Midnight Rules are Breaking

What it Costs

The smell of mixing paint-filled Rey's nostrils as she and Ben walked around the paint station to where the color cards sat on the wall. Each color shone in the fluorescent lighting of the store begging her to pick it.

Ben was already moving towards the beiges on the right side of the wall flipping through each card and carefully removing a few. He got straight to the point. Of course, Rey already knew this from their experience in Lumber Liquidators where Ben waltzed in, headed straight for the laminate section, and started flipping through their selection of flooring.

He already had three cards in his hand before she started browsing.

The color selection was daunting. The bright oranges and yellows screamed her name immediately even though she knew, practically, that a bold color choice for the walls was not the way to go. Rey beelined for a subtle grey and picked it up to save for later.

After some more brainstorming, Ben thought that their best course of action would be to finish the house room by room since Rey would need to move in two weeks. He had handed her a list one day, after they met up for coffee, on what he thought they should prioritize first.

To the point and organized.

They set out to look for floors the next day.

"Hey," Ben said. "What do you think of this? To brown?"

He held up the card to the sample block of flooring they received. It was the dullest color pairing she had ever seen in her life.

"Yeah, no."

She walked over to Ben to see what he had so far and tried to ignore the butterflies that fluttered in her stomach. Rey thought that particular ailment would have vanished by now, but it appears she wasn't that lucky. Maybe she had some sort of Ben induced parasite that decided to reorganize its nest in her stomach any time she was less than five feet away from him.

Sure. That explains it.

Rey opened her hand, motioning him to hand over the colors he had selected. His fingertips grazed hers slightly while handing them over. The cards were warm from his hand.

Rey glanced at him. His gaze met her own and suddenly her entire state of being was hyper-analyzed. Was she staring too long? It wasn't her fault his eyes were so enthralling.

She tore her eyes away from his before things got really awkward, instead becoming unrealistically enamored with the cards that now lay in her hand. Was that passable?

After a few moments Rey said, "I think for the color of the walls were better off with more of a greyish tone. The beige will either wash out the flooring or not match at all."

Ben hummed his understanding his dark eyes examining the wall again. "I'll leave the colors up to you," he added with a small smile before taking the cards back. Thankfully this time there was no heedless finger touching.

Rey went to work shortly after, casually picking through each barely different color before moving on to the next row. She picked up a particular brown that was all sorts of wrong and called over to Ben.

"And now I present to you the color of the day." She squinted reading the name label at the bottom. "Caramel river brown."

Ben made a face and Rey laughed. "More like poop brown," she said.

He laughed a little before picking up a card in the green section.

"You know, I always wanted my room to remind me of my most embarrassing moment in grade school." His sarcasm made her laugh even harder.