“I’m glad to hear it.”
The hope on her face makes my stomach flip, and I try to tamp down the feelings budding there. Maybe the simple life really is drawing me in. Maybe it’s the relief of not having to run a multibillion-dollar company. Or the chance to choose things for myself.
But each day I get to know Avery more, I can see myself falling for her.
And I need to stop those thoughts because of the pressure waiting for me back home. It’s like I’ve been pushing off the panic for days, and now it’s all rushing back to me. I need to stop being a coward and contact my father. But then everything in this perfect bubble will disappear.
She fills my black coffee and asks, “What have you been doing this morning?”
“Well, I sanded down the walls in the apartment, and Talia and I are going to paint.”
There’s a flicker of something in her eyes before her smile turns overly bright.
“That’s great. It’ll be nice to get things moving for you. Have you already ordered the flooring?”
I groan. “Thank you for that reminder. I should probably ask Talia about it.”
She gives me a small smile. “Good luck today.” Then she turns to the person waiting behind me in line.
I don’t know why the conversation suddenly feels strange, but I take my coffee and head back upstairs.
Talia walks in a few minutes later, carrying several gallons of paint.
“I have to make a second run for the rest of the supplies,” she says.
“What part are you on in the other apartments upstairs?” I ask.
“We’re just waiting for the heating people to come put in the ducts, and then we can start Sheetrocking.”
“Did Mike come to do the plumbing already?”
She works to pry off the lid of one of the paint cans. “Yeah. He was here until late last night. I guess he finished it up. You didn’t hear him?”
“No, I was playing a game with Avery and her niece until later, and then I fell asleep quickly. But does Mike ever sleep?” It’s more of a rhetorical question, since I don’t expect her to know the habits of the town plumber.
Talia just shrugs while prepping the paint.
She hands me a roll of paper and tells me to start working on taping the bathroom.
“We don’t have to tape out here?” I ask, surprised by this approach.
“We’ll need to roll the paint on in the bathroom so we don’t get it all over the toilet and the tub, but as for the rest of the apartment, we can just do a couple of coats and not worry about getting it everywhere. The flooring will cover everything below, and you want everything white, which helps cut down on the time of taping and changing colors.”
I hadn’t thought of that.
We don’t say much, and honestly, it gives me too much time to think about my life.
I love it here, but do I love it enough to move here? Or is it just that I haven’t had a real vacation in so long that this place feels like paradise?
I finish the taping in the bathroom once she’s finished spraying the coat of primer on the rest of the apartment. I roll the primer on the bathroom walls, which takes another thirty minutes with a roller, but there’s pride in this much progress.
Talia has cleaned out the paint sprayer by the time I’m done.
“That wasn’t too bad. Thanks for helping me.”
I shrug, feeling a pleasant tiredness in my body that I haven’t experienced in a long time.
This is how I used to feel helping my grandfather work. It’s a different exhaustion—physical instead of mental.
