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!”

a low,

eyes, probably even worse than mine. But I wasn’t backing down,

is better than yellow, at least,”

point of painting it at all?” I asked, throwing up my hands in exasperation. “That color you picked out is hardly any different from that awful gray color that’s already in there. Maybe

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

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

out another swatch, one which contained an even more sickly blue hue

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

his hands, my frown deepening as I studied

This is awful!

and soon our voices echoed off the store’s high

began glancing our way, a couple 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 color

seemingly out of nowhere, a

a small, elderly lady smiling at us, her

Enzo asked, his eyebrows

with a nod. “It’s the perfect compromise, a mix of yellow and blue. And a lovely color for a kitchen, if I

particular shade of sage green. It was a color we had overlooked

tentative looks. I couldn’t deny it; the green was indeed

the swatch down off of the shelf to look at it more closely. It really was a

started, a slow smile spreading on my face,

snatched it out of my hand with a somewhat-annoyed huff. But

lady asked, chortling a bit as