Take Me Home Tonight

Morning. James cracked an eyelid and saw, of course, the plain emptiness of his room. Harper was waking up in a bright, sunshine-y room... her hair all tousled, obviously sleeping in a tank top and panties. Right? James heaved himself over and rolled out of bed. His first thought of the day hadn’t been positive in weeks - if you could call thinking about a girl waking up alone positive. In truth, he hadn’t felt this good in weeks.

Yesterday, after visiting her place, Harper had come back to his house and done a very slow walk around with a notebook and pen. James followed at first but she was concentrating, and though she laughed with him, James could tell she wanted to think. So he let this beautiful, brand new girl have the run of his home while he sat on the couch and pretended he would ask her to stay. Just that thought, the unfulfilled minor fantasy, bubbled through his veins like a drug.

Now he was in sneakers and shorts, a t-shirt and baseball cap. No time to fix his hair before their running date. Date. Date date date. James laughed at himself. Date I’m probably paying for. That was about the only kind he could manage these days and it hadn’t gotten that desperate - yet.

Harper was up and ready, had eaten a single scrambled egg and a piece of toast with jam. James’ car rolled to a stop outside at precisely one minute before nine. She watched him uncoil that long body from the drivers’ seat and considered suggesting a different kind of workout.

James’ house had given her a lot of ideas. James himself had given her more, and none of the home decorating variety, unless you considered handprints on steamy mirrors as interior design. Harper had spent the afternoon brainstorming, researching and occasionally wondering what about this seemingly perfect guy felt so off. It could only be one thing - the one thing Harper didn’t want it to be: another girl.

Just as well, she told herself. Only porn stars have sex at work.

“Morning,” he said from the doorstep.

“You’re up. I’m impressed.”

James took one look at Harper’s little gray and green running shorts and slightly baggy t-shirt and knew it was well worth it. If he were going to torture himself with something he couldn’t have, at least it was healthy. They ran from her house. He had the conditioning but every kind of exercise was different and he did not often run outside. Harper set a moderate pace so they could still talk. It was a little awkward at first, but the conversation warmed up with their muscles. She wanted to know about hockey and his schedule and what he did on the road.

“What do you want to come home to?” she asked.

You. Or at least not an empty house, he thought. “I’d like it to not be so plain. More home-y. And maybe some food in the fridge.”

“Well that will cost you extra,” she joked. “Tell me about the house you grew up in.”

James was the oldest of four kids. There were always people around, usually shouting or fighting or dragging books and bags and pets. He remembered it being warm and loud. Harper thought it sounded really nice, and said so. “What about you?” James didn’t want this to be one-sided, like an interview.

“My parents are divorced, so I lived with my mom most of the time. She let me decorate. Her boyfriend - he’s like my stepdad, I guess, they’ve been together forever - he has kids but they live with his ex-wife. I always decorated their rooms for them, what I thought I knew of them. I got it pretty right, I think.”

“What about your dad?”

“He moved to Texas, for work. I never saw him very much so we weren’t too close. But he did pay for me to go to school and I’m grateful for that. Hence my nice, slightly out of my price range townhouse.”

They were over three miles into the run when James realized Harper was in good shape. Their pace didn’t slow, so they kept talking and jogging as the city came awake around them. People walked dogs, pushed strollers, carried coffee and breakfast in brown paper bags. Finally they turned into a park.

“See?” Harper asked.

James did. The light through the trees overhead was gorgeous - filtered, soft, forgiving. There were a hundred shades of green in the grass and red, yellow and orange in the turning trees. The gray gravel path, the brown bark. Dew was still drying and the air felt crisp as he breathed it in deeply.

“This is gorgeous,” he said.

You are gorgeous, Harper thought. There were more questions to ask, about his own place in Canada, where he’d been all summer. She sensed his reluctance might stem from there, and didn’t want to ruin their morning. There was a line between what she needed to know professionally and what was just gossip.

James trotted along like he could run all day. He wore a t-shirt over a long-sleeve Under Armor short, basketball shorts, his white socks pulled up and sneakers. Plus a Penguins hat, in case she had forgotten that he was a star. His brown hair was getting long, creeping around his ears. Her fingers curled with desire to touch the shaggy hairline at back of his neck.

Eventually they wound out of the park and took a shorter route back to Harper’s house. RunKeeper told them it had been six miles. She put her foot on the front step and balanced her weight toward the back, stretching her calves. James did the same behind her and mostly admired her form.

Harper knew he was back there. She could only hope he was looking. Being around James was easier than she expected, his brittle shell falling away just a but. That probably meant nothing was happening and nothing ever would. But she couldn’t give him up yet - the newness and slight tension of their relationship was rather wonderful. She wanted to roll around in it like a pile of leaves. If he wanted to join her, she’d make room.

“Are you hungry? We could get some breakfast.” Harper felt she was teasing herself more than she was teasing him.

James took his hat off and wiped the sweaty hair back from his forehead. “Could I run home first? You’re in better shape than I expected and I need a shower.”

“You could shower here.” Words flew out of her mouth like birds escaping their cage. “Do, uh, do you have clothes?”

James was frozen a second before he nodded. “Yeah, I’ve always got stuff in my trunk.”

That’s how he ended up naked in her shower.

The bathroom was done in glass tile, swirling sea green, watery blue and brown in each tiny square. He stepped under the spray of hot water, trying to forget that she was somewhere nearby. This was no time to remember such things. James browsed her assortment of products and settled for washing his hair with whatever smelled least girly. It was both intimate and curious to see her things - girls had so much stuff. A poufy green sponge, a loofah thing, three kinds of conditioner, body wash that smelled like magnolias. As if he’d ever smelled magnolia before. Every single one of these things had seen Harper naked and James felt envious of her bath products.

This is not okay, he reminded himself. Harper was obviously talented and capable; he had every expectation that she’d do a knockout job on his house. He couldn’t risk making her uncomfortable. Nor could he risk being with her in case she ever left him - after leaving her mark, literally, in every room of his house. He could not risk anything at all right now. He’d been through a fraction of that over the summer: Meghan’s presence in every room of his Whitby home. The Pittsburgh house felt alien by comparison. Imagine what it would be like to see Harper’s paint on the walls every day and know she was never coming back.

Yet it was easy - too easy - to be around her. James knew what that meant: weakness, vulnerability. Places he didn’t want to go again, from which there was no return.

Harper grabbed a t-shirt and jeans and showered in the guest bath. She didn’t know why she’d given James her bathroom, except that it was nicer and she thought he deserved it. For interior decoration research purposes, of course. Knowing he was stripping off sweaty clothes in the next room made a hot blush rise up her neck. She showered quickly, pulled on dark jeans and a lightweight red v-neck sweater and padded back toward her room.

“Hey.”

His voice startled her, which was ridiculous because he was in her room. James was barefoot in jeans and a long-sleeve black thermal shirt that hung nicely on his fit frame. He toweled his hair with one hand, lifting the edge of his shirt to reveal a sliver of stomach.

“Mercy,” Harper said under her breath. The job on his house would take months, and could pay as much as that hotel she’d been hoping to land. She needed to get herself under control. “I’m starved,” she confessed. “Ready?”

They took James’ car. It seemed silly to ro ride in a Hyundai when you could ride in a Benz. Soon enough they were pulling onto the Strip. James nabbed into the first available parking spot, knowing he would not find another and Harper’s stomach growled on cue.

“There’s going to be a line,” she said. James nodded. “And you’re going to get to skip it, aren’t you?” James just shrugged. They turned the corner and sure enough, at least ten people were lined up outside Pamela’s. Harper reached for his arm. “Are you showing off?”

“Are you hungry?” he asked with mock innocence. Her stomach growled again and he smiled.

They went inside to give their name to the hostess. Harper watched half the heads - seated, standing, waiting, from outer space - turn in James’s freshly-showered direction. As they looked to see who he’d arrived with, Harper roller her eyes. She hadn’t thought to blow dry her hair for this a public appearance tour. James was already telling the wide-eyed girl behind the hostess stand that he was happy to wait, which of course he’d never have to. Five minutes later they had a tiny table at the back. James brought the menu up in front of his face... and Harper smacked it down.

He was grinning. It had been a while since he used the morning-after moves on a girl and he was a little relieved to see they still worked.

“Aren’t you a big deal?” she said teasingly. Harper wasn’t really into James showing off, but she would have traded a kidney for a short stack of pancakes.

“This is my only trick, Harper.”

It was impossible to be annoyed with that face. A fistful of his shirt would have been nice, so she could haul him across the tabletop and kiss that perfect mouth. What would it matter? Everyone in the place already thought they’d spent the night together.

“Your only trick looks like the walk of shame, Neal.”

He laughed. “Who takes the walk of shame together, to breakfast? What kind of guys do you go out with?”

No really, what kind of guys? Are there a lot of them? Any of them current? Or NHL players?

She smacked him with her menu, told him he was paying, and ordered the most expensive thing on the menu. It was thirteen dollars. “Well you are a cheap date,” he deadpanned without looking at her.

James kept his eyes on the menu to keep the blush from his cheeks. He was flirting rather shamelessly with Harper, but it was the good old-fashioned kind and he liked it. He felt alive. Best of all she was playing right along, even encouraging it. It could only lead to months of torture but James had become somewhat of a master of endurance.

Plus it was easy to talk to Harper. She didn’t know much about hockey, so James talked about other things. That in itself was a rare and welcome break. Soon enough the season would be on and his life would double-up. Balance was hard to find. It was one of the many reasons his house had remained empty - James’ focus was constantly elsewhere and completely involved.

An anchor, he thought. Just to start the season, until he got back on his emotional feet. Harper can be my anchor. She cracked a joke about wearing heels and a dress the next time they had breakfast together.

Tie it to me and I’ll probably drown.

Harper demolished half her eggs before moving to the pancakes. James pushed the syrup toward her. The conversation was about nothing and everything, and Harper knew she was giving a lot away. She’d already mentioned her divorced parents, how she paid for her house. Not that she had anything to hide, but something about James just made her keep talking. He listened like he cared, and asked questions, which was strange enough. But every time Harper caught his green eyes, she thought they might be flecked with gold. And that he might be superhuman, or alien, to be so seemingly perfect without intimidating her. That and he probably tasted like maple syrup right now, which threatened to unglue her completely.

“So, what do you think for the house?” he finally asked.

“I’d like you to look at some pictures too, tell me which things you like best so I can go in the right direction. I came up with some ideas last night, I can show you at my house. Do you,” she paused, fork full of food, “do you have time for all this? Don’t you have stuff to do?”

“Don’t you?” His tone was teasing.

“Uh, this is my job, James.”

“Oh, right. Of course, I mean...,” he started to backpedal. Of course this was her job, she’d make time for it, even weird hours, and regardless of who with. This was not a date. James had almost forgotten.

Harper cut in. The clouded look on James’ face instantly revealed her mistake. “I don’t usually go running or to breakfast with my clients. So... you know, you’re not all work.” She smiled an apology. “Do you have practice or anything? That’s what I meant. I can work around your schedule.”

James felt tongue-tied and stupid. He’d revealed more than he meant and Harper could tell right away. Clumsy, he scolded himself. “It’s not bad now, too much time. Because when the season comes it seems like every single minute.” That note of melancholy crept into his voice, the feeling of being rushed along in a river and trying just to tread water. Time passed too quickly for James, especially when he was playing as well as he had last season. That scared him even more. He thought again about Harper as an anchor, and about his house as something to chart progress and time as it went by.

Soft spot, Harper knew when she hit one. For a second he looked lost. Without thinking, Harper put her hand over James’ on the table and squeezed. His eyes shot up to hers, surprised. “It must be really stressful. I promise not to make it worse. We can do the house as slow or fast as you want. No hurry.”

“I’d like to start, really start, right away. Before the season. And don’t...,” he looked for the right word, “don’t let me get distracted, okay? I want to do this.”

Their definition of “this” was pretty broad while Harper was still holding his hand.
____

After lunch, James walked right into Harper’s house and plopped down on her couch. He sank about three inches, leaned back and groaned. “I want one of these. This is the best thing in the world.”

Harper laughed, somewhere in another room, and came in carrying a pile of stuff. She sat one cushion away. “Okay, tell me which one of these you like better.” In her hands were two squares of paper - one blue, one white with blue stripes.

“What’s it for?”

“Nothing. Just in general, which one of these is more appealing to you?” she asked. James chose the solid blue. He also chose the solid green and yellow, but chose black and white stripes and a cut-glass fragmented pattern of many colors. She ran upstairs and came back with two scarves. “How about these?”

One was while with an intricate red pattern that was almost flowers, almost not. The other was navy blue with actual flowers - green leaves and petals of red, orange, pink and blue. “This one?” James said uncertainly, choosing the dark one. Harper dropped the other and wound the selected scarf around her neck. Well of course I like it best now, he thought.

“Good.”

“Was I right?”

Harper smiled. “There’s no right answer! You picked a lot of solids, but you don’t really like black by itself. You like a lot of colors when they’re all mixed together. That’s more fun for me.”

I can think of something more fun than... James squashed the thought like a bug. It took some concentration, which must have showed on his face because Harper stopped what she was doing.

“You really want to do this right now,” she said.

You have no idea, his brain said, trading it’s own subject for hers. Harper was all soft-falling hair and smooth skin, leaning in close and smelling like honeysuckle. He wanted to do enough things that when he was finished, he could really rate the durability of her couch.

“Yes,” his tongue felt thick. A wicked gleam came to her eye and James nearly coughed, sure she must have read his mind.

“Let’s go.”
____

He was constantly following her “lets go”s around and loving every second. Last time they’d ended up laying dangerously close together on her bed. James had been inside her life for that moment, seen what secrets she chose to make public. There were more, he knew it.

This time they ended up at Ace Hardware.

“Right or left.” Harper’s hands were behind her back. James tried not to outwardly appreciate the way it stretched her t-shirt over her breasts.

“Left.”

She held up a color tile. “Blue it is.”

“What is?”“You’ll see.”

Half an hour later, they were standing in his guest bathroom. Harper kneeled on the counter, ripping painter’s tape with her teeth and lining the top edge of the mirror. It lifted her shirt to show the small of her back, distracting James from his job of assembling paint rollers. They’d arranged a few drop cloths and taped the edges of the shower stall and vanity. When she was finished, Harper climbed back down to face him.

“Ready?” she asked. They were close enough that he could lift her onto the counter and press himself against her in one step. He nodded even though that’s not what she was asking.

They painted. Harper showed James how to get just enough paint on the roller and smooth it out, then start in the middle of the wall making v-shapes to cover his area. It was a pale, gray-blue but it made a world of difference to the small room. Before one wall was finished, he was painting at twice the speed.

Harper gave up watching him from the corner of her eye and just watched. She’d made him pry open the paint gallon just to see him flex. Now he was smiling and every stroke flashed the top of his jeans, t-shirt flapping around his taut waist. The sight made her turn her blushing face away. Before long the first coat was up. She gave James a small brush and showed him how to touch up the edges and along the moulding. James looked around when every inch was covered in paint. Despite the tape and drop cloths, it was incredible.

Harper stood next to him. “Makes a big difference, doesn’t it?”

With barely any effort, Harper had changed the entirety of a room. It was just a bathroom he never used and it wasn’t even finished, but that wasn’t the point. The house was finally started. “I love it. It’s so simple. Can we do another?”

“Not right away,” Harper couldn’t help but smile. “More important rooms take planning, James. But we can start on that. For this, well... it’s good. It’s a beginning. If it doesn’t fit and we hate it at the end, I promise to re-do it for free.”

James agreed, knowing he would not. Harper could not resist the way he tried to hide his grin.

“Promise you won’t touch anything until tomorrow,” she warned. “Let the paint dry, and in the morning you can take off the blue tape.”

Come back in the morning, he thought. Or better yet, don’t leave before then. His inner monologue threatened to run away with the shadow that had hung over James for months. Instead of hitting on Harper like he would have before, he simply said, “Promise.”
___

The next morning, James thumbed the dial on his Master lock as quickly as possible, fumbling the last digit and nearly ripping the metal fixture right off the gym locker. When he finally wrenched the locker open, his phone was still ringing. He almost crowed when he saw the screen.

“Harper. Hi.”

“Hey. Did I catch you at a bad time?”

“No, no.” He pushed a towel over his sweaty face. “Just finished a workout. Wrapping up at the gym. What’s up?”

An image of James, his hair dark with damp at the temples, came to Harper’s mind. He’d worn a hat on their run – she wished he hadn’t. James Neal had fantastic hair. She wondered what the off-season workout of a pro athlete consisted of.

“How’s the bathroom?”

James felt his face light up. “It’s great. Really, I love it. I showered in there this morning,” he paused and chided himself. What a tool. “It great.”

It was amazing what a coat of paint had done to a single room he almost never used. Peeling back the painter’s tape to reveal the straight lines of fresh color had been a joy. The icy blue was barely even a color but it made that spare bathroom look… cared for, if not lived in. Now with James’ towel hanging on the back of the door and a bar of soap in the caddy, it looked lived in. He had no illusions that every room could be transformed so easily but as first steps go, it had been inspiring.

James was equally shocked to find himself rushing to catch the phone. He’d hoped it would be her. He hadn’t hoped for anything but a lost cause in a long time.

“Are you busy now? Wanna get some lunch?” he asked.

“I want,” she drew out the word, “to take you to Home Depot. But I suppose there could be food involved.”

I want… he thought with a smile. James couldn’t turn off his impulse to flirt when Harper was so – what was the word? She wasn’t available. She wasn’t even interested, hell he was paying her just to call him these last few days but something about her made James feel safe. Safe enough to lay next to her on her bad the day they met and not ruin everything right there. Small triumphs were all James could hope for these days.

Anchor, he remembered. Pittsburgh was a ship, hockey was a sea. Harper could be his anchor until James had a real home to take her place.

“Lunch, then Home Depot. Then, if you’re good, I might even help you carry stuff into the house.”

Her breezy laugh made it sound like she was standing next to him. “Okay Neal, but you’re buying.”
____

Winter was coming early to Pittsburgh. Harper loved autumn, for as long as it ever lasted, but this year it looked to be especially short. She paired skinny jeans with high riding boots of soft brown leather, pulled on a white sweater and looped a red scarf with a bird pattern around her neck. The white top ought to keep James from insisting they paint another room right away.

She understood his desire to move quickly. A busy season was coming, he didn’t want her underfoot and overtime, working while he was trying to do the same. It was the story of every client. Yet two lunches in a few days, multiple visits to each other’s places and even that silly run she’d invited him on combined for something Harper had never experienced with a client before: she and James were hanging out. They were having fun. Usually the work was fun and then it was over. This had barely even started.

He had a different car today, a boxy silver Mercedes SUV with a heavy-duty grate on the front to protect it from what, she didn’t know. It looked like a jeep out of Jurassic Park. Harper sensed this shiny toy was not something to safely poke fun at, so she ignored it glaring in the sun like a cube of tinfoil and instead focused on the guy leaning against it. Yes, he leaned, like the dreamboat guy in an 80s movie. James Neal, on a luxury car, in jeans and a long sleeve gray t-shirt under an open black North Face softshell jacket. His hands were in his pockets and sunglasses over his eyes. Harper stepped out of her own blue SUV and sized him up.

“Hi,” she said from five feet away.

James’ hands were in his pockets because he didn’t know how to greet her. Hug? Handshake? He shifted awkwardly. The sun caught the blond in her hair like a halo. He settled for, “You can’t paint in that.”

“No painting today. Just thinking.”

“Not my strong suit, Harper,” he said.

It sounded like a joke but James was really testing Harper. With the Penguins coming back into season, talk had already begun about James and his issues. Maybe it had never stopped for summer break. The press loved to bring up his temper and bad decision making, to call him a hothead and irredeemable. After a summer of acting badly off the ice, James wondered if maybe that last word was correct: irredeemable. That depended on Harper - did she know his reputation? Or could James start over with her and try to be at least a good enough guy that she wanted to be friends? Harper simply laughed at James’ self-deprecating jibe. He gave himself a point: she didn’t know.

Lunch was a gastropub, rather empty on the early side of a weekday afternoon. Harper ordered onion soup and a steak salad, James had half a chicken with greens. As she sipped an ice tea, she looked around the restaurant. It was large with vaulted ceilings, intentionally bare to expose steel girders against black paint. Blond wood walls pulled the light down toward the guests. Behind the bar, an impressive array of display shelves held bottle upon bottle of whatever people were drinking. It had a post-industrial feel, that converted hipster loft idea so popular in public spaces these days. She asked James, “Tell me what you like about this room.”

He was thinking about the night before, painting in the bathroom. Harper had twisted her long hair into a knot atop her head, climbed onto the counter and reached up to start painting. James had nowhere else to look. There was a freckle on the back of her neck, just right of center, where the short unruly bits wisps of blond escaped her updo. It was like the boundary on a map, the last part of her you’d see if you only ever saw her fully dressed. He’d marked that spot in his mind – a line he could never cross. But he’d wanted to kiss her there so badly. Now she wore a scarf, as if reading his mind, and it was hidden from view. They had been so physically close last night, now a table say between them.

“Uh, I like the light.” He looked around quickly.

“That is the first thing you always say,” she teased.

“Well I do.” James collected his wits. “I like the round window above the door, that’s cool. And the chalkboards, I guess. It looks like a bar that can get loud at night and you won’t feel like you’re out of place.”

“When do you feel out of place?”

The question brought him up short. “Er, I don’t know.”

“Sure you do. Decorating is as much about what you do like as what you don’t like. For example, I don’t like enclosed spaces. Super claustrophobic. Any room with too many walls breaking it into smaller spaces, I want to knock out the walls and open it. I also don’t like stores with nothing in them, like some fancy shoe and purse stores. Everything is a display and even though you can touch them I feel like I’m in a museum. I don’t buy things to look at them, I buy them to be used. There’s a whole school of retail design but that one I don’t get.”

“I don’t like places with too many cushions. Is that weird?” he said.

“Like what?”

“You know how some restaurants or bars, everything is a booth? And they’re all padded and stuff, it just feels – musty. Like how could you ever clean all those surfaces and rugs?” he asked. Harper nodded, clearly impressed. James felt like a student who got a gold star. “And I’m not really into antiques. I mean, if you are, I could look at some, for the house, but I would rather get new stuff. Nothing that I feel like I have to keep forever.”

“You mean take with you if you go.”

James looked at the table. There were a lot of fears in the life of a pro athlete – you might lose your skill, get hurt. Getting traded was a big one. James had been through it and hoped to never meet that villain again. But if it came the worst thing would be to leave behind things he would miss. How could Harper know that already?

“I guess,” he said.

“Hey.” She put her hand over his on the table. “Sorry.”

She had not thought before speaking. James’ house was still empty three years after moving to Pittsburgh. It would be awful to fill it just in time to leave. Obviously the first move had not been easy on James.

James watched Harper’s hand where it lay atop his, warm and firm. She could have wrapped it under and held his hand. She could have twined their fingers together, bringing more of their skin into contact. But she held steady, looking at him.

“You can make a home anywhere. I’ll show you,” she promised.

“You can,” was his sullen response.

She let go of his hand, though Harper sensed James needed that support more than he cared to admit. “Well if need be, I can travel.”

As they ate, James shook off the little rain cloud. He didn’t want to bum Harper out. She could only do so much for him and so far, she was willing to work quickly. He only hoped it would be fast enough to get finished and out before he did something crazy... something a lot more serious than touching her hand. They talked more about the restaurant, he thought more about that spot on her neck. When they were finished, Harper followed him to Home Depot.

“No no no,” she swatted his arm as he reached for one of the flat crate carts. “We are not buying anything.”

“Ugh, are you one of those girls who love to try on a hundred things in a hundred stores and then go back and buy the first one anyway?”

She bumped him with her hip and spun toward the paint section.

“Hi miss.” A man with an orange apron, shoulder length hair pulled into a ponytail and a camo hat materialized the moment Harper approached the wall of paint samples. He stepped up eagerly, then stopped when he saw James. The look of disappointment was easy to read. James moved in very closely next to Harper.

“You gonna hug me?” she asked quietly without looking up.

“That guy was.”

She whacked him with a fan of blue color cards. “That guy could probably paint a room in thirty minutes.”

“Then take you on a date to his duck blind with a bucket of KFC.”

Her laugh rang through the store. James knew the man in the camo hat was watching – and that they might eventually need his help. Still he couldn’t resist putting his hand on the small of Harper’s back. Let that guy come over now.

She felt it - the casual touch, the next step in flirting. This was quickly becoming something other than work and worse, she was letting it. Even encouraging it. There was no denying the tingle in her bloodstream when James got a little territorial. First lunch then fun and God, his hand is really big. She cleared her throat sharply. “Wait till you meet the crew we hire to do your house. You’ll be calling this guy to keep an eye on me.”

As quickly as he’d touched her, James took his hand away. Jealousy was a problem he definitely had, especially when it came to girls who did not belong to him. Over the summer, he’d tried to claim something before earning it, unsure even then if he wanted it. Harper was... not Meghan. And James would not be making that mistake again. He cringed inwardly at his own weakness but was glad Harper didn’t know him that well.

She focused both of their attention back on the little strips of paper with color families carefully arranged. Harper already had a handful of blues he seemed to like and a couple of grays that had gotten a nod. Now she was showing him various shades of off-white. “I really like this frosty lime color for the kitchen - it looks like nothing, but on a wall is has depth. We could so some accents in green to make it pop.”

James was looking at the color, he really was. “Okay, yeah.”

Harper stopped and looked up. There wasn’t a color on the wall to match his bright eyes. “James, you’re agreeing to everything I say.”

“Uh, because you’re right? You’re a girl? You know the difference between,” he picked a random yellow card from this display, “daffodil and sunshine?”

She rolled her eyes but let this one slide. “Keep being so easy and I’ll make you help paint every room.”
____

Notes