My Hockey Alpha

Chapter 303

Bonus 3: The Color of Love

Nina

Even though sleep was a luxury neither Enzo nor I could afford these days, I found myself energized by the whirlwind of wedding preparations and home renovations.

Thanks to the help of Enzo, all of our amazing friends, and a fantastic group of contractors, we were making huge strides with the renovations on our new home.

Now, all that was left was picking out paint colors for the various rooms in the house; something, anything, to cover that ghastly gray color that made the whole house feel like a depressing little box.

However, exhaustion was slowly creeping in-and with it came snappiness, moments of impatience, and a few disagreements we wouldn’t have had otherwise.

One such argument unfolded during yet another trip to the hardware store.

We were standing in the paint aisle, as we had been doing almost every day for the past week, surrounded by countless paint swatches that neither of us could seem to agree on.

“I still say we should go with yellow,” I insisted as I tapped my finger against a bright buttercup-yellow color on the paint swatch. “That kitchen really needs some color.”

Enzo grimaced, shaking his head. ” Nina, I can’t stand yellow. Besides, it’s too… bright, too flashy for a kitchen. It reminds me of the color of melted butter, or… or jaundice. What about this color?”

I watched as Enzo pulled out a millionth swatch, one which contained the color of slate blue. It wasn’t far off from the color that the kitchen was painted already. It was pretty on its own, but a whole room like that? It would only blend into the gray and blue landscape of the ocean.

I pursed my lips, crossing my arms right after I rubbed my exhausted eyes with my fists. “Blue is too gloomy, Enzo. A kitchen is supposed to be cheerful!”

out a low, annoyed

eyes, probably even worse than mine. But I

than yellow, at least,” he

of painting it at all?” I asked, throwing up my

myself. I knew what I was going to say, and so did Enzo; that he wasn’t all that different from

in my exhaustion, I knew that that wasn’t the right thing to say, and I didn’t really mean it. Richard’s death was still too fresh, too raw to be making comparisons like that. And besides, despite Richard’s short-lived

he pulled out another swatch, one which contained an even more

better isn’t it? Can we just pick a color

of his hands, my frown deepening as I

Enzo. This is awful! What

escalated, and soon our voices

of them offering amused or sympathetic smiles, others giving us sidelong looks of disapproval. Neither Enzo nor I paid them any mind, too caught up in our silly paint

and seemingly out of nowhere, a croaky voice

I turned to find a small, elderly lady smiling at us, her eyes twinkling with a mix of mischief

Enzo asked, his eyebrows

mix of yellow

a display, her frail hand pointing at a particular shade of sage green. It was a color we had overlooked in

the suggested color, exchanging tentative looks. I couldn’t deny it; the green was indeed soft, warm, and welcoming-a gentle embrace of our

reached out and grabbed the swatch down off of the shelf to look at it more closely. It really was a pretty color; it

a slow smile spreading on my face, “I actually

snatched it out of my hand with a somewhat-annoyed huff. But as he studied it, his face

asked, chortling a bit as she