Tiffany Reisz - Her Halloween Treat

Except she’d promised Kira she wouldn’t make any major life changes for six months. It was good advice, very wise. She had to go back to work, didn’t she? Of course she did. She was in the right and Ben was in the wrong. She wasn’t about to let him win by quitting and slinking away with her tail between her legs.

No. Stop. Joey refused to think about Ben or work or anything else as she hauled her suitcase and overnight bag up the reclaimed pine wood stairs and into the bedroom. Funny—she’d been looking forward to a quiet night alone in the cabin before facing her brother and parents and giving them the news about her and Ben. She wanted the one night to pull herself together, to figure out a story to tell her family about why she broke up with Ben that wouldn’t make her look like the worst person on earth and/or the stupidest person on earth. But hanging out with Chris and working on the house seemed like a far better way to get her head together than sitting alone in an empty cabin and ruminating on every clue she’d missed, every blind eye she’d turned. Better to work, do something, distract herself, stay busy. Painting the master bedroom with Chris actually sounded sort of fun.

She pulled on an old long-sleeved T-shirt that she slept in and tied a red bandana around her hair. When she went into the master bedroom she found Chris had finished up with the ceiling fan and was pouring a warm brown paint, the color of milk chocolate, into a large plastic tub. He was whistling.

“Is that ‘All Apologies’?” she asked as she selected a two-inch paintbrush from his kit on the floor.

“It is.”

“You’re whistling Nirvana while you work. You know most people whistle happy tunes.”

“So ‘Heart-Shaped Box,’ then?”

She pointed her paintbrush at him. “You’ve changed completely, but you haven’t changed at all.”

“I could say the same to you,” he said, glancing at her out of the corner of his eyes. She was ninety percent sure he’d just checked her out. Good. She’d been checking him out since she walked in the door.

He handed her a small roller tray filled with paint. She dipped her brush in the tray, soaked it with paint and coated the wall by the doorframe with a smooth line of warm mocha.

“Wait, not that wall,” Chris said, his voice full of pure panic.

Joey gasped and spun around “What? Sorry. Did I—”

He grinned. Broadly.

“Oh, you asshole,” she said. She brandished her paintbrush in his direction and he ducked.

“I’m not sorry but I want to be sorry.”

“I’m going to paint now, and if you scare me like that again, I’ll paint your flannel.”

“But this is my dress flannel. I wore it to my father’s funeral.”

“Please tell me you didn’t wear a flannel shirt to your dad’s funeral. Please.”

“I didn’t. But only because Dad’s still alive.”

She sighed, shook her head and got back to painting while Chris returned to his whistling and rolling. He was the same Chris even if this Chris had short hair, a perfect beard and clothes that actually fit his body. His distractingly good body. She made herself focus as she painted. It was nice transforming the dingy beige walls a cozy chocolate color. It was the perfect color for this room. A forest color. A homey color.

“You picked the color?” she asked.

“I did, yeah.”

“I love it. I wouldn’t have thought a color so dark would look good in here but it does.”

“Dark warm colors work best in low-light rooms.”

“Did you learn that in trade school?”

“Pinterest.”

She stared at him.

“What?” he said. “It’s my job.”

They returned to their painting. Chris had a Pinterest account. Now that was adorable. He was adorable. If he got any more adorable, she would be forced to adore him.

Joey wished Kira hadn’t told her to sleep with the very first guy she could find as part of her recovery strategy. Now she couldn’t stop thinking about Chris like that. She wanted to think it was because she was starting to get over the shock of her breakup, but she was afraid she was flirting with Chris just because her best friend told her to, and because she wanted to soothe her bruised heart and ego with the balm of male attention.

Chris wiped sweat off his forehead and peeled out of his flannel shirt. His basic white T-shirt showed off his sinewy forearms and strong muscular biceps to marvelous effect.

Okay, so she was flirting with him because she wanted to and for no other reason. Thanks to those sexy arms of his, her conscience was now officially clear.

“You know what would look good in here? White bed linens,” she said. “That would make a nice contrast with the dark brown paint. Like a hotel bed.”

“Good idea. That would look hot. I mean, nice.”

It would look hot. This room with this paint and that big bed with fresh white Egyptian cotton sheets? She was glad he was thinking what she was thinking.

“I’ll pick some up tomorrow,” she said.

“I’ll do it. I still have Dillon’s credit card.”

“We could both go tonight. I can help you pick stuff out,” she said. It was still early evening. They could make it to Portland or Hood River if they hurried.

“We could get our drink after,” Chris said. “Maybe dinner, too?”

Had Chris just asked her out on a date? A real date or a “we knew each other in high school and are morally obligated to catch up with each other” date? She’d assume it was the latter and hope it was the former.

“Dinner sounds great,” she said. “Painting made me hungry.”

“Me, too. But we did good. Good team.” He held out his fist and she bumped it. The room did look pretty amazing.

“It was fun. I needed to get my mind off stuff. This helped.”

“What stuff?”

“I don’t remember,” she said. “That’s how well it worked.”

“Glad I could help by putting you to work. If you need more distraction, you could clean the gutters.”

“You know what? I’m good. But thanks for the offer.”

“Dinner now?” he asked.

“Yes, please.”

Chris turned on the ceiling fan to help dry the paint more quickly. Joey went to the guest room—her room apparently for the next couple of weeks—to figure out what to wear for their date. Not a date. Not really. Well, sort of a date. She had two missed texts from Kira.

Text message one read, Have you banged him yet?

Text message two read, How about now?

Joey wrote back, No, we haven’t banged yet. He’s an old friend from high school. We are going out to dinner so stop texting me. If/when there is banging, you will be the first to know.

Then she sent a quick text to Dillon letting him know she made it to the cabin a day early and she’d see him tomorrow unless he was dying to see her tonight, which she knew he wasn’t because she still had a feeling he’d planted Chris here in the cabin for nefarious reasons. Seemed like something Dillon would do.

She cleaned up for dinner as quickly as she could. Chris had seen to everything in the house, every little detail. He’d even installed a rain showerhead and put new soft cotton towels in the bathroom linen closet. It was like staying in a hotel, a hotel that came with its own sexy contractor/concierge, which made this the best hotel she’d ever stayed in.

While drying her hair she realized she was smiling. That was good, right? She’d cried all Saturday night on Kira’s couch at her place in LA. Smiling was a huge improvement over gut-wrenching sobbing. She felt more human back in Oregon, back on the mountain and near the lake where she’d spent so much of her childhood. If she wanted to go to the lake she could walk there blindfolded—out the back door and down the cut stone path to the edge of the forest. Then five hundred and sixty-eight steps on the dirt path. She knew the exact number because she’d counted as a kid because kids did weird obsessive stuff like count their steps. It was also one thousand one hundred and thirty-seven steps to the main road and nine hundred ninety-one steps to where she and Chris and Dillon had set up their campfires in high school.