Chapter 19
Two days later, at around four o’clock in the afternoon, Avalon paced slowly through what was once the Grand Piano Room, and which she would from now on think of as the Sex Against the Wall Room, into the living room, where the giant bargelike sofa lived.
Damn.
Boy, had obsessively poring over paint samples paid off. That one fever dream about color choices notwithstanding.
She’d noticed how the progress of daylight subtly altered the colors of the white walls in the house throughout the day, from cool shadowy mauve to palest blush to warm gold. She’d chosen paint colors that ever-so-slightly enhanced all those colors, so that walking from room to room was like progressing through a mountain day. And now most of the walls downstairs were done.
Upstairs was homage to the gradual progress of a mountain nightfall, from sunset to twilight. Gray-mauve, terra cotta, gold, blue. All of them very soft, muted, one color per room.
The effect wasspectacular.
Not only that, the whole project was going to come in under budget and ahead of schedule.
And since they’d had their final progress huddle for the day and all the workmen had tromped out, she clapped her hands over her head in a self-five. Then she held her hand up to Chick Pea, who was sitting on the sofa, and Chick Pea paw-fived her.
“Hey, Avalon! Come up here! I want to show you something.”
She gave a start and spun around.
For some reason she’d thought he’d gone, too. But Mac was standing on the landing at the top of the stairs, looking disheveled, sweaty, paint-speckled, and as alluring as any siren who had ever sung sailors to their deaths on a rock, if sirens had ever been male. He’d been working on fixing the attic stairs, she knew, which had entailed a certain amount of swearing and crashing. He’d assured her that absolutely nothing interesting was up there, unless she wanted to include the possum.
But his face was lit up with some suppressed news.
“I totally just saw you high-five yourself, by the way.”
She laughed, even as her face went warm. “I deserved it. This place looksgreat.”
He grinned down at her. “It does. I should self-five myself, thank you very much. But I think you should come check this out.”
And he ducked back into whatever room he’d emerged from.
Molten sex against the wall hadn’t caused so much as a blip in their brisk professionalism and the overall bonhomie. But every single second moment was fraught with portent and promise. The very molecules in every room seemed flammable. Simple exchanges were accompanied by smoldering gazes not usually shared when discussing which hinge one preferred to use for the kitchen door.
Short of backing her butt up into his hand again, she wasn’t quite sure how or when that would happen. Only that it would. She had her reasons to be cautious. And so, it seemed, did he.
But here he was beckoning her up the stairs. Damned if she would refuse that invitation. Her heart was already pounding as if she’d just finished running up a flight of them.
“In here!” he called, as she was halfway up.
He was in the master bedroom, the one that had once been his parents’.
She hadn’t been in there in almost a week, so relieved was she to not have to deal with the black-and-gold wallpaper.
She slowed, awestruck, as she drifted in.
She prowled the perimeter of the room with ruthless eyes. The hideous paper was gone as if it had never been. The elegant, stately proportions of the room had indeed been freed; it was filled with light and air. The walls were now a pale gold that took on a touch of pinky apricot when the sun shone on it full bore. Which it did late in the afternoon for an hour or so.
Which it was doing right now.
The color she’d chosen was called Nostalgia.
“Wow,” she exhaled, finally.
Mac watched her as she almost gingerly touched her fingertips to the wall.
“It doesn’t look a thing like it used to,” she said finally. Just to say something.
