Might also be nice to watch him work up a sweat in another way.Nope. We were having a wholesome shopping day.
I pulled up the Pinterest board that I had pretended was for the master suite.
“We need a big chandelier like this one,” I told the Svensson siblings, showing them a picture of an oversized pink-and-gold chandelier dripping with little Hello Kitty charms. “This will totally bring you joy, Beck!”
“Come look at this.” Enola dragged Beck to a very dramatic white fainting couch with mahogany legs and mother-of-pearl insets.
“I really don’t need one of those,” Beck said, eyes widening slightly.
“You absolutely do,” I said, stretching out on it. “Perfect to find girls!” I looked up at Beck under my eyelashes. He wasn’t even close to cracking. Time to bring out the big guns.
“How about some wallpaper?” I suggested.
“They have the glitter wallpaper!” Annie directed me to a large shelf along one wall of the store and pulled off a roll of wallpaper.
She unrolled a sheet of it. Beck sucked in a breath, and even I winced. The wallpaper was bright pink with shiny glitter that dusted the floor as Annie held it up.
“How do you like it?” Annie asked her brother. “Isn’t it great? It will be perfect for your bedroom.”
My eye twitched. The thought of all that glitter being tracked through the house, clinging to my clothes, infiltrating my laptop, was making me antsy. I looked down. Somehow, my skirt was already covered in glitter.
Surely Beck would crack.
But he took a deep breath, smiled, and said, “You know, I would like to have a pink glitter wall. How many rolls do we need?” He pulled two more off the shelf with a poof of glitter.
God, it was in my eye!
“Are you sure you’re happy with it?” I asked, blinking rapidly.
“Of course,” Beck said, frowning slightly. “I love glitter. Look, here’s a matching blue wallpaper. Maybe Tess can have that in her room. What do you think?”
“I think maybe we could pick one of these other styles,” I suggested, pulling out a floral wallpaper at random and unrolling it. Then I sneezed. It too was covered in glitter.
Beck gave me a bemused look then a knowing smile. “But the girls are decorating my room for me. If they think I need glitter wallpaper, then that’s what I’m buying. Look, girls, they have purple too. Let’s do the whole condo.”
I cracked. “We’re not decorating for your room. We are here shopping for my room, and we are not bringing all that glitter in the house,” I practically yelled.
Beck pressed a hand to his chest. “Tess, I’m offended.”
“I already ordered furniture for you,” I grumbled, grabbing the glitter wallpaper from him and the girls and sticking it back on the shelf. “I was hoping to see you break down in tears at the thought of living in a neon-rainbow-colored room, but the glitter wallpaper is just too much.”
“You have to commit, Tess,” Beck teased, nudging me with his elbow.
“I’m not committed enough to have glitter in all of my possessions for the next ten years.”
Beck grinned, the smile making him look less like my shitty boss and more like a man I would totally want to ask me out on a date.
Except I don’t date so… so there.
“What did you really choose for the master?” Beck asked me as we strolled through the store, following the girls.
“It’s going to be a surprise,” I replied, nudging him with my hip. “It’s going to be like one of those reality TV show reveals.”
Annie grabbed my hand to show me the large vase she had found. “You said you wanted one by the door,” she reminded me.
I inspected the concrete vase.
“Perfect! All right, let’s pack up all our super-duper finds. Then we have to have lunch. I’m starving.”
