Page 52

What did you call someone who renovated your house basically for free, protected you from your stalker ex, carried you to bed, and made you want things you had no business wanting a few weeks post-divorce disaster?

I grabbed a navy henley before I could spiral further. It fell to mid-thigh, the sleeves past my fingertips. I had to roll them three times just to find my hands. But it was soft and clean and when I lifted the collar to my nose…

Yeah. I was in trouble.

Downstairs, Noa sat at the kitchen table surrounded by enough breakfast food to feed a small army. Pancakes, eggs, bacon, fruit salad, cookies, and what appeared to be every type of juice sold in Tennessee.

“LADY SAM!” She bounced in her chair. “You stayed! Daddy said you might not but I said you would because you’re nice and nice people stay for pancakes.”

“Hard to argue with that logic.”

“That’s what I told him. Also you’re wearing Daddy’s shirt! It’s so big on you. You look like when I tried on Grandma Rose’s dress.”

Tyson choked on his coffee. I pretended the comparison to a five-year-old playing dress-up didn’t sting.

“Thanks, kid. Really doing wonders for my ego here.”

“What’s ego?”

“The thing your daddy clearly has too much of since he made enough food for the entire neighborhood.”

“I didn’t know what you liked,” he defended, still not quite meeting my eyes. “So I made everything.”

“Everything appears to be accurate.”

“Sit by me!” Noa patted the chair next to her. “We’re painting today!”

Huh. I hadn’t known that. “Yes?”

“My room! I don’t want pink anymore. Pink is for babies.”

“Since when?”

“Since Madison said purple is better.”

Tyson slid a plate in front of me loaded with a bit of everything. “You don’t have to help. I know you probably have things to do.”

“What things? Avoiding my phone? Hiding at home? Contemplating arson?”

Naturally, I ended up in Noa’s disaster of a bedroom, taping edges with the precision of someone who’d learned from her interior designer teacher that “paint bleed was for amateurs and savages.”

Tyson, meanwhile, approached painting like he approached everything else. Full speed, maximum chaos.

“You’re supposed to tape first,” I told him for the third time as he slopped purple dangerously close to the ceiling.

“Taping is for people who can’t cut in freehand.”

“Cutting in freehand is for people who want purple ceilings.”

“Maybe I do want purple ceilings. It’s my aesthetic.” He gestured with the paint roller, sending tiny purple speckles across his nose.

“You have purple on your face.” I laughed, focusing very hard on the painter’s tape to avoid looking at him even more than I already was.

“And you have purple on my shirt,” he retorted, lifting an eyebrow.

I cleared my throat. “Sorry. You offered. I borrowed it. Normal roommate behavior.”

“We’re not roommates.”