Page 19 of Her Braun
The older man looked like he was making a visual study of his face. "You, ah... you supposed to be here, son?"
Gibson walked closer to the older man and nodded. "I stopped by the hospital and picked up Kay's keys from her. She's been trying to get some walls painted and just hasn't had the time."
The older man shook his head and tsked under his breath. "Doctor Kay is a real nice woman."
Nodding, Gibson smiled even more. "Yes. She is."
He lifted his hand and pushed the brim of his flat cap up so that they could both look each other in the eye. "She real pretty, too."
"Not news to me, Mister..."
"Mister Langston." The older man gave him a measuring look before he reached out his hand.
Gibson set the bucket down and walked over to shake his hand. "Gibson Braun."
"Braun, huh?" As they let go of each other's hands, the older man whistled low between his lips, likely stirring the ends of his bristled and patchy mustache. "Well, son, you've certainly got the muscle for that name."
"Yes, sir. I'm a firefighter."
A brushy brow lifted at that. "And a painter on the side."
Gibson stepped aside and gestured at the name painted on the side of his truck. Braun the Builder.
The older man chuckled as he leaned his forearms on the top of the chain link fence. "Catchy."
"It was my sister's idea," Gibson admitted. "She thought catchy was the way to go."
Mister Langston nodded, knowingly. "And you?"
It was Gibson's turn to laugh. "Every time someone calls, they say that the name caught their eye. That it was catchy and memorable."
With a finger snap, the older man laughed out loud. "You tell your sister that?"
Gibson shook his head. "No. If I did, she'd never let me live it down."
"Must be a younger sister."
Wow. "Yeah. She is." He looked at the older man and saw that he was just worried about Kay. He wasn't there to be mean or cause trouble. In short, the man was a good neighbor. "I can promise you, sir. I'm here because she wants me to be. I'm just going to help her get some things done around the house. I'm hoping to get the room painted before she comes back from her shift today."
The older man stepped back with a smile. "Then don't let me hold you back none. I'm just going to go inside my place and put my feet up. If you need something, you can come on over and ask."
Gibson tilted his head back toward his truck. "You want to help me with the buckets of paint?"
The older man moved his hands to his lower back and groaned. "Oh... my back!"
Laughing, Gibson picked up his supplies. "Okay, okay. I'll see you later, Mister Langston."
"See you later, son!" The older man walked away with a spring in his step.
Inside, Gibson made quick work of laying out his drop cloths and taping things off. He'd done it more times than he could remember, so he moved through the process with a practiced ease. The walls had only had a primer coat when he'd visited the first time and Kay had admitted that she'd bought the house as a fixer upper, but hadn't know exactly what she'd gotten herself into. He'd walked around the ground floor with her and found out that every room was painted with a primer.
It made it easier in the long run, but he could see that she wasn't pleased to hear the news.
He'd gotten the distinct impression that she realized that she'd bitten off more than she could chew and that wasn't something she wanted to admit, not just to him but to herself as well.
Gibson knew he could help her get the house finished, at the least painting the walls in short order, but he wasn't going to push. He wouldn't mind helping her fix whatever else she had in mind, but that might involve him being in her space without her from time to time and while she'd seemed perfectly fine with him in her bedroom this time, he wasn't sure how much that would fly with her.
Maybe in time.
