Page 7 of Teach Me to Laugh

Oh, my favorite color.The guy had definitely been talking to Raina. And Raina suddenly appeared to have developed a very, very big mouth.

“What do you say?” He asked. His eyes were amused.

I decided to bargain. Well, I didn’t actually decide, since the words were out before I could thoroughly think them through. I regretted them instantly.

“I’ll join you for cake if, and only if, you not only let me paint my room,” I paused for reasons that were entirely unknown to me. “But help me paint my room.”

Brows inched up, “You want to paint your room?”

“Yes.”Did my voice actually squeak?

“What color?”

Is that supposed to be a trick question?

“Purple.” What other color would I want to surround myself with constantly?

“Figures.”

I folded my arms over my chest and tapped my toe. The corner of his perfect mouth twitched and good god, my heart responded to that too.

“Well?”

“It’s a deal.”

Shit.“Great.”

“See you at four.”

There goes my lavender Epsom salt bath. I snapped, “There better be honey in that coffee.”

“Just for you, peanut.”

I didn’t know what he meant by that, but as he turned and headed for the door, I couldn’t summon the will to call after him.

A sip of my coffee confirmed that, in fact, just for me there was honey.

“Stop!” I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. “Stop right now! Right now! Don’t . . .” I was already making my way over to him, nearly tripping in my haste. “Just don’t move.”

“What?” His warm brown eyes were like whisky colored saucers. Big and confused.The doofus!

“You can’t just slap it on like that!” I howled, horrified. “Ohfor the love of—it’sdripping!”

I snatched his roller and ran it over the grated end of the paint plate, shedding a few gobs of paint Beckett collected in his clearly inexperienced first attempt at using a roller.

“I don’t know what I did wrong.”

“You’ve never painted anything,” I accused. “Have you?”

“Well . . .”

“Don’t even reply. I already know the answer.” My focus moved to the wall that now looked like a sad attempt at raised art on an expensive canvas. I rolled the now sparsely covered roller over the lines of thickly dripping paint, catching them seconds before they rolled onto the tape that covered the baseboards. The tape was a protection we seriously needed considering Beckett had a paint roller in hand.

“What did I do?”

“Paint is like—like cologne. Too much and you’re overwhelmed.”

“Cologne?”

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