Page 41 of Craving

“Morning,” she said with a smile. “I can’t believe I slept so late.”

He checked his watch. “It’s not even seven o’clock.”

She grinned, but it looked a little forced around the edges. “Feels late when you’re already hard at work in here. Let me get some coffee and we’ll go through the plan for the day.”

A few minutes later, she stood beside him, both hands curled around her polka-dot mug. She glanced around the room, took a deep breath, and some of the tension left her body. “What do you think of the color?”

Marlon glanced around the walls in the beige-adjacent color Camilla had agonized over. It was a little patchy and definitely needed another coat. “Looks good.”

She laughed, swatting his arm. “At least try to sound like you mean it.”

It was impossible not to grin at her. The weather outside was cold and blustery, with a few intrepid snowflakes swirling through the air, but she made him feel like he stood in a shaft of sunshine when she looked at him with that smile on her face.

“I brought one of the company vans home so we can go pick up the couch today,” Marlon said after clearing the gravel from his throat. “Store opens in a couple of hours, so I figured we’d get the final coat on the walls, then go shopping.”

“A man after mine own heart,” she sighed, bumping shoulders with him.

If only she knew.

Marlon turned to grab his own cup of coffee off the floor where he’d left it. He took a long drink, then got to work. Each swipe of the paint roller felt like scraping off a calcified layer from his heart. As they transformed the room, Marlon finally felt like he was facing the grief of his grandparents’ deaths.

Their final months had been so, so hard. He’d watched their health fail and been powerless to do anything about it. Was it any wonder he’d isolated himself after they’d passed?

“My grandmother used to sit here in the evenings,” he said as he loaded the roller up with more paint. “She’d read by the window and hated being disturbed.”

“An introvert,” Camilla said, then gave him a playful glance. “Like her grandson.”

Marlon snorted. “Suppose so.”

“I never knew my grandparents. On my dad’s side, they died before I was born. And on my mom’s side, there was some drama that happened when my parents got married, and the rift was never healed. I only met them twice.”

“Families are messy.”

Camilla huffed a laugh. “You can say that again.”

“My grandfather started showing signs of dementia around the time my grandmother got sick,” he heard himself say. “She had cervical cancer, but by the time they found it, it had spread.”

What was it about painting this room that made them want to share with each other? Marlon couldn’t explain it, but he felt comfortable speaking about his past for the first time in his life.

Camilla paused with her paintbrush suspended near the wall. In his peripheral vision, Marlon saw her glance his way. “I’m sorry.”

He nodded. “I was young. Grandpa had limited mobility and Grandma helped him with everything, but her health declined so fast it was hard to adjust. My grandfather got more and more confused and agitated when their routines got disrupted. We couldn’t afford a carer, so I started picking up the slack. Leo was just a kid, my little brother. I tried to make life as normal as I could for him, but…I don’t know if I succeeded.”

The only sound that filled the silence that followed was the roller on the wall and the soft swishing of Camilla’s paintbrush. Finally, she said, “That’s a lot for a teenager to take on.”

“Grandma was gone within a year. After that, Grandpa seemed to just give up. He died four months later.”

Camilla made a soft sound.

“When it was all over—when they were gone and Leo was away at college—I just… I won’t say I shut down, but I pulled away from people.” His throat was thick as he swallowed, gaze focusing on the task of rolling paint on the wall. “Feels good to be doing this now, is what I’m saying. Breathe some new life into the house.”

“A fresh start,” Camilla added.

“Exactly.”

“I’m in need of one of those of my own,” she admitted quietly with a weak smile.

They finished the final coat of paint and got changed out of their work clothes, then they left to go shopping. Before Marlon started driving, he reached over and grabbed Camilla’s hand. “Thank you,” he told her, voice rough.

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