“What about everything else that was in here?”
“I moved it all.”
“Dammit, Adley. Why didn’t you ask for help?”
“Because we weren’t exactly talking,” I bite back, hating the direction this conversation is going. I brought him in here to make things better, not worse.
“I don’t care. I’m here for you. I’m here for the baby. From now on, if you need anything, you call me. Got it?”
“I don’t like the way you’re talking to me.”
“Well, I don’t like that you’re trying to do all this shit by yourself,” he says, waving toward the paint cans. “Jesus Christ, Adley. You can’t paint. The fumes can’t be good for the baby.”
“I talked to the guy at the hardware store and bought the low-fume paint. It’s supposed to be safe for pregnant women.”
“I don’t care if it’s safe for puppies to eat; you’re not painting the room.”
“Damn it, Lincoln,” I growl, fighting back tears. “Stop telling me what I can and can’t do. I’m pregnant, not disabled.”
Lowering his head, Lincoln rubs a hand along the back of his neck. “Shit, I don’t want to fight with you.” He shakes his head. “I’m trying to look out for you and protect you, but I can’t do that if you don’t let me.”
“And I’m trying to keep myself busy because I miss you, and I don’t know what else to do. I can’t study because I can’t concentrate. All I can think about is you and the baby, and I just want him or her to have a room.”
Lincoln takes a step forward and looks at me as though he wants to pull me into his arms, but something holds him back. Resolve washes over his face, and he looks down at the paint.
“Then let’s paint.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Right now?”
“Why not? You got something else to do this evening?”
“No,” I answer quickly. “Now is perfect. Let me go change.”
I run into my bedroom and change into an old pair of pants and a ratty T-shirt. He’s offering me an olive branch, and I’m taking it. By the time I return, Lincoln has the baseboard taped off and is working on the corners of the wall. When he’s finished, he turns to me.
“What color are we doing first?”
“I bought the light gray for this wall, and I thought I’d do the other walls in yellow.”
He lifts a brow. “Yellow?”
“It’s neutral. It’ll work for a girl or a boy.”
“Yellow it is.” He pops the top off the primer, mixes it, and pours some into a paint pan.
“I have a few rules,” he says, handing me a paint roller. “Stay low. Let me worry about the high spots, and under no circumstances do you get on that ladder.”
“Deal.”
Climbing on the ladder, Lincoln works on edging along the ceiling and the corners, while I start at the base, and we work our way toward each other. The wall is small, and within an hour we’ve got the primer and first coat of gray paint on.
“I love it,” I say, setting my roller down in the pan. “What do you think?”
“It looks good.”