Hector wasn’t looking at where the skirting boards used to be, he was looking at me.

“Matt was here to watch you, not help renovate the room,” Hector told me.

I waved my hand in between us. “I know, that’s okay. Duke came by and helped him, they never left me alone. Promise.” Then I looked around. “Where’s Matt anyway?”

“I let him go. I’m on duty now.”

“Oh! Okay!” I chirped and then put my hand to his shoulder and turned him toward the fireplace. “While they were doing that, since we couldn’t paint, Roxie, Ava, Stella, Ralphie and I stripped the wood on the fireplace. Isn’t that wood fantastic? Who in their right minds would paint wood like that?” I asked and didn’t wait for an answer. “As you can see, we couldn’t get in some of the grooves but Duke said there’s some goo you can brush on to loosen it up and scrape it out. He’s going to bring some by tomorrow.”

Hector was looking at the fireplace but his arm slid along my shoulders and he pulled me to his side.

“I’ve got the ‘goo’,” he said to the fireplace but I saw his lips twitching. “It’s in the kitchen.”

“Fantastic!” I cried, clapping my hands then I threw out an arm. “We all painted, we did the ceiling white, like you did in the other room. Ava did the edging because she’s an artist and she has a steady hand. It didn’t take any time at all with the five of us and we even did two coats. I think it looks fab. Don’t you?” I tilted my head to look up at him, he was watching me, eyes amused and he nodded. I smiled and went on, “Duke says we got the order wrong, we should have painted before we sanded the floors. Now I have to sand the paint splodges off.”

Hector curled me into his front and looked down at me. “We didn’t get the order wrong. You didn’t ask to paint. You asked to sand the floors.”

I blinked at him as I slid my arms loosely around his waist. “Oh. You should have said.”

“You seemed all fired up to sand. I didn’t want to disappoint you,” he explained.

My belly went into melt mode (yes, over Hector letting me sand his floors!).

How bizarre was that?

I shook it off, too excited by the news I had to impart on him, I couldn’t think about my melted belly.

“Anyway, Duke’s coming over tomorrow to stain the floors and he’s going to show me how!” I announced like Duke promised a one-day, comprehensive course in the intricacies of neurosurgery.

Hector grinned but said, “Not to put a damper on your good time, mamita, and as much as I appreciate Duke’s help, I wanna walk on my floors, not Duke’s.”

Oh. Wow.

He wanted to refinish his own floors.

That got a belly melt too!

Seriously, I was so weird!

“No worries,” I told Hector, again ignoring the belly melt. “I’ll break it to Duke.”

He bent his head and touched his mouth briefly to mine. “We get your business done, this weekend, we’ll finish the floors. Then we’ll have somewhere to sit other than the bed.”

I leaned further into him, liking that idea. Liking it loads.

It was not a surprise that got a belly melt too.

“Okay,” I said softly.

His eyes went over my face and hair again then he informed me, “Takin’ you out to dinner, get showered.”

“Okay,” I repeated, smiled at him, pulled away and headed to the stairs.

I was up three steps when Hector called, “We’re goin’ to Lincoln’s.” I stopped, looked at him and he went on, “It’s a roadhouse, you wear your designer armor, we’re likely to get ejected.”

I didn’t answer, he was grinning at me and I knew he was teasing. I just shook my head in a non-verbal “whatever”, trying to suppress my own grin (and failing) and headed upstairs.

I took a shower, scrubbed off the paint and thought about my day.

Outside of waking up kidnapped and the hours after that were in Jerry the Swine’s company, that day had been the second best day of my life.

Hector and I had breakfast at a greasy spoon and Detective Marker joined us for coffee at the end. I told them both about Jerry spilling that my father told him to take down the Balduccis one-by-one and I told them about the money.

Even though I’d been convinced this wouldn’t faze me, it did. There was something about knowing my father ordered Jerry to protect me, he was avenging me against the Balduccis and he wanted me to be comfortable, money-wise, that made me feel that eensy bit like the traitor Jerry called me.

On the other hand, he’d had me kidnapped, maybe murdered my mother and, as Hector put it, “didn’t mind mess”. So, even though way in the back of my mind I wondered if I was doing the right thing as a daughter, I, at least, didn’t have to wonder about being a good citizen.

During my story, Detective Marker and Hector exchanged some knowing glances but didn’t share with me and I didn’t push it. They both told me I did a great job and they also told me (weirdly) no matter what, I was not to let my father give me the Caymans account information.

For the most part, Hector listened without reaction except when I told them some of Jerry’s threats and commentary. Those little nuggets made his eyes go dark and that muscle leap in his cheek (so I didn’t share half of it, I thought that was wise).

Then, as he told me he would, Hector took me to Home Depot and we went to the paint section. I picked the color, Hector approved, the paint guy squirted some dye into cans, shook the big buckets in a killer, wild, shaking machine that I liked so much, I told Hector I wanted to buy one (this made Hector burst out laughing for some reason I did not get, okay, so I probably didn’t have that much paint to mix, but seriously, anyone could see it was a cool machine).

Matt (a.k.a. Surfer Dude Hottie) was waiting on Hector’s porch with Ralphie and YoYo (Ralphie holding a s’more latte from Tex) when we got to Hector’s house. Then Hector gave me a hot, long, leg-buckling kiss and took off. Ava, Stella and Roxie (called by Ralphie) showed up ten minutes later, Duke (called by Roxie) half an hour after that.

Then the fun began.

It might be a little weird that I liked painting, sanding and all that but I didn’t care.

Not even a little bit.

I finished the shower and put some goo on my scabbed over tattoo. Then I swiped my face with powder, went a bit heavier than normal on the blusher, took some time on shading my eyes with three different colors, slapped on mascara and did the lip gloss routine. I gunked up my hair with smoothing elixir, gave it a quick blow dry, gunked it up more with pommade and then left it loose to fall down my shoulders and back.