Page 19 of Perfect Pairing
The house was by no means a dump, but it was woefully outdated. For the time being, it worked, but we needed to reconfigure a few things, like add another bathroom—particularly one with a tub—and gut the entire kitchen.
“I want a blue woom,” Hansen said.
That was another thing. If we were going to put down roots here—which I had every intention of doing—this house needed to become a home.
And if my boy wanted to paint his bedroom blue, we’d paint it blue.
“Of course, bud,” I said, reaching out to ruffle his hair. “You can paint it whatever color you want.”
“I want it blue like the sky,” he said matter-of-factly, though it took some mental gymnastics to translate his little boy speak. “And staws on the ceiling.”
“Done,” I said. “We’ll even go shopping together and you can pick it all out yourself.”
“Weally?” he asked excitedly.
“Of course,” I told him. “It’s your room. It should be the way you want it.”
Hansen was out of his chair and throwing himself into myarms a heartbeat later. “You the best daddy eva.”
My heart melted into my ass, and I caught my dad’s gaze over Hansen’s little brunette head. He was smiling wistfully at us, as though remembering the days when I thanked him for something as simple as a fresh coat of paint.
I vowed in that moment to be better. Hell, the man had uprooted his entire life—which, admittedly, largely revolved around his grandson—to move with us. Instead of acting like an asshole and making him carry my emotional baggage, I should’ve been doing everything in my power to make sure he stuck around. I wouldn’t have survived the last six months without him around to help with Hansen while I put in long hours at my new job, and it wouldn’t kill me to remind him I was grateful every now and then.
“So what do you say?” I asked Dad when Hansen had run off to his room to play with his new toys. “Do you want to help me fix this old place up?”
My dad studied me for long moments, and I resisted the urge to squirm. Thirty years old, and the man still made me feel like a little kid sometimes.
“On one condition,” he said finally.
“What’s that?”
“We get rid of all the wood paneling in this entire fucking house. It’s too goddamn dark this time of year to be living in a cave. Plus, it’s just fucking ugly.”
I barked out a laugh, the tension in my shoulders easing instantly.
“Sure, Dad. We’ll get rid of the paneling.”
He grinned, clapping his hands together. “When do we start?”
“Well?” I asked mydad. He stood in the center of the main space, hands on his hips, turning a slow circle.
Honestly, it wasn’t pretty. Thanks to nearly a year of inoccupancy, grime coated every surface. The kitchen and corners of the dining space had clearly played host to numerous rodents, if the detritus and feces were any indication. The windows were boarded up, forcing us to illuminate the space with the flashlights on our phones. The appliances were outdated, the layout was all wrong, and the bathrooms weren’t handicap accessible.
But the bones were good, and if I closed my eyes—and didn’t inhale too deeply; the smell was absolutely awful, even through the N95 mask my dad insisted I wear—I could see it all so clearly.
I’d been keeping a secret Pinterest board of ideas since I was eighteen, honing my recipes for even longer than that, and I was ready to make my dreams a reality.
“You weren’t joking about it needing work,” he said at last.
“Daddy,” I sighed.
“Honestly, sweets?”
“Yeah,honestly. What do you think?”
“I think once Jay works his magic, it’ll be perfect. I know we don’t have a lot of time before you leave, but maybe wecan—”
I held up a hand to stop him. “No. It’s the holiday season, and I’m sure all his kids are home to celebrate. We’ll bother him after the first of the year.”
