Page 22 of No Kind of Hero
The next morning, he was directing the scaffolding guys when José said, “Boss?” from behind him.
When he turned around, there Beth was standing behind José, looking like exactly the painting partner he wanted most. Her hair was in its braid again and looked damp, like she’d gone swimming this morning in that purple bikini of hers. Or, of course, because she’d washed her hair. The purple bikini part might have been his imagination. Right now, she was wearing white overalls that he’d bet money she’d just bought, over a pink T-shirt, and she looked—well, she looked adorable.
“Hi,” she said, shy and trying to hide it behind breeziness. “I dressed for the job. Put me to work. And thanks,” she told José, and he took off with a speaking look back at Evan. Like a guy who’d had his boss figured for a monk and was startled to see him suddenly stripping off his shirt, dancing on the bar, and belting out show tunes.
“What?” Beth asked Evan when he didn’t say anything. “Too early? Change your mind?” She was still going for that casual thing, but he knew Beth didn’t do casual any better than he did.
“No,” he said, the smile coming slowly, then spreading, because damn, it was good to see her, and he wanted to kiss her on her unpainted mouth right now. “That’s not going to happen. Give me a few minutes, though.”
She took a seat a few rows up from the stage, and she didn’t play with her phone the way somebody else would have. She tucked one long leg up under her, curled up in the dusty rose velvet, and watched him work as if putting up scaffolding was fascinating. Beth had always been interested in everything, and he’d always been flattered. No news flash there.
“OK,” he said half an hour later, heading over to her at last. “They can do without me for a while. Want to sneak into the ladies’ room with me?”
She made a face, then laughed. “How appealing.”
“Hey,” he said, the grin growing, “it could’ve been the men’s room. I had an idea, though, wanted to get your take. And then, you know, we could . . .” He wished there was a better verb to put in there. “Paint.”
He led the way out of the auditorium and turned right at the lobby, avoiding the left side, where José and the others were using the spray to apply primer, their respirators and goggles making them look like giant bugs. He stopped at the staging area near the brass-handled outer doors, handed Beth a couple rollers and paint trays, grabbed dropcloths, tape, and a five-gallon bucket of primer, and took her through the door markedWomen.
“So,” he said, setting down his materials by the door, propping it open with a rubber doorstop, and draping a dropcloth over the black-and-white checkerboard floor, “here’s my idea.” He wanted to kiss her more than ever, but the atmosphere wasn’t exactly romantic. Years of dust, swinging stall doors, and old toilets. If he had visions of Beth on the counter, leaning back against the mirror, and his hands undoing those overall straps and sliding on down? He needed to rein them in. “You said Maxfield Parrish, so I looked it up, and I thought—do the ceiling like a sky, that blue glow. Twilight. Put in some pink around the edges, maybe a couple stars. Replace the light fixtures with chandeliers so it’s bright in here, paint the upper part of the walls where it isn’t tiled, make it look like marble. Make it a . . .” He waved his hand.
“A fantasy,” she said, her blue eyes sparkling with excitement. “Oh, that’s good. Here, let me tape.” He handed over a roll, and she climbed right up on that counter like she’d read his mind. And damn. If he wasn’t supposed to have ideas, that wasn’t helping. She was on her knees, smiling at him in the mirror as she taped around it, and saying, “Yes.Yes.How pretty would that be?Sopretty. Did you ask him? The owner? What’s his name?”
“Harlan Kristiansen. I left him a message, yeah.” He took his own roll of tape and started in on the baseboards. “But I don’t know how to explain it to him so he’ll get it. It’s just that I read a lot of . . .”
“What?” she asked when he didn’t go on, stretching to finish taping over to the side, and he kept an eye on her in case she toppled over and he had to grab her. Just in case. “Fashion magazines?Guns & Ammo?Furries porn? What?”
He swung around and stared at her.“Furriesporn?”
She knelt on the counter between the sinks and waved a hand. “I read about it. People dress up in animal costumes like at Disneyland, except it’s sexual, which is weird no matter how much I try not to judge. Big animal heads and all. They have these conventions and get busy, I guess. Presumably not while they’re still inside the suits. Or the heads, because how bizarre would that be?”
“No.” He didn’t know how he’d gotten into this conversation. “You know the strangest things. No. Bedtime stories. The kind I read toGracie.And maybe I looked at bedroom decorating ideas online before she was born, too. Of course I did.”
“That’s so sweet.” She swung around so shewassitting on the counter. “Because you were having a girl, and you wanted her room to be pretty. So did you paint her room like that?”
“No,” he said, and when she kept looking at him, he admitted it. “Well, maybe a few clouds on the ceiling. And butterflies.”
“Nice,” she said with a whole lot of satisfaction, like he’d just passed some test. “So—why don’t you just explain to this guy Harlan? Tell him your idea.” He didn’t say anything, and she asked, “What about this is making you nervous?”
He wasn’tnervous.He was just . . . “Not my usual style.” He started to work on taping around the edges of the toilet cubicles. “Dakota chooses colors. I just paint. This isn’t my part. I’m getting carried away, probably.”
She sat there exactly like that fantasy he’d had and studied him like he was fascinating. “But now Dakota’s stepping back, and you’re stepping up. And it’s fun, but it’s scary.”
“It’s notscary.I’m notscared.”
He could see the twitch of amusement, because Beth’s face was an open book. And why did women see so damn much? Some women, anyway. “All right,” she said. “It’s new, and you’re not sure how it’ll work out. But hey, if a guy buys a movie theater, a single-plex, which isn’t exactly a booming industry? I don’t know what the stats are, but they can’t be great, so he isn’t in it for the money. He’s doing it because it’s cool, and you’re helping him make it even cooler. And everyone in town will come, and they’ll all know you did this, which will be awesome. Which is why it’s making you . . .” She seemed to catch herself, then went on. “Twitchy. It’s got too much upside, so you don’t want to put too much faith in it. You don’t want to ask for too much in case it doesn’t work out.”
“It’s just a ceiling.” He finished taping the last stall, then came out and tossed the roll of tape onto the pile.
“Oh.” She smiled, still seeing too much. “All right. I’m backing off. So do I get to help?”
“Yeah. But hey.” Forget that it was the wrong place. Forget that he ought to be draping the tops of those toilet stalls, too. He went over to her, put his hands on her hips, hauled her forward, stood between her thighs like he belonged there, and said, “Maybe I should say thanks for listening to my crazy ideas. And maybe I should tell you I like your painter clothes, and that you’re pretty.”
“Mm.” She didn’t pull away. Not one bit. Instead, she put her hands on his biceps like she wanted to feel them, and like between her thighs was exactly where she wanted him. Which was convenient, since it was exactly where he wanted to be. “I like yours, too. Or maybe I just like you. Way too much. How about kissing me? I happen to want you a lot.”
How could you get this hot this fast? She kept her hands on his arms, he pulled her up tight against him, sliding her right over the counter and into him, anddamn.His hand was up under that braid, at the back of her neck, her hands were stroking up his arms, she was leaning into his kiss and closing her eyes, and they were diving into it like they were putting out a fire. Or starting one. Her body was slim and warm and melting into him, his hand was at the small of her back, her lips were parting for him, and he could swear that all she wanted to do was let him in.
His hand was straying up her body again, and he was bending her back and giving her more of that when aclangfrom outside brought him back to himself. He may also have realized that when she opened her eyes, she was going to be looking at a toilet. And that he’d propped the restroom door open.
