called out. “Gives me a few days to pack and figure out some furniture. Ian and Cameron won’t be gone, so I’ll have hands for heavy lifting.”
“I’ll be here too,” I told her, unwrapping the canvas drop cloth and laying it over the floor. I finished that, then moved on to uncovering the new brush. “Just text me what time.”
“‘Kay,” she said.
I gripped the small metal can opener in my hand and ran it under the lip of the first gallon of paint. When I pried the loosened lid off, I simply stared for a few seconds.
“What the…” I whispered.
From the doorway, I felt Poppy’s eyes on me. When Iglanced up, she was biting down on her bottom lip to stem her growing smile. “It’s a good color,” she said with a slight shrug of one shoulder. “Someone should use it.”
What was she doing to me?
Did she have the slightest fucking clue?
I was still staring at the empty doorway when she turned and walked back across the hall, my eyes burning and my head spinning. There was a distant ringing in my ears as I dipped the pristine paint brush into the glossy, wet paint.
The first pull of the brush left behind a thick swath of the deep, rich color, exactly the way I’d imagined it for so many years.
Before I dipped the brush again, I saw the label printed neatly in black marker.
Jax’s Blue.
Chapter 27
Jax
It didn’t take long, and the radioactive green was slowly covered, replaced by the deep, rich bluish green.
“I can reach the top of the wall if you’d let me get up on the ladder,” she huffed.
She had blue speckles on her arms, and a chunk of hair tipped in blue, but she didn’t seem too bothered by it. She stood with arms crossed, eyes alight with stubborn heat.
“Not happening, angel,” I answered evenly, dipping my brush into the small container I had set on the top of the ladder, then angling the brush to cut in with one smooth line.
When she showed me she could manage it, she’d been rolling the walls with her good hand, coming behind me after I did the cutting in against the trim and ceilings. But she couldn’t reach the top third of the walls, so when she finished as much as possible, I’d set my trim brush down and come down the ladder, relieving her of the roller so I could finish the rest.
