“Nah, it’s fine. We were talking about the house back when we painted the roof. What are you guys’ thoughts on a color?” Mikael asked as everyone sprawled on the grass Derek had mown the other day with a cheap old mower Mikael kept as backup on his farm.
Derek sat to give Cal something to lean on, and hummed thoughtfully. “Are there any traditional colors you’d suggest?”
“Yeah, we know about the red,” Kit pointed at the outbuilding that had been reduced to a small woodshed and a space for either storage or maybe an emergency garage if they ever got a vehicle. Most of the building hadn’t been salvageable, despite their best efforts.
“Well there’s now this yellow that’s made in a similar way to the red. The colors can be somewhat controlled, so it could be lighter, bright yellow or a slightly darker one,” Mikael explained.
“I’ve seen many colors on houses here. Blue and gray ones, too. The only thing that seems to be same in most houses like this are white corner boards,” Maxim added.
“I think blue or yellow?” Derek asked Cal. Then he looked over the pile of boys and grinned. “Kit? Preference?”
Kit pushed his way out of the pile and panted happily, more like a fox kit in human form than Derek had seen before. It was so obvious he was happy here.
“Either works for me!”
“Yellow, maybe?” Cal said tentatively.
Mikael had dug out his phone and got up, coming to show them pictures. “Something like this?”
There were surprisingly many shades of yellow. “I like it,” Cal said and Derek nodded.
“We can figure out the shade once we have the paint,” Noah added, stretching on the ground where he’d stayed with Maxim.
Kit tried not to be obvious about his ogling, and Derek could tell the other boys hadn’t noticed, but he was pretty sure Maxim had. At least, from what he knew about the silent Russian, Maxim wouldn’t tease Kit about it.
“It will be smart to paint now. We need to paint the boards around new windows anyway,” Maxim said thoughtfully.
“He’s right. Might as well do all the work at once.” Derek nodded. Then he turned to the boys. “So, would you guys want to earn some pocket money?”
Mikael looked thoughtful, because all the tasks around the farms were always done by group effort. He allowed Derek to express his idea anyway, probably because it was Derek’s house, as much as it was any of theirs, since the Council had bought it in Mikael’s name.
“What do you need?” Anton asked in an eager tone.
“Well, we all know we can’t paint the house until it’s been cleaned up a bit. We need to scrub off the old paint and make sure there’s no moss or anything anywhere. All dirt needs to come off, but we need to do it gently,” Derek explained, and Mikael relaxed, going back to sit with Maxim and Noah.
“What’s the catch?” Kit asked, grinning.
“There isn’t one. It’s just not the nicest of jobs. I certainly don’t want to do it, but if you guys volunteer for it, I can pay fifty euros each and that’s your money you can do whatever you want with,” Derek told the boys.
The thing was, the boys still got pocket money from their parental units. The wolves from the alphas and Kit from Cal and Derek, obviously. Even Anton, who was the oldest, got some money from Mikael and the other older men in their house. It wasn’t much, though, and Derek knew they’d do a good job.
“I’m in,” Anton said, smiling.
“Yeah, I think we all are,” Nico added, looking at his pseudo-brother Jude who nodded.
“Well it’s my house, but sure,” Kit sniffed, making the other boys pile on top of him with shrieks and laughter.
Cal smiled at them and glanced at Derek. They were still sitting next to each other and Cal bumped his shoulder to Derek’s. It meant something like good job, Derek knew without words.
“You should probably wait until they come and change the windows because that’ll create some mess of its own, but if you can do it right after they’ve done the installing, we might be able to do it all within a couple of days,” Mikael said in a thoughtful tone.
“If the weather holds,” Noah added. “We’re not that deep into the autumn yet, but it’ll come sooner than we think.”
Derek grinned. “As long as we get new windows before it snows, I’m good.”
“We should have a while for that.” Mikael flashed him a smile. “Here’s hoping for October at least.”
They ended up deciding to make a work party out of it. There was apparently a Finnish word,talkootthat meant people coming over to someone’s place and getting something done together without payment. Except of course, Mikael had explained, that if it was say, a guy living alone and needing the help, then he’d buy beer and pizzas or something like that for his friends. If it was a family, then maybe everyone would get fed by the homeowner after the job was done.
