Page 47 of Her Fixer Upper

‘Fancy,’ said Leila. ‘Who knew that such an apparently neutral colour could deliver so much?’

‘And it was fifty per cent off in the end-of-line sale, not that that in any way influenced our decision, ahem,’ I added.

‘Even better.’

‘I think we’ve done enough hanging around talking about it. Let’s get on with the task before us,’ said Charlie, rubbing his hands together with infectious enthusiasm. I had to admire his newly improved work ethic. Since Granddad’s accident, he seemed to be consciously making more time to help me with the renovations, even though I knew the workload from his business had increased as he picked up the marketing slack for companies while their employees went off on their summer holidays.

‘I call dibs on the stepladder,’ said Leila. ‘You two tall beans can practically reach the ceiling without any help.’

Charlie turned the radio on, and then we set to work. I was ashamed to admit that this was my first time painting a room. Unlike many teenagers, I hadn’t gone through a phase of wanting to paint my bedroom black, and since I’d moved out, I’d never been given the option of redecorating the series of depressing rental rooms I’d called home. Judging by the videos I’d watched online, it would be an extremely satisfying, and hopefully quite speedy process, with the colour smoothly going on the walls and making them dazzle with their fresh new look. Of course, what I’d failed to take into account was that most of the videos I’d watched had been timelapses with the sound turned off. Because it quickly became clear to me that anyone who could paint a room without feeling the need to swear out loud in frustration must be some kind of saint. Every time I tried to mimic the long, smooth brush strokes of the tutorial, I ended up depositing huge dollops of paint on the wall which then started dribbling down onto everything. And as for the claim on the side of the can that ‘One coat covers all’, well, I was distracting myself from the rapidly developing ache between my shoulder blades by mentally composing a letter of complaint to the manufacturers pointing out that their claim was complete fiction.

‘The paint’s meant to go on the wall, not on you,’ said Charlie, as yet another splatter landed on my face. I’d long since put my glasses away, fearing I was going to do irreparable damage to them. Painting in a short-sighted state wasn’t really helping the process, but at least it was giving a flattering soft-focus effect to my feeble attempts.

‘Hold on, what’s that on the end of your nose?’ I asked, pretending to lean forward to inspect Charlie’s features, then daubing him with the paintbrush.

‘Oh, you asked for it,’ said Charlie, coming at me with the roller. I squealed and tried to run away, ducking down so that he couldn’t reach his intended target. Unfortunately, Charlie couldn’t stop the momentum of the roller, so Leila ended up with a great big streak of paint all the way down one leg.

‘Children, behave yourselves, please,’ she said, shaking her head at the state of her attire.

‘Sorry, Leila,’ chorused Charlie and I, pretending to be shamefaced.

‘And apologise to each other,’ she pressed, engaging teacher mode.

Charlie fixed me with a look that was quite devastating in its intensity. As I gazed back at him, I found myself taking a step closer, suddenly hypnotised by the warm expression in his eyes. Was it my imagination, or had his gaze briefly lowered to my lips? He reached towards me, his eyes once again gazing deep into mine.

‘Freya…’ he breathed, his voice doing that husky thing that instantly set something zinging within me, despite myself. Then he cupped my chin with his hand and ever so slowly and ever so gently smeared paint across my cheek.

‘You devious bastard,’ I said, trying to grab the roller from his hands before he could inflict more damage on me.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I registered Leila saying she needed to get something from her car and swiftly exiting the room, but I was far too wrapped up in trying to get my own back on Charlie to take it in. I caught hold of his wrists and pulled his hands close to me, trapping them between us so he couldn’t move them without causing equal paint carnage on himself.

‘Are you sure you want to continue this battle?’ said Charlie, his eyes glinting with amusement. Somehow he managed to pull me closer so that now he had the advantage. Suddenly I was very aware that the only thing between us was the paint roller, and I could already feel the coolness of the wet paint soaking into the top part of my dungarees. I knew that Charlie would have the mirrored mark on his boiler suit. The warmth of his breath tickled my mouth, and I couldn’t help slowly tracing my tongue around my lips in response. Charlie’s expression intensified and I found myself closing the millimetre of distance between our faces. My eyelids fluttered shut in blissful anticipation of his mouth on mine. No matter that my face had a ‘Grecian Skies’ foundation covering half of it, that the strands of my hair which had escaped from their scarf looked like they’d been in a dip-dye experiment gone horribly wrong, and that this was a seriously bad idea. In this moment, all I cared about was the way Charlie had been looking at me, like he couldn’t take his eyes off me, like I was the only person in the world. I couldn’t wait for what must be about to happen.

‘Ted, no! Put it down, droooop it,’ said Charlie.

Unfortunately, the reality was very different from my imaginings. The front of my body felt cold now that Charlie’s was no longer flush against it. He sprang away from me in pursuit of Ted, who was holding his tennis ball right above the open can of paint.

‘Don’t say “drop it”,’ I said desperately, the lust-induced jet lag of my mind finally catching up with me as I realised that this must have been what Charlie had actually been looking at so intently.

Ted, for the first time in his life, did exactly as instructed and deposited the tennis ball in the paint can. In slow motion I saw the paint slop up the sides and then slosh onto the floor.

‘Leeeeave it, Ted, there’s a good boy, leeeeeave it,’ said Charlie, speaking slowly and carefully, and holding his hand out in a stop sign while he inched towards Ted.

Ted put his head on one side, as if considering his options. He glanced between Charlie and the ball. I swear the little minx was pondering what would get the best rise out of us. He lowered his muzzle towards the can.

‘Nooo, Ted,’ we both chorused.

He wagged his tail and swaggered away, leaving a trail of paint paw prints behind him. Fortunately he also left the ball in situ. It was going to be difficult enough trying to get the paint off his paws. I thanked my lucky stars we weren’t going to have to tackle his head as well.

Charlie and I looked at each other and burst out laughing. The tension had gone, and suddenly everything was back to normal. As Charlie captured Ted and exited the room to deposit him in the pen in the garden before he could do any more damage, I started to wonder if the whole moment-of-magic thing had yet again been a one-sided figment of my unruly imagination.

‘I’m not interrupting anything, am I?’ Leila poked her head around the dining-room door, obviously having been hiding out there until the coast was clear.

‘You’re not,’ I responded with a sigh. ‘Although I’m pretty certain that there wasn’t actually going to be anything for you to interrupt.’

‘I’m not so sure about it. If you could see the way he looks at you when you’re not aware of it…’ Her voice tailed off as she saw the expression on my face, which very clearly said that I didn’t believe her. ‘Fine, think whatever you want to. But if you take my advice, you should talk to him at some point soon. I for one can’t handle much more of this simmering tension,’ she said.

‘I’ll think about it,’ I replied, knowing I’d think of little else. She made it sound so simple, but I knew the situation was far from that. ‘But in the meantime, I’m going to Google how to remove paint from a dog’s paws and go out to help Charlie with the critter. It’s definitely going to be a two-person job.’

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