Page 75 of Once Upon a Fall

She gasps. “You did not just do that,” she says through a laugh.

“What did I do?” I ask, feigning innocence.

“You’re going to regret that.”

She dips her fingers toward the bucket, and I catch her wrist before she can reach it.

“Absolutely not,” I say.

“But you put way more grout on my face than I did yours.”

She looks ridiculous with a gray stripe down the center of her face, like very poorly applied war paint.

“Allegedly,” I say.

She’s laughing now, trying to pull her hand free, and I’m laughing too as I keep her away from my face and the bucket of grout.

Somehow in the struggle, she ends up with one hand braced against my chest, and my arm around her waist.

Then, neither of us is laughing, and somehow, the bathtub feels even smaller.

Her gaze drops briefly to my mouth and then back up. I could kiss her. She would probably let me.

That’s not the same as her asking me to.

“What’s going on here?”

We both turn to see Dominic standing there, hands on his hips, irritated look on his face.

That could just be his normal look. Or at least, the one he usually has around me.

“Dom,” Rosie says, pulling out of my grasp. “I thought you wouldn’t be here until later?”

“I had some time this morning,” he says. “Thought I’d get started.”

“Great,” Rosie says, climbing out of the bathtub one foot at a time. “We need to get the furniture out of the Beauty and the Beast room first, and then we can get started on drywalling the wall by the bathroom. I think it will be pretty cut-and-dried. The biggest obstacle will be removing the furniture. But between the three of us, it should be fast. How long do you think it will take to do the drywall?”

She’s rambling. And with that dried grout down the center of her face, she looks ridiculous doing it.

I’ve only known Rosie for just about a month, and even I know she rambles when she’s nervous or anxious. I can guess her twin knows exactly what she’s doing right now. Deflection is not one of Rosie’s strong suits.

“It’ll take a week, probably,” he says.

“A week? That’s longer than I thought.”

“I have to hang it, tape, two to three coats of mud with drying time between each. Then there’s sanding, priming, and painting.”

“Okay,” she says. “We’ll be cutting it close. But at least we can be in there working on the floor and baseboards.”

“You’ll have to wait for that,” he says. “I’ll be dropping mud. And once I start sanding, you’ll have dust in everything.”

“Dom,” she says, her pitch going up. “I don’t have time for that. I’d only have a couple of days to get the room done before guests arrive.”

She looks at me. I could tell her we’ll figure something out, but I have no idea what that would be. Two days to finish a room isn’t enough. She’d need help, and getting Rosie to ask for it would take longer than the drywall.

“Hear me out,” Rosie says. “Could we use hot glue?”

“No,” Dominic and I say at the same time.