I snorted. “Sure, they’ve tried. Ain’t interested.”
“Lucas. Aren’t you interested in trying things which may make your life easier and more pleasant?”
“I thought you were gonna help me spruce up my walls, not guilt me into getting a Wi-Fi gizmo or whateverthefuck.” I snapped this with a bit more vitriol than I’d intended.
She frowned at me, this time not entirely playfully. “Well excuse me for wanting to improve more than just the color on your walls.”
I leaned my head back against the couch and sighed. “I’m sorry. It’s just an old argument. The boys are always nagging at me to try new shit, and I’m just a stubborn old grizzly—set in my ways doesn’t begin to describe me.”
She sat delicately and demurely on the edge of the couch a few inches from me. “Well, I’m not your boys in case you hadn’t noticed. We could be friends—good friends, even. But you can’t snap at me just because I suggest you stop living in the Stone Age and accept something as basic as the Internet into your life.”
I scoffed. “Liv, take a look around. I been stuck in the Stone Age for forty years.”
“Then it’s high time to join the information age, isn’t it?” She set her clipboard on her knees and pulled a pen out from behind an ear. “So, you were thinking blue at the hardware store, but now that I’m here and I have had a chance to chat with you a bit, I think you may enjoy a green more than a blue. Because of the light in here, I would suggest something between pine needle and sea foam. I’ll bring over a few little tins of sample colors and we’ll see which strikes your interest. Part of the thing with those little color samples they have hanging off the racks is that it’s hard to visualize what a color will look like on your wall. We can get a few ounces mixed up in a few different shades you like and put them on your actual wall. Then we can see which one feels right. Once you decide on the color, you prime the wall again and paint over it.”
I nodded. “Never thought of that, but it makes sense.”
“Pick a paint is the first and simplest step. You need a few more items of furniture, some pictures or paintings, some knickknacks to make it feel cozy and homey.”
“Just don’t make it look girly.”
“You’ll just have to trust me on this. If I didn’t know how to reach a client’s desired aesthetic, what kind of interior designer would I be?”
“I suppose that’s a good point. So.” I grinned at her. “Paint?”
She tapped her pen against her clipboard. “Let me do some thinking on the overall look. I’ll come by tomorrow and we’ll get started.”
“I’m done working by eleven.”
She jotted down a note, and her smile shifted from bright and professional to intimate and personal. “How about we start with lunch at twelve?”
I felt my heart thumping crazily in my chest—I’d already had a heart attack and knew the symptoms of that, but this wasn’t that. This was just good old-fashioned nerves and anxiety.
“I. Um. Yeah. That sounds good.” I tried to smile at her, but it ended up lopsided.
“Good. It’s a date.”
I choked. “Um. Okay. Yeah. Good.”
Her smile was too much for me—as if I was somethin’ worth her time. As if I had something to offer. As if I wasn’t a fuck-up and a no-good lazy asshole. I didn’t have the heart to tell her she was cozyin’ up to an alcoholic with no car and no license, a dirty, sordid past, and a busted-up heart. ’Course, I doubted I’d have to tell her anything. She’d see the obvious soon enough.
Sadly for her, I was too damn selfish to try too hard to push her away.
I really liked Olivia Goode.
I liked the brightness and eagerness in her eyes. I liked the sway of her slender hips. The quick delicacy of her hands. The intelligence in her features. There was a sadness to her, too, which I couldn’t help but recognize; she was a widow, and yet despite her loss there was an optimism to her that drew me in like a moth to a bug zapper.
Goddammit.
I found myself wishing I knew how to be a better man. Wishing I could be the man she thought she saw when she looked at me. I’d known her less than an hour, but there was somethin’ about the woman that just…
Well it made me feel, for the first time in forty years, that maybe there was hope for my busted-up heart after all.
’Course, I knew better than to put any faith in that kinda hope. It just left you more fucked up than you were when you started thinkin’ shit could get better.
2
Liv
