A Second Chance

13. a paint job

"Princess, are you ready?" Christian asks, coming up from behind me.

"Don't call me that," I roll my eyes, slamming my locker shut, "And yes, I am."

"Okay, let's go," he says, leading the way to his car.

He thankfully doesn't take so long to drive home, saving me the dread of spending more time with him.

"Uh, make yourself at home. I have to rush somewhere real quick but just know the kids might arrive before I'm back," he nods at me before walking back out of his front door.

"Okay," I mutter to myself, looking around, "What to do, what to do?"

I walk up the stairs to explore the empty house.

I push open the door at the far end of the hall to find a room full of paint cans, rollers and paint brushes.

And idea pops into my head, like a lightbulb flicking on in my head. Like you know Gru in Despicable Me, 'lightbulb'.

I gather what I need and crawl up into the attic ,where I remember Christian's room is.

I pop open the paint cans and dip a paint brush into the pink brush and stroke it slowly against the wall farthest from his bed.

"Oh wait, I need newspaper!" I say out loud.

I climb down the ladder again and make my down the stairs to search for newspaper in the kitchen. But before I get there, I hear sounds coming from inside.

I grab my sandal- don't judge me, it was all I had! -and hold it up as a weapon against whoever was there.

I slowly walk in ,alert but shocked when I see some guy going through the Greys' fridge.

"Hey!"

"Oh my gosh, what the hell! Who are you?" He shouts, holding a hand to his chest.

"Who are you?"

"I'm Sand's cousin, Jace. I just came for a visit," he says and then watches me, probably waiting for me to give an explanation.

"I'm Cindy and I'm babysitting with Christian, he needed to go somewhere for a while," I tell him.

"Oh okay- wait, Cindy? The ex?" He asks, a shocked expression masking his face.

"Yes," I say slowly.

"Okay. So what were you doing?" He asks.

My eyes light up, "I was going to do something, wanna help?" I smirk.

•••

After we're finally done painting one wall in Christian's room pink, Jace and I add our names in black in the corner before we sit at the other end of the room, sharing a bowl of brownies we found in the fridge.

"Cindy?" I hear a distance call for my name.

"He's coming," I giggle as Jace chuckles, looking at me mischievously.

"So you and Chris broke up right?" He asks.

"Yeah," I say, wondering why he's mentioning this.