“This colour again, really?” Both Alexis and Eoghan look a little surprised by Quentin’s question. They’d been all looking over the little paint palettes that had been selected and brought back to check just what kind of colours they were picking to put on the walls to which room.
“I am so not touching this paint. You guys can do all the painting if you want.” There he goes, almost stalking off with a huff and I can’t help but laugh a little, I shake my head and take a moment to breathe in and out else I know I’ll just laugh again at how silly all of this is.
“When we were painting last time, when I moved in with him, we had this exactly colour picked. He started applying it on the walls and it turned out to be this ugly orange, burnt like colour. I applied it over, after him and it came out the way it should have. I don’t think Quentin should touch paint honestly. I guess, maybe, he thought there would also be something else beyond paint to do.”
Alexis’s lips quirk just slightly and I know he’s trying to keep himself from snickering. This is a bit of a silly situation now that we can think back on this. The colour as a whole is gorgeous, there’s no saying otherwise but Quentin doing the paint up with it just asking for terrible results.
Eoghan blinks, looks down to the paper palettes in his hands and blinks a second time. “No one asked anyone to paint yet, we’re just taping those to the walls so we know which colour goes where…”
I can’t blame him for being slightly baffled over Quentin’s reaction, it is a little out there but I guess it marked him in some way, that the paint he was trying to apply didn’t turn out to be right, whereas when I did, it was just fine. Makes me wonder what other colours could be different in our house if I had done all the painting.
Then again, all the colours are fine as they are now, I wouldn’t change them for anything in the world.
“Let’s just keep going, he’ll come back around, if not he’ll be home, huffing, waiting for me to get back to huff and pout a little more about it. I don’t mind. This candy apple red is a gorgeous colour and if you decorate just so, which Quentin would happily do in a heartbeat, your room will just absolutely pop.”
We walk through all three floors, looking through rooms, checking the plans to know where exactly we were and what colour was wanted where. Eoghan even has little sketches of how he imagines the layout of certain rooms to be done once the furniture is in, it’s adorable really. When I moved in with Quentin, all the rooms were done up except my own bedroom and my studio, so I don’t know how he went about all his setting up. I can’t imagine him scribbling down on a piece of paper how he wanted things. It’s just not like him.
At the top, on the room, we look through the glassless structure that will soon be the mock-greenhouse, mock-solarium. It’s big, I can see where the pool will be. It’ll be even bigger than ours. Then again they have the room whereas we only selected one room and settled for a slight pool. Still it’s more than enough for us. This is just going to be huge, honestly.
No sign of Quentin until we head back down to the bottom floor, where he’s standing near the palette we’d taped to the wall, with that one colour that just doesn’t agree with his painting skills. He looks a little torn and I know that apologizing is difficult for him though he tries his best.
When he spies us, he stiffens a little and I shake my head. I walk to his side, settle my arm through his and he manages a small smile for me. This is a little better.
“It’s all right, really. I know you didn’t think to really wander off as you did. I told them about the painting issue and they know it’s all right. When we get back home, I have a little idea for us to try, I think you might appreciate it and it will teach both of us something important, I think.”
He shrugs and sighs. Alexis and Eoghan approach us, both smiling as if nothing at all had happened.
“So next week all the floors will be completed, we’ll be able to set tarps everywhere, the paint will be coming in and we’ll be getting that process started. We might honestly hire a team to help us along. It’s a lot of painting to do and it might just take us forever if we do it on our own or even with the help of our future residents. I honestly don’t know that I trust them with a paintbrush yet anyway.”
I laugh softly again and shake my head. I squeeze Quentin’s arm gently and I see his lips curl slightly into the ghost of a smile.
“This place is going to be wonderful for the all of you. It’s going to be so peaceful that you won’t honestly know what to do with yourselves once you’re all settled in, I bet.” That had almost been the case for me after I’d moved in with Quentin. I hadn’t had to struggle to survive, find food or shelter. I hadn’t known what to do with myself for a while, it took some adapting.
We head back to our respective homes for the time being and when we’re inside, coats put away and boots off, I walk Quentin towards my studio. I set up two easels, two canvas and set up paint on two palettes. Exactly the same colour in the same spot on both. I hand Quentin one of the palettes, one brush and walk him through just painting simple shapes, or even just lines if that was what he wanted, in each colour. Then lower on the canvas, he can mix up if he wants.
I’ll do the same on my end, we’ll leave them be when we’re done and when they’re dry we’ll look them over. I’ll compare colours together and see just which colours he seems to affect more than others. See if it really is just the red from last time of if it’s every colour there is. I figure it’s a good sort of exercise, it gets us to a point where we know where things will differ.
He doesn’t look willing to do it, seems to think it might be a waste of time but it’s my paint and we have all the time in the world, I tell him as much. I know he just doesn’t want to waste time or paint but I think it’s a good exercise and it gets him trying something new, something he’s never really given a shot at before. Who knows, he might just develop a liking for art in this form. I wouldn’t mind sharing my supplies with him, if that were the case.
A year of writing, a lifetime of thinking 