Kissing In Cars

13

I tried to cancel multiple times. Each time I almost hit the Call button I talked myself out of it. At Tony's party his mom asked me for help painting her house and at the time I agreed thinking nothing of it until yesterday morning when she called to confirm, saying that Tony and I would be painting together. I said it was fine at the time but then Tony and I had that moment between us yesterday and now I want to back out. Maybe if I'm really lucky Tony has already called to back out and we won't have to see each other today.

As I turn onto the street that Tony's moms house is on, I see Tony's car parked in the driveway. No such luck for me it seems, so instead I slow my pace to try and prolong the inevitable. 

Not even a minute later I find myself in front of the door, ringing the doorbell. I hope his mom will answer, but no, Tony does.

"Hey." he says, his tone short. He steps aside so I can come in. He's holding his phone up to his ear, clearly on a call with someone.

"Hey." I say back my voice cold. I step into the house, closing the door behind me. 

As I walk in Tony puts his phone onto speaker so I can hear as well. His mom is on the phone with him, clearly having been awaiting my arrival.

"You're late." she says to me.

"Its 10am!" I protest. 

"Its 10:01." she says.

I give Tony a look but he's not looking at me. Usually, he has a stoic look on his face, but today it's more than that. He's still upset over yesterday just like I am.

"I have everything set up for painting, its just three rooms." she says as if it'll take us an hour to do the three rooms. "I'll be back in a couple of days; it better look good when I come back."

This is news to me. "Where are you?"

"I'm in San Bernardino for the weekend." she says to us. This is apparently news to Tony as well.

"Why are you there?" he asks. 

She completely ignores Tony's question, more focused on making sure her house is painted properly than anything else.

"So I need the living room painted first, then the hallway, then the kitchen." Tony's mom informs us. "But I want one room done at a time."

"It would be quicker if we each did a room." Tony says to her.

"I want one room done at a time." she responds. Stubborn as always. "I'm off now, have fun painting!"

Tony's mom hangs up leaving just Tony and I together. I don't know if he's mad at me or himself about last night but he's obviously still reeling over it. I am too. I went home in a really shitty mood which Jordan kept asking about but I couldn't very well tell him the reason for my anger otherwise he would've just been angry too and then everyone in my life pretty much would've been upset at me to some degree. So instead I went home and cried in the shower for half an hour before crawling into bed and hoping that today wouldn't come. Seems I wasn't lucky enough.

"Do you think she asked you to come on this specific day because she was going away?" Tony asks me as we begin painting the first room.

"It would surprise me if she didn't." I say. I muster up a small smile to try and ease the tension in the room.

"I wonder what she's going up there for." Tony muses out loud. 

I just shrug at him. "Who knows."

We go back to painting quietly, the only sound is the paint rollers squeaking as we move them up and down on the walls. We opted to do as his mom had asked and paint one room at a time. I don't know what the difference is if we each did one, I'm assuming there's none and she just wanted Tony and I to spend time together, but I'm not a professional painter so I don't know if there is an actual science behind it. So, we find ourselves stuck in the same room together for what will be a couple of hours today and tomorrow for our first and last coating of paint. 

After almost an hour of painting quietly Tony attempts another start of a conversation. "Did my cookies turn out okay?"

"I don't know." I say. I see him give me a questioning look, but he doesn't say anything. "I threw them out." I explain to him.

"All my hard work gone just like that." he says in a faux dramatic tone.

"Sucks, doesn't it?" 

Without knowing it, I had accidentally been using my full force to push the paint roller against the section of the wall that I had been working on. Now this side is going to have a lot thicker paint than anywhere else in the room. I would say I hope Tony's mom doesn't notice, but she will.

After my quip to Tony we go back to quietly painting. We manage to get the living room painted in less than an hour and a half. We move onto the bathroom next, the smaller space a bit uncomfortable to be in with Tony. If yesterday never happened I would've been thrilled, but it did happen.

We manage to paint the entire bathroom without talking. About three hours into this day and we finally move onto the kitchen. By this point my arms are sore from the repetitive motion of putting paint on the walls. My back is starting to get sore and I'm hungry and just ready to be done with this day in general. 

"You want to stop and eat? It would give us a chance to take a little break too, my arms are killing me." Tony says to me. Sometimes I swear its like he can read my mind.

"We're almost done." I say to him, not even daring to look at him as either of us speaks.

"So that's a no?"

"I'd rather just keep going. Quicker we finish the quicker we can get out of here."

"Great, I'll make sure to tell my mom that you took your time to ensure the quality of your painting was of the highest standards." he says jokingly. 

I drop my paint roller in the paint tray, careful to make sure that it doesn't splash paint all over the floors. "I'm done." I say to Tony.

He glances at the half-painted wall behind me with a confused look on his face. "No you're not?"

My hunger has turned me grumpy and my sore body doesn't help. Neither do Tony's jokes or my feelings towards him, so I'm just absolutely done at this point.

"No, I'm done painting here with you. I'll come back tomorrow and do the final coat alone." I say to him.

"Ava, come on." Tony says. He lays his paint roller down into his own tray too so that he can give me his full attention.

"This is too much, okay?" I say to him.

"Don't go." Tony says. His phone starts going off on the table, someone calling him. In my head I believe it's a random woman. "Look, we-" he stops short when he sees whoever it is that's calling him. 

He answers it immediately which I take as my perfect time to leave, but something in Tony's voice makes me pause at the doorway of the kitchen. His voice isn't quite right, it's tense and almost nervous. He turns his back to me so I'm unable to see his face as he talks on the phone.

"Yeah. Yeah.  Yeah, of course." he says into the phone. "I'm leaving now. Okay, yeah.  Alright, thank you." He turns to me slowly. His face is pale and serious. "My mom got into an accident."