I had gone out to the hardware store and picked up some paint for my walls and trim along with a few other necessities to update my place; mainly lighting fixtures and curtain rods.  I stopped by the local sewing and craft store and picked up the necessary material in order to make my window treatments.  I was itching to get started at this point.  On my way to my car, I dropped one of my rolls of fabric.  I was glad it had been wrapped in brown paper prior to my leaving the store.  I cursed my haphazard self and attempted to crouch down and pick it up but someone beat me to it.

“Dropped this?”  And I straightened up, looking into a pair of smiling emerald eyes.

“What are you doing here?”  I asked Christian as I walked to the back of my car and hit the trunk release button on my key chain.

“Can’t a guy run errands?”  He asked with a smirk.  I dropped everything I was holding into my trunk and went to grab the roll of fabric he was holding for me.  He pulled it away from my grasp amusingly, shaking it about in his hand.

“Sure, but I didn’t picture you to be the kind that was into sewing or knitting.”  I laughed, thinking I was the funniest person.

“That hurts.”  He feigned being offended.  I chuckled; he smiled and handed me my roll of fabric.  “So what’s all of this for?”  He asked, gesturing to the items inside my trunk.

“A project.”  I tell him.  He seemed confused.  “I’m overhauling the house.”

“Ah!”  He answered.  “You’re not planning on selling are you?”

“Why are you so curious about what I’m doing all of a sudden?”  I ask him suspiciously.

“Maybe because I just got you back and I’m not ready to say goodbye yet.”  He says and I held his gaze.  He started to back away slowly.  “Listen, I’ve got to run but will you be home later?”  I nodded.  “Great!  I might stop by then and make sure you haven’t managed to get yourself into heaps of trouble then.”  He winks and turns to walk away.

My stomach began to grumble on the drive home.  I looked at the clock on my dashboard and realized it was nowtwelve thirtyand I hadn’t eaten anything as of yet today.  My shopping expedition turned into a marathon; however it was nice to catch up with a few people from my past that I had yet to see since my homecoming.  When I drove up the drive, I realized that something looked different about the house.  I grabbed a bag of painting supplies and some of my fabric rolls as I headed up the walkway, to my front steps.  It wasn’t until I had stuck my house key in the lock and turned it in its tumbler that I realized my lawn had been mowed.  I turned toward my front yard to make sure I had seen right and sure enough, it was no longer its extra long and uneven length.  I wonder who had done that.  I look up at the blue sky and sent my thanks in hopes that the person would somehow know or feel my appreciation for their efforts in helping out.

Half an hour later, I was fed and I had stored my rolls of fabric in a corner of the kitchen where they wouldn’t be touched by anything that could ruin them.  I walked into the den and decided that I would start there.  An hour later, with my flat headed mop in tow, my walls and ceiling had been washed and cleared of any dust and debris.  I had removed the light and electrical outlet covers from the walls.  My canvas was ready.  I decided to start in the den first.  I took out my charcoal grey color and began pouring it into the paint tray.  Getting my roller ready and reaching for my brush, my doorbell rang.

“Come in!”  I holler.  I hear the door open and close, seconds later.

“Mia?”

“I’m in here!”  I call out to Christian.

“Wow!  You weren’t kidding when you said project huh?”  I turned and he was looking at the room I was standing in.

“Prepare to be shocked and awed.”  I tell him.  He laughed at my statement as I grabbed the paint can and dip my brush in it to get started.

“Need any help?”  He asks me.

“Sure.  There’s another brush on the kitchen table.”  He left the room and returned just as quickly; grabbing the tray I had filled earlier, he got started at the opposite end of the room.

A few hours later, well, four hours and a bit to be more precise, three of my four walls bore the deep charcoal grey color I had brought home.  With Christian’s help, we managed to fly right through both coats.  The only wall left was with a lighter gray color and it was the wall with the fireplace and then I had the large book cases on either side of the entrance wall to the den to paint in plain white.

“I say we deserve a break.”  He tells me as I stand back and admire our work.  I nodded in agreement and next thing I know, I’m being pulled out my front door.  As soon as he had me on the front porch, he looked at me and smiled like he knew something I didn’t.  “Come here.  I’ve got a surprise.”  And he takes off toward the side of the house.  I laugh and decide to follow suit.  As I turn the corner, Chris is standing there with a water gun and a smug look on his face.  “Remember these?”  He said and started to walk slowly toward me as I began to back away.

“You wouldn’t.”  I tell him.

“Oh.  I would!”  He says and I noticed that gleam in his eye as he presses the trigger and sprays my legs to prove his point.  I took off in the opposite direction and headed for the back yard where I could find the garden hose and have an endless supply of water.

To say I had made it in time to the hose and turned the water on was an epic fail in itself.  I managed to trip over my clumsy feet and fall onto the grass as I rounded the last corner to the back yard.  I was merely a few feet from the hose.  Ideas ran through my head and I had settled on faking a sprained ankle.  It worked like a charm.  Down went the water gun and I picked it up immediately and gave Chris his own taste of his medicine.  I squealed in delight as he tried to back away, getting back to his feet.  When the gun ran out of water, I found myself scrambling to my feet to get to the hose first.

“This isn’t over.”  I hollered through my fit of giggles.  Chris had managed to grab me from behind, stopping me from getting to the hose and wrestled me down to the ground where we landed side by side giggling like the little kids we were behaving as.  As I lay there, on my back, in the grass, clutching my chest because of the intense laughing, I became aware that Christian was now silent.  I turned my head to the side, in his direction and realized that he was just lying there, on his side, propped up on his elbow, looking at me with a goofy grin.

“I’ve missed you.”  He said as he took his free hand plucking a strand of my hair away that had matted itself to the side of my face.  His face grew serious.  The butterflies in my stomach made me sit up and look away.  “Are you okay?  Is it something I said?”

“No.”  I pause.  “It’s nothing.”

“You could have fooled me.”  He snickered.  I turned and pushed him off his elbow and onto his back but he grabbed my arm and pulled me down with him.  “You better be careful there, clumsy lady.”  He joked.  I chuckled and rolled my eyes at him as I push myself off of him and stand up.

“Get up.”  I tell him.  “Unlike you, I have a room that requires more work.”

“What are you?  Little miss home design or something?”  He asks me as he takes my hand to help him up.

“Yeah.”  I tell him.  “I had my own business and everything in the city before I moved back.”

“Wow.  I never knew that.”  He tells me.

“It’s not like we were attached at the hip, Chris.”  I looked at him, reminding him that we hadn’t bothered to speak about each other’s lives since we were both eleven.

“I know.”  He answered glumly.

I invited Christian to stay over for dinner as a ‘thank you’ for his help.  We ordered pizza and talked about what we had been up to since high school.  It turns out that he worked in real estate and now co-owned his father’s company seeing as Phillip had recently retired.  I told him about my interior decorating gig.  We spoke about our significant others or the lack thereof in my case.

“So I have to ask; where do your music and art fit in to this busy schedule of yours?”  He asks me as he takes our plates to rinse and put in the dishwasher for me.

“My art is pretty much photography and painting and it’s only when I’m inspired.  I usually try and do a piece for each room I design for a client.  It’s kind of like a signature of mine.”  I explain.

“It’s sort of like leaving your mark on someone’s world.”  He says.  I found myself liking his rather romantic point of view.

“Sure, if you want to look at it that way.”  I tell him with a shy smile.  “My music is a tougher subject; I still play the guitar if that’s what you’re asking.”

“What happened to the piano?”  He asked me.

“I haven’t touched it since Mom and Dad died.”  I explained.  My father had been the one to teach me how to play.  When they died, I chose to let that part of me die along with them.  I had sworn that I would never look back.  It was too much of a painful time in my life.

“Do you miss it?”  He asked as he came back to sit at the table with me, moving his chair closer to mine.

“Every day.”  I confess.  “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat at Granny’s baby grand over there since my return, attempting to play but my hands only brush the ivory and I always pull the cover back down and walk away.”

“I remember how well you played.”  He says and I smile sadly.  “Do you think you’ll ever play again?  I mean, you were a young prodigy of sorts with how quickly your hands flew around; definitely superior to my Chopsticks.”  I couldn’t help the giggle.

“If I said that every day I get closer to playing, would you believe me?”  I look at him seriously.

“No.  But then again, I know you and you’re not one to give up on anything, Amelia.”  He tells me and puts a hand over mine.

“What makes you so sure of that?”  I ask him.

“Because, you never gave up on me.”  He said and held my eyes with his.

After that heartfelt conversation, he helped me paint the last remaining wall.  As he reached for the can of white semi-gloss paint, I stopped him.

“You don’t have to stay and do this.”  I tell him.

“I have nowhere to be.”  He tells me.  “And I can’t think of any other place I’d rather be right now anyway.”

“You’re still a sweet-talker, I see.  So I guess some of the high school stayed behind?”  I tell him and laugh.  He nodded with a slight blush.

“Bad habits die hard.”  He says.

“I wouldn’t consider it a bad habit, Christian.  So long as you mean the things you say.”  I looked away from him quickly, resuming my painting.