Page 19 of Xavier

I take his hand even before I've answered.

"Fuck, yes."

***

We're standing in front of Home Depot.

This can't be right.

But we are, standing here, right outside the opening and closing sliding doors. Into Home Depot.

"Um." I say, once he hasn’t given me any idea of why we’re here.

"Shush. You said you were game, remember? Well, come on, start walking."

I want to grumble, but the last thing I want is to seem like a brat.

"Where am I walking to?"

"Follow me." He grabs my wrist and drags me through the towering aisles filled with nails and hammers and all sorts of tools that look like medieval torture devices.

This place is huge. I never noticed just how big it was before. Things seem larger when you're being dragged through them by a virtual stranger with no knowledge of the destination.

"Stop," he says as he comes to an abrupt standstill and I bang into him.

"Sorry," I mumble as I look around. We're in the paint department.

"We're here!" he says, with a flourish. He seems to be enjoying this, his initial shyness or whatever it was, seemingly faded into the breeze as we ran.

"Er, and ‘here’ is where exactly." I turn around in a full circle half expecting to see a prank camera crew jump out from behind a shelf.

"Here. Look." He points to the rows and rows and rows of paint swatches. Perfect squares of color in every possible imaginable shade.

I have to close my eyes for a moment, before taking it all in again. The wall of graduating shades is hypnotizing, the order amongst what could be complete chaos so oddly satisfying.

"You ready?" he asks, as confusingly as ever.

"For what?" I feel a jolt of adrenalin rush through me, I could get used to not knowing. Every surprise has been fun so far.

"Well, you said you like color,” he replies as he gestures again to the swatches. “I'm going to give you 30 seconds to grab all the paint color swatches that you like. Okay?" He looks down at his watch.

"Wait! What for?”

"No questions! 5... 4…"

"Why am I doing this?" I grab his arm, yelling at him, the excitement making me giddy.

He ignores me and continues to count through his giant grin. "3... 2..."

"Ahhh!" I scream, turning to the display, frozen to the spot.

"1! Go! GRAB!"

"Holy shit!" I scream, more excited than I can process.

"What are you doing? You've wasted five seconds already!"

"I don't know what I'm supposed to do! I don’t know what to choose! Help me!”