“I like the way you smell. I like the way your hands move, even putting dishes in the dishwasher. I like shooting the shit with you, and not doing it shouting across twenty feet of space. I like being with you, Ryn. And I don’t give a fuck I’m dumping mash into a Tupperware while I do it.”

Seriously?

Seriously?

No wonder he had a hero complex.

He was top to toe to brain to heart awesome.

To explain the vastness of my feelings about all he’d just said, I snapped, “You’re totally fucking up our balance!”

He laughed and caught me in his arms, which sucked because my hands were wet, and I couldn’t touch him.

“Just let me do what I do,” he said quietly.

“Whatever,” I replied.

“And I’ll let you do what you do,” he went on.

“Yeah, you get to be the dream guy and I—”

“Do not fuckin’ finish that,” he growled on a hefty squeeze.

I shut up.

“You have a real problem with not being what you’ve decided is perfect, Kathryn,” Boone stated irately. “He gave you that, your dad did. He laid that on you. And if there is nothing I say from this point on that you hear, you need to hear this. You are a dream, Ryn. And that isn’t about you being gorgeous or having a great body or sucking my cock when I order it. It’s about you being tough and funny and sweet and too goddamn generous and not letting anything slow you down. It far from sucks you dig me as much as you do. But it’s clear I’m fallin’ down on the job of sharing how much I dig you and why, Ryn, when you say shit like you were just gonna say.”

I stared up at him.

“I don’t know how to help you let what he gave you go, but he lost out, Ryn. He did.” He said that on another tight squeeze. “I know it’s hard for you to see it this way, but you missed out on a dad who was an absolute dick. But he missed out on having you. And if I didn’t hate the guy’s guts for what he landed on you, I’d feel sorry for him.”

All he said was all Boone was.

Fabulous.

But that last was a surprise.

“You hate Dad’s guts?”

“Yeah.”

“Boone, you haven’t met him.”

“I don’t need to. I don’t want to. And I hope I never do.”

Whoa.

“But, Boone, hating isn’t good.”

“Would you be copasetic if my dad was like yours?”

I saw his point.

“Yeah.” He saw I saw his point.

“Okay, I’m awesome and you’re awesome, so freak-out canceled. We still have balance,” I decreed.

Boone scowled at me a second before his face cracked and his lips tipped up.

“Jesus, you’re cute.”

“I’m also ordering latke-style something with that mash for Sunday brunch.”

He started laughing.

I rolled up on my toes and kissed him while he did it.

We started making out and maybe I got Boone’s hair a little wet with my hands when we did.

He was Boone and I was kissing him.

So he didn’t mind.

Chapter Eighteen

Bad Teacher

Ryn

By the next Wednesday, I realized no matter how many YouTube videos I watched on reskimming walls, it was not as easy as it looked.

Which bought me a chat with Hound who said, “Listen, sister, you got a big project here. Don’t take on shit you don’t need to take on. The walls are fine. Prime the fuckers, paint ’em, and move on.”

That was the extent of our chat.

But on closer inspection, I saw he was right.

And on deeper reflection, I realized in a few words Hound had shared valuable insight with me.

If I was going to chase this dream, do this, and do it as my living, I was going to have to make those kinds of decisions.

I wasn’t building houses.

I wasn’t perfecting houses.

I was flipping them.

And if something didn’t need to be fixed, there was no reason to fix it.

And especially no reason to spend time and money fixing it.

So off we went to the paint store in order for me to get a few more paint chips so I could be certain about the color palette I was going to use on the place.

Then, after tacking them all up and wandering the house for half an hour, I earned my second chat with Hound.

It was far shorter.

“Jesus, I’m losing the will to live.”

He then took a Sharpie, drew big arrows on the wall to the colors I’d picked before I’d gone out to give myself the opportunity to look at other colors.

Lesson two from the Great and Wise Hound.

Don’t waste time with indecision and second-guessing.

Then he said, “I’m going to the paint store. Alone.”

I had a feeling this was so I wouldn’t get near the paint chip display.

I also had a feeling that was a wise decision.

Last, I had a feeling that Hound was going to donate paint to the project because I had another feeling there was no way in hell—since there was no longer a reason to be off to the paint store except to buy paint—he was going to let me pay him back.

By the by, while Hound was at the paint store, I got a call from Tack.

After greetings, he didn’t beat around the bush before he said, “Got a friend who paints, skims and muds. You want me to see if he’d be down with a part-time apprentice for a while?” Pause. “After your shit is sorted, that is.”

Did I want that?

Free wall-skimming lessons?

“That’d be awesome, Tack,” I told him.

“Got it. Let you know.”

Then he hung up on me.

Totally loved the Chaos boys.

At that point, since I was at a crossroads with what was next, and I needed to sit down with Boone now that we had a lot of “nexts” that could happen what with Brett’s deliveries, and we needed to make a plan on how to tackle it, Mag took me home. This after we swung by my place for me to spend half an hour watering my plants and to get some important provisions.

The “home” Mag took me to (after mine) was Boone’s place, where he and I spent the vast majority of our time.

It wasn’t that he didn’t like my pad.

It was that he did not like my kitchen and refused to cook in it unless I let him yank out the carpet.

I totally heard him about the carpet.

But I didn’t need two home improvement projects, and frankly, I preferred Boone’s pad because, first, it was awesome, and second, he had fantastic stoneware and third, no one had been murdered at his back door and not only because he didn’t have a back door.

And now Boone was home, Mag was off with a “Later” to both of us, and time was nigh for me to give Boone my version of a gift.

Roses were awesome.

But I was hoping to knock his socks off with what I had in mind.

So after I gave him a welcome home kiss and a careful once over to see he wasn’t worn out by his day, and he asked me if I was down with homemade pizza for dinner (I so was, just…later), he got out the bread machine (yes, Boone had a bread machine, was my guy awesome or what?) and I got my ass in the bathroom.

This was a risk.