“Jesus fuck!” Andy shouted then whirled around to face me.
“I’m pretty sure he didn’t fuck, but maybe I missed church the day they read that section of the bible.”
“You scared the fuck out of me,” Andy said, crossing the kitchen to turn down the radio. “I need to be less dorky if people are just going to pop in unannounced.”
“Sorry. Would you like me to go back outside and text that I’m stopping by so we can start all over again?”
“Would you pretend to forget what you just saw?”
“Not in a million years,” I said, grinning from ear to ear. “Hey, I know. Why don’t you do a repeat performance tomorrow when we come over for brunch?”
“Why don’t you kiss my ass?” Andy aggressively dipped the paint roller in the pan of paint on the floor then rolled it up and down the washboard-like grooves of the tray engineered to help spread the paint evenly on the roller.
“Aw, don’t be mad,” I teased. “I just stopped by to see if you wanted some help.”
“How good are you at cutting in?”
“I have a steady hand,” I said, holding them up in the air. “You want me to cut in these other two walls while you roll the ones you already did?”
“That would be great. The ladder is right around the corner, and there’s a small paint bucket on top with the paintbrush I used.”
I pulled the ladder into the kitchen and positioned it by the wall opposite to the one Andy was painting. “I like this beige paint color. It’s warm and inviting. I have to admit I expected Milo to pick out a bolder paint color for the kitchen.”
“Nah,” Andy said. “He tends to go for neutral backgrounds and bolder accent pieces. We are doing a charcoal gray accent wall in our bedroom as a contrast to our white headboard. The rest of the room will be a soothing, medium gray with a hint of blue undertone.”
“You sound like you’re the guy working the paint counter at the hardware store.”
“Dare used the description when he helped me stage the flip house I bought earlier this year. I wrote down the name of the paint because I liked it.”
Conversation trailed off as we focused on our tasks. Once I was done cutting in, I found a spare roller and helped paint the rest of the kitchen. “What next?” I asked when we finished.
“I appreciate your help, Elijah, but I sense there’s an ulterior motive.”
“I’m wounded.”
“You’re full of shit. I won’t force you to talk, but I will accept your kind offer.”
“You’re so magnanimous.”
“Is Milo talking about my condom size again?” Too bad I’d just taken a healthy gulp of the extra Gatorade Andy had in his cooler. I ended up shooting the orange drink out my nose which burned like hell.
“I believe that’s called magnum,” I said once I could speak, “and no, that’s never come up in a conversation between us.”
“There is something you can do to help me out,” Andy said, leaning close like he was afraid someone would overhear him. “Tell me what Maegan has planned for the turret room.”
“Hell no,” I said, shaking my head. “I am not getting in the middle of their battle.” The upstairs bedroom in Andy and Milo’s new home had a window seat tucked into the dormers of the Cape Cod windows. The Miracle twins were locked in a battle to see whose room turned out the best. I assumed Andy and Milo were planning to use their room for kids too, but I didn’t really know for sure. Maegan would kill me if I spilled our plans to the enemy. After all, Milo was just as tight with Vanessa as Maegan was, so it was likely he’d call on her to paint a mural if he found out what Maegan planned.
“It was worth a shot,” Andy said, shrugging.
“Are you in the doghouse or something?”
“No, but it never hurts to gain some advantage over a Miracle.”
We painted the living room and dining room before Maegan called looking for me. I couldn’t believe how quickly the day passed when I was busy doing physical labor and seeing which one of us could do the best air riff to the hair band classics. I was by far the best air guitar player between the two of us, but Andy’s lip-syncing skills far surpassed mine.
When I got home, Maegan was practically coming out of her skin with excitement. “Lyric solved the case!”
She went to throw her arms around my neck, but I stepped back in case some of the paint smears on my T-shirt were wet. That’s when she really paid attention to my shirt and jeans. “Sitting around here wouldn’t have been good for me today, so I decided to help Andy out. We got three rooms painted on the first floor.”
