Page 5 of Worth the Fight

The outside of the house should be done before the snow falls, and I plan to spend the winter working inside. “New windows come next week,” I tell her, following her gaze around the space. “Once we tear down the old ceilings and the rest of the drywall, we’ll check out the plumbing and electrical. Then it’s insulation and new drywall, but after that, it’s time to paint, and I might need your help picking out colors.”

Her eyes sparkle, and she clasps her hands together, tucking them under her chin. “Can I do at least one room pink, please? It won’t be an obnoxious pink, something muted, soft. It would be so pretty, Lukas!”

Grayson snickers behind me, and I cock my head to the side. “Harper, do you really think I need pink walls in my house?” I raise a hand to flick at the ends of her hair that are dyed hot pink. “I see enough pink in my everyday life.”

Her hands fall, and she props them on her hips. “Don’t forget you’ll soon have a daughter that is going to be living here at some point. Please don’t turn this into a bachelor pad with white walls.”

“Not white-white. I was thinking something softer, like eggshell or beige.”

“Oh, wow,” she deadpans. “Beige? Let’s not get too crazy over there.”

Theo chuckles in the background, and I wish I had the dead mouse available to toss at him.

I pull my little sister in for a hug. “I want my sister to paint all the walls beige,” I tease, rocking her side to side. “Beige on beige on more beige.”

“Stoppp,” she yelps, trying to push out of my hug. “Give me free rein for Ivy’s room, please? Just that. I could paint a mural wall. Piper can help me! You know she’s good at that kind of thing.” I release my hold on her, and she fake gasps for air. “We could do something cute. Noah’s Ark or unicorns.”

I ponder that for a second. A mural wall might look nice in a nursery, as long as the other ones are neutral, anyway.

“Fine,” I relent. “You and Piper get free rein for Ivy’s room, but it has to be age appropriate.”

“Your funeral,” Theo mumbles, and Harper starts toward him, fists raised. He flinches, ducking a little, and when Harper gets close enough, her hands drop, and she digs her fingers into his side, directly on his one ticklish spot.

He pulls away with a girlish giggle, and Harper stares him down, warning him not to mess with her again.

“I thought Dean was coming to help you guys.”

“He is. Had something going on with his family today, but he’s coming out tomorrow.” A few months ago, my family hired one of Theo’s buddies from the fire department to work with us on the farm part-time. It was a relief to Grayson to have the extra help, and once Dean heard that we were working on the old farmhouse, he caught me after work one day and asked if we could use an extra set of hands.

“Why?” Theo pipes up. “Someone got the hots for the new guy?”

Harper rolls her eyes at him. “He’s nice, but he’s not my type. Plus, the man hasn’t said more than three words to me in the few months he’s worked with us.”

Dean’s a good guy, I can tell that much. But Harper isn’t wrong when she says he doesn’t talk much. He looks like trouble, with tattoos that cover almost his entire upper body up to his neck, but he’s a hard worker, polite to my parents, and offered to come out and help us at the house, which is more than enough to make him a good guy in my books.

“What are you up to today?” I ask, changing the subject. “Bartending tonight?”

“They forced me to take the night off,” she says, leaning against an exposed stud in the wall. “I hired another girl to help out, so I might actually get to take a weekend off here and there.”

“You should take more than a weekend off,” Grayson pipes up. “Holly said you’ve been working almost full-time hours for her during the day.”

“So, instead of calling Piper, or one of your other girlfriends, you came here to bother us.” Theo walks by her, casually wrapping an arm around her neck. It looks innocent, but I know him well enough to know he’s planning something.

“God forbid, I miss my boring brothers.” Harper goes to push Theo away, but he tightens his grip on her neck. Even though he’s a foot taller and should have an easy time putting her into a headlock, she manages to bend down out of his reach, grabbing him by the back of his knee and forcing it to buckle within seconds. He falls to the ground, and they grapple for a minute, but it doesn’t take long before Harper has Theo shoved to his chest, her knee digging into his spine.

His face turns beet red, and he slaps on the floor for mercy, but before standing, she leans down to taunt in his ear. “Who’s the little bitch now?”

“I am,” Theo grunts, and when Harper stands, pulling her knee from his back, he coughs once and rolls to his side. Harper offers a hand, and he groans, letting her pull him to stand. “I’m getting old. I used to be able to take you down, no problem.”

“Maybe when I was ten,” she says. “I’m a whole ass woman now, Theo. So, you better watch your mouth.”

I think that was the biggest surprise for me after coming home from the military and seeing my family for the first time in years. I expected that same eighteen-year-old little sister to come running around the corner, but instead, a young woman walked toward me with a smile on her face and her baby features nowhere to be seen.

“Anyways,” she says, wiping the dust from her hands on Theo's shirt. “I'm bored. And I decided I want a tattoo today. I called the shop, and they could fit us in later this evening, before closing time. So, I thought I’d come down here and see if you fools wanted to get tattoos with me.”

All three of us turn to face her. Harper has dyed her hair funky colors since she was in high school, basically as soon as my mom let her. She got her nose pierced the day she turned eighteen, but she has never once talked about tattoos, not with me, anyway.

“A tattoo?” Grayson finally says, and Harper points her finger at him.