I told myself I wasn't going to worry about my impending doom for the rest of the week—I wasn't going to talk about it at all to give me some time to relax before coming up with plan. Constant distraction was the goal. I would clock more hours at the shelter, check out a fat stack of books from the library, do things with Nick or Jon…anything to keep me out of my apartment.
Jon was more than willing to help distract me. When I came back to work, he approached me right away. "Lori! Nick told me you weren't up to talking yesterday, are you okay?"
"I think I had a virus," I said. Really, my brain was an inch from complete shutdown due to stress but I couldn't say that. "I feel a lot better now. Do you have anything going on tonight?"
"No," he said before frowning in confusion. "If you were that sick, how did you end up at Nick's?"
I shrugged and decided on the truth. "I needed TLC and he had the day off. He made me chocolate chip pancakes then I pretty much slept the rest of the day."
Jon stifled a laugh. "I didn't peg you as a chocolate chip pancake kind of girl."
I crossed my arms over my chest. "What's wrong with that? I wanted chocolate, he got me chocolate. Best stepbrother ever."
"I'll have to remember that chocolate is the way to your heart," Jon mused. "I meant no offense, you just continue to surprise me. It's a good thing, promise. If you're feeling well enough, we could go paint shopping. You did still want to paint my house, right?"
That would provide hours of distraction. "Of course. But do you really want my input? It's your house. What if I pick something awful?"
He blushed and rubbed the back of his neck before recovering. "Nothing could be more awful than what I already have. I trust your judgment."
With that glowing endorsement, we went to Home Depot right after work. I let him do most of the talking because I couldn't find enough positive lies to tell. There wasn't anything stilted about our one-sided conversations though. It was oddly comfortable. Without me noticing, we'd gotten into a sort of groove. When had I become so comfortable with him, lies and all?
"Why are paint names so weird?" Jon asked in disgust after flicking through several color sample booklets. "Dignity Blue? Rapture Blue? Bluesy Note?"
I snorted. "There is no way there is a paint color called Bluesy Note. Let me see that." I snatched the booklet from his hands and sure enough, there it was. Wow. "I stand corrected." We ended up looking for other ridiculous paint names for a while, not even bothering to check out real options.
"This green one is called Derbyshire," I pointed out.
"I take your Derbyshire and raise you Trinket," he said gesturing to a yellow paint card.
"How about Juneberry pink?"
He raised an eyebrow. "Okay, that's pretty bad. Give me a sec." He continued his hunt for several minutes, occasionally muttering things like "Peppery? No, not as bad…" and "Audrey's Blush? Weird, but I don't know…" before triumphantly holding out a new paint card. "Cardboard."
I burst out laughing. What was so funny about a paint color being called cardboard, I'll never know, but I lost it. "Not fair," I wheezed. "That one is dumb, not ridiculous."
"But it made you laugh, so I think I win," he said with a grin.
I reluctantly conceded defeat and we looked for real, settling on Blissful Blue for the house and an off-white color called Greek Villa for the trim. "Now your house won't look like a radioactive lemon," I noted.
"Have I mentioned you're a lifesaver?"
I shrugged it off. He was the one helping me here. "I'll be at your place bright and early Saturday morning."
"Do you want to get together before then?" he asked, somewhat hesitant.
I had time to kill, so I agreed to have dinner with his family on Thursday. With three days of my week taken care of, I signed up for a double shift at the shelter on Wednesday and decided to treat Jace to those fries after all on Friday. That just left Sunday. I'd have to see what Nick's schedule was like because I absolutely couldn't spend a whole day holed up with Faye without having a meltdown right now.
My plan was working. Whenever I wasn't with someone else, I was reading at the library rather than risking doing it at home. I could tell my cats weren't pleased with their lack of attention but what could I do? I'd make it up to them later with a new toy or something. Pounce treats usually got them back in my favor.