Home Sweet Home (A Southern Comfort Novel) (4 page)

G
race signed for the package and as soon as the UPS man’s back was turned, she did a little happy dance. Of course, trying to carry it upstairs was another story. Was it packed with stones?

She had seen the Regency reproduction wallpaper online, and she simply had to have it for her office. The aesthetic of the rest of the house was basically transported from her condo—modern and comfortable—but she was going crazy on the walls. The homeowner’s association at her old condo had rules about painting only neutral colors—pretty lame considering she owned the unit, but she had complied. This house was her first chance to paint with actual colors.

The logistics of getting gallons of paint home from Harry’s Hardware on her bicycle were easily managed by the friendliness of the eponymous Harry, who sent his nephew Dylan (and Dylan’s car) over with her order. She had barely opened the first can of paint before she realized the handle of the roller she bought was way too short to reach the tops of the tall walls. So she biked back, and rode home one-handed with a four-foot retractable pole tucked under her arm. Fortunately, the drivers of Willow Springs were pretty bike-friendly and gave her a wide berth, or stopped to offer her a ride. Well, all of them except for Jake, whom she ran into at an intersection. He didn’t offer her a ride, which was fine because she wouldn’t have accepted anyway.

Her back was still killing her from her marathon painting week, but a nightly soak in her gigantic claw-foot tub gave her plenty of time to fantasize about living in a house without cardboard boxes everywhere. And the wallpaper was the last step of her aesthetic stamp before she started unpacking in earnest. This wallpaper was the icing on the cake.

Grace wanted her office to look like what she imagined Jane Austen’s writing room would. Regency reproduction furniture was a little out of her budget, though. So she settled for a garage sale chaise longue, the deceptively sturdy writing desk she’d used as a child, and lots and lots of bookcases. The Regency touch would be the wallpaper. The more she looked at Regency patterns, though, the more she thought they were probably a little much for her modern sensibility (and her budget—even on sale, that wallpaper was expensive), so she settled on one accent wall.

They must have packed the wallpaper in bricks, though, because the long, narrow box was heavy.

She dragged the package inelegantly up the stairs and into her office. She’d pushed all the furniture in front of the bookcases, then piled all the boxes of books on top of the furniture. When she tore the package open and unraveled the first roll, she held it up to the wall and imagined her desk there. And then she dropped the wallpaper and clapped and giggled. It was going to look amazing once the whole wall was done.

There was still the problem of the high walls, though. Even upstairs, the small rooms had high ceilings, giving the illusion of space without actually being spacious. She thought about using her trusty retractable roller, but Harry told her that, to wallpaper properly, you need a brush. And her brush was short. So she needed a ladder.

Fortunately, she had friends in town now, and those friends had ladders. Mary Beth, who had forgiven her for her moving-day snootiness after Grace apologized profusely, was going to drop her ladder off after work and would stay to help her put up the wallpaper. Grace thought of the bottle of Pinot Grigio chilling in the fridge, and imagined sitting on the porch with Mary Beth, tired and satisfied after a job well done, watching the sunset. So she practically ran down the stairs when the doorbell rang, ready to start.

“The paper just came in! Just wait until you—” She stopped, mid-door swing, when she saw Jake standing on her porch with a ladder leaning against his shoulder.

“Oh,” she said.

“Mary Beth couldn’t make it,” he said, picking up the ladder and barging past her into the house. “She had a showing. Where do you want this?”

“Upstairs. Hi, Jake.”

“Hi, Professor. Where upstairs?”

“The office. First door on the right. Please.”

She followed him and the ladder and pointed him in the right direction. He set up the ladder, then stood there, looking around.

“So this is where you write your famous books?”

She was surprised that he’d heard about her book; it didn’t seem like his style. But then, most people in Willow Springs seemed to know that she’d written a mildly popular book about Jane Austen. The librarian had practically jumped on her. “Mostly it will be where I grade my students’ papers.”

“Ah. So this is where you do the dirty work.”

“I see you’ve been reading undergraduate English papers.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Grace was shocked by the aggression in his tone.

“It was a joke.”

“You think just because I didn’t go to college, I won’t get what some kid says about some old book?”

“No, Jake. I meant that when you say something snippy to me, I’ll say something snippy back. Gosh, I’m not sure how you managed to carry that ladder up here with that gigantic chip on your shoulder.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. But, whatever, it had been a joke. What did she care that he hadn’t gone to college? He’d already proven himself more qualified than she was for the job.

“What’s this wallpaper you’re putting up?” he asked. “Mary Beth was all excited about it.”

Fine. If he wanted a truce, she could give him a truce. “It’s right here,” she said, picking up the partially unraveled roll. “It’s a design from the Regency era. Jane Austen’s time. That’s what I write about.”

“I know.”

“Okay. Well, here it is.”

She watched him take in the soft rose color, the flocked, damask pattern.

“It’s kind of a lot, isn’t it?” he asked.

“You mean you think it’s ugly.”

He shrugged. “It’s your house.”

She sighed. “I’m just doing the one wall. I thought an accent would be nice.”

“And a lot more palatable.” He held the sheet up to the wall. “This will be nice, actually.”

“Well, I appreciate your good opinion. And the ladder.”

He stood there a moment longer, looking between her and the wall. “Are you going to do this by yourself?”

“Well, I had hoped for Mary Beth’s help. But it looks like, yes, I’m going to do it by myself.”

“She’ll probably be able to help you over the weekend.”

“I want to do it today. I need to get this room set up so I can start getting ready for my classes. And, anyway, I’m too excited to let it sit in a box until the weekend.”

“Grace, it’s Thursday.”

“Patience is not one of my virtues.”

He shook his head. “Fine. Where do you want to start? On this end? Do you have extra so we can match the pattern?” He started moving the ladder toward the end of the wall.

“You’re going to help?”

“Yeah, if you can’t wait. I have nothing better to do today.”

“Of course not.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing.”

“Wait—” She stopped him again. “What do you mean match the pattern?”

“You have to line up the panels so the pattern matches.”

“I know. But how did you know?”

“This ain’t my first rodeo, Professor. I’ve hung wallpaper before.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh. Do you want my help or not?”

“Sure.” Why not? It would be fun spending the afternoon with such a chipper guy. Afterward, she could break the bottle of wine over his head.

Rich people and their accent walls, thought Jake as he started to cut the wallpaper at the top of the crown molding. This pattern was a special pain in his butt—it was so broad that he would think it was lined up in one spot, only to find one intricate swirl that didn’t match a few inches down.

“Mother of—”

He stopped, mid-cut, at Grace’s curse.

“Stop, stop,” she said, putting a hand on his calf. He froze on the ladder, utility knife in the air, and tried not to shiver at the warmth of the contact.

“Dammit, it’s not matching down here. Slide it up.” She moved her hand to the wallpaper and started to move the panel up. “Whose idea was this stupid wallpaper anyway?”

“It’s authentic,” he reminded her.

“I wanted Jane Austen, not Charlotte Perkins Gilman.”

He had no idea what she was talking about, but he didn’t want another lecture. Not while he was holding a knife.

“Is it straight up there?” she asked him. He focused on the wall, not on the fact that when he looked down, he could see something pink and lacy through the neckline of her shirt.

“Yes. Ready to glue?”

She didn’t respond, so he picked the brush up off the ladder’s shelf and started the top coat of glue.

“How are we only on the second panel?” she whined. “How many more do we have to do?”

Jake did a quick visual measurement of the wall. It seemed to be getting bigger every time he did it. “Two and a half.” Hopefully.

She leaned heavily onto her hands on the wall. Even though she was spiraling into a sulk, he appreciated that she held the wallpaper in place for him.

And he appreciated the pink bra.

“Trust me, this would feel a lot longer with Mary Beth,” he said between brush swipes. “She’s even more impatient with home improvement projects than you are.”

He heard her sigh.

“Just keep your eyes on the prize, Professor. Every time you look at this accent wall, you can remember how hard you worked on it.”

“That’s nice of you, but you’re doing all the work. I’m just holding the paper up.”

“Don’t forget how nicely you’re bossing me around.”

She laughed. “Sorry. I thought I knew what I was doing.”

“Even though you’ve never wallpapered before?”

“I watched a video on YouTube.”

He snorted. She was cute when she wasn’t biting his head off.

“So you do a lot of this stuff?” she asked.

“Wallpapering?”

“Yeah, and other home improvement stuff.”

He shrugged. “Sure. I like working with my hands.”

“Better you than me,” she mumbled, wiping one of her glue-y hands on her shorts.

A few hours ago, Jake would have taken that comment to mean that it was better for him to do the dirty work since he, as a dirty, working man, was much more suited to it. But now he knew that she was making a self-deprecating joke. Which he appreciated, because she really was not very handy.

He was beginning to see maybe she wasn’t a total judgmental diva.

Not judgmental. He still wasn’t sure about the diva part.

“Where do you park your car?” he asked. He hadn’t seen it in the driveway, and he wasn’t sure of the state of the garage. She probably had one of those tiny little hybrid things.

Although Missy had a hybrid and she seemed to be able to make it go pretty fast. Every cop in the county would probably agree with him.

“I don’t have a car,” she said.

“What?” Maybe she was one of those crazy earth-mother chicks who thought even a hybrid was too much carbon footprint. “Why not?”

She and her pink bra shrugged. “I don’t really like driving, and Willow Springs is small. I’m hoping I can get away with not having one.”

“So you just expect other people to chauffeur you around?”

She looked up at him, sharply. “That’s a pretty big assumption. Have I ever asked you for a ride anywhere?”

“No.”

“Or your sister? Or anyone you know? Have I ever, in the weeks that you’ve known me and decided I’m worthless, asked anyone for a ride anywhere?”

“Not that I know of.” He didn’t like how that made him feel, that she was aware of his disgust for her. No, it wasn’t disgust, it was just . . . he just didn’t like professors. But he didn’t like that she knew.

“Well, I haven’t, because I purposely bought a house close to town with a nice, flat bike ride to campus so I won’t have to offend people like you with my grubby neediness.”

“People like me?”

“Yes, people like you. People who don’t know anything about me, but decide I’m useless.”

“Please, you professors are all the same.” He stopped wallpapering to glare down at her. “You think you’re so smart and so great just because you have a fancy degree.”

“I have several fancy degrees, Jake, but that’s not what makes me smart and great.”

“Not so smart that you can hang wallpaper on your own.” He watched a drop of wallpaper glue land in the knot of hair piled on her head. She must not have felt it, because she didn’t react.

“No, Jake, I’m not an octopus. I only have two hands.” She stepped away from the wall. “You know what? You can go. I’ll get someone else to help me.”

The panel that he had half-glued unstuck itself from the wall and peeled slowly down. Onto Grace’s head. She floundered and flailed and finally came unstuck.

“Very funny, Jake.”

“You’re the one who let go!”

“Just go.”

A few seconds ago, he wanted to go. He wanted to just say, screw it. He had so many better things to do with his time.

But then the wallpaper had come down on her and she looked flustered and he felt bad about the blob of glue he’d dropped in her hair. Not, like, let’s be friends forever bad, but bad enough that he remembered he was not a jerk, that he was the kind of guy who finishes what he starts. No excuses.

He still didn’t like her. “I said I’d help you, so I’ll help.”

“That’s not necessary, Jake. Especially since I don’t really want to be in the same room as you are.”

“Fine. Go. I can finish.”

“It’s not a one-person job.” She threw his words back in his face.

“I’ll call a friend to help me.” Kyle owed him a favor—probably. And Kyle didn’t hate him.

“I don’t think this house is big enough for two self-righteous butt faces.”

He had to hold on to the ladder rail to keep from falling off. She was funny. He thought he might put “self-righteous butt face” on his business card.

“Let’s just finish,” she said, picking up the fallen wallpaper. “Can we still use this?”

He nodded, then took it from her. “You just want to make sure I line it up right,” he teased. But she didn’t say anything back. They wallpapered in silence, and he had no choice but to think about Grace and what a strange person she was. When he was a teenager, he couldn’t wait to get his license; to him, driving meant freedom. He could go wherever he wanted, see whomever he wanted—until his parents gave him a curfew and took away the car when he broke it.