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!”

let out a low, annoyed

his eyes, probably even worse than mine. But I wasn’t backing down, and neither was

is better than yellow, at

of painting it at all?” I asked, throwing up my hands in exasperation. “That color you picked out

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 redemption at the

swatch, one which contained an even more

“This is better isn’t

grimaced, snatching the swatch out of his hands, my frown deepening as I studied the

This is awful!

argument escalated, and soon our voices

sidelong looks of disapproval. Neither Enzo nor I

and seemingly out of nowhere, a croaky

a small, elderly lady smiling at us,

eyebrows shooting

mix of yellow and

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

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

off of the shelf to look at it more closely. It really was a pretty color; it reminded me of the color of the sea foam during sunrise. I liked

smile spreading

held the swatch out to Enzo, who snatched it out of my hand with a somewhat-annoyed huff. But as he studied it, his face turned from an expression of annoyance into

chortling a bit as she