Page 44 of Where Sea Meets Sky

She knew it was the advice her family had been giving her all along—that she just needed to be herself, and Cooper’s parents would love her. She finally felt able to believe that it was possible.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Alexis stepped back and gazed around the living room with a smile of satisfaction on her face. She’d just finished painting the living room a beautiful avocado green, and she couldn’t have been happier with it. She felt a little fatigued from how hard she’d worked on it that day, but the result made her grin from ear to ear. She loved the way the living room looked, and she couldn’t wait to show it to Grayson when he got home from work. Even though the furniture was still pulled away from the wall and covered in plastic, she could perfectly envision the way it would look when the room was fully put back together.

It really feels like our home now,she thought with a thrill of satisfaction.It’s like we’ve really made it ours.

She put a hand on her stomach and smiled at her baby. She couldn’t wait until the newest member of their family was with them in the living room. They would watch kiddie movies together, and read children’s books, and cuddle on the couch. She felt a burst of excitement, and along with it, another surge of energy.

At that moment, the front doorbell rang. Curious, Alexis went over to the front door, wondering if it was one of her family members stopping by for an unexpected visit.

When she opened the front door, however, she saw a delivery man walking away, and a large cardboard box on the front step. She recognized the company label immediately and groaned inwardly.

I must have double-ordered paint by mistake,she realized.Now we have even more avocado-green paint.

She bent over and started to drag the box into the house, wondering how she could return the paint. Would they have to ship it back? Or would they not be able to return it at all, since it had been her mistake?

She didn’t know for sure that it had been her mistake, but she felt confident it had been. She’d ordered the paint in a frenzy, feeling gleefully excited about getting started the moment she’d decided for sure on a paint color.

She sighed as she finished dragging the paint box inside. The moment she stood up, however, she was struck with an idea. When she’d been looking up pictures of avocado green paint in homes, she’d come across many pictures of people using that color to paint their kitchen cabinets. The cabinets in her and Grayson’s kitchen were outdated and the stain on them was somewhat streaky in places. They’d been talking about remodeling the kitchen at some point, since both of them felt that although the cabinets were perfectly functional, they didn’t love the way they looked.

“I could paint the cabinets,” she whispered eagerly, and began to trot toward the kitchen. As soon as she was in the room, she grinned. She could perfectly envision the way the cabinets would look if they were painted, and she couldn’t wait to get started.

Since she still had her painting clothes on and all of the painting supplies still ready-to-use in the living room, she decided to get to work right that moment. In the back of her mind, a voice warned her that she was still feeling tired fromfinishing the living room, but she had so much adrenaline from her excitement that she was able to convince herself that wasn’t really the case.

She lugged all her painting supplies and a fresh can of paint into the kitchen and got to work. She applied painter’s tape around the cabinets that she intended to start on, and cleared the spices and cans out of them, piling them onto the kitchen table. She felt so eager to start painting that she didn’t stop to think out her plan in detail, and she started to paint the first set of cabinets before she had properly washed or sanded them.

But that looks all right,she thought, stepping back and inspecting the paint job.It’s such a nice color!

She continued to work, standing on a kitchen chair as she went so that she could reach the tops of the cabinets. As she was painting, she dropped a splotch of green paint onto the back of the kitchen chair and squeaked in alarm.

“Oh no,” she muttered. “We just bought these.”

She hurried down from the chair and went to get a damp paper towel to wipe off the paint. Her fingers were covered in half-dried paint, so at first it didn’t work at all because she kept getting more paint on the wood of the chair. She had to get more paper towels to keep her hands from touching the wood of the chair. Finally, however, she got it cleaned off and she inspected it carefully to make sure the chair wasn’t stained green at all. It wasn’t, but she still felt stressed by the whole thing.

Huffing with frustration, she covered the back of the chair with a trash bag and went back to work. By now, she was feeling undeniably fatigued, but she refused to admit it to herself. She kept painting that cabinet, and after about half an hour she started on the next one.

She’d just finished painting the next cabinet when she looked over at the first one she’d done. Outside, the natural light wasfading, and in the artificial lights of the kitchen, the cabinet’s paint job looked streaky and unprofessional.

Alexis felt a flop of disappointment and a surge of stress. Maybe she should have done a better job of prepping the cabinets before starting to paint them.

She looked around the room, suddenly feeling overwhelmed by how many cabinets there were. Maybe she shouldn’t have decided to paint the cabinets at all—but it was too late to stop now. She had one done already and another one half-complete. She couldn’t have a kitchen with two green cabinets and the rest light oak.

She shook her head and bit her lip as she went back to work. She was beginning to regret her decision, but now that she’d already made it, she wanted to keep going.

Less than a minute later, she heard the back door opening.

“Honey, I’m home!” Grayson called, as he stepped inside the kitchen. “Where are—oh.”

He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw her painting the kitchen cabinets. He blinked at her, looking stunned.

Her heart sank. “Don’t you like it?”

Grayson stammered for a second before answering. “I… well… it’s not that I don’t like it, but we just put so much work into the living room. You especially just put so much work into the living room, and you really should be resting from now until when the baby is due. And besides…” He looked around the room, letting out a sigh of frustration. “Now we have two rooms that are out of commission. We can’t cook comfortably now that you’ve painted the two cabinets on either side of the stove—all of the spices are on the kitchen table, and there will be paint fumes?—”

Alexis, feeling overtired and overwhelmed, felt tears brimming in her eyes. “You’re right,” she whispered, stepping down from the chair and sitting down on it. All of a sudden,she felt so tired her whole body hurt. “This was a terrible idea. I should have thought about it. I did such a good job of planning the kitchen, and then I guess I just got over-excited. They delivered extra paint because I guess I made a mistake and ordered too much, and I thought it would look really nice in here, but it doesn’t, it looks terrible?—”

“Hey.” Grayson chuckled a little and gently placed a finger on her quivering lips. “It doesn’t look terrible. I think we should start over and do a more careful job later on. We should sand those cabinets you’ve already painted and maybe water the paint down so the grain of the wood shows through better. It just needs a little more time and care—we’ll figure it out. The color really does look very nice in here.”

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