Peppermint Kiss (14 page)

“Look, thanks for standing up for me and everything,” I cut in, “but I'm fine, really. I don't want to go into it with him, and I definitely don't want
you
to go into it with him, in the middle of a
lesson
. I love hanging out with you guys. Let's not ruin the group over nothing.”

She grimaced. “Okay, fair enough.”

“I know you warned me,” I said, “and I should have listened. Luckily I wasn't that into him.”
Whoopsie, LIE again.
“Or I might be gutted right now. But it was no big deal, okay?”
Oh dear, another one.
“Let's just move on.”

“Okay,” said Summer, “if you're really sure. Although, he SO deserves a—”

“I'm sure,” I said firmly. “It was just a stupid mistake. That's the end of it. Definitely.”

The weekend was our big chance to get loads done on Rainbow Beauty. Mum and Saff had been down there every day, cleaning and sorting out, so by Saturday morning the kitchen area was spotless (the tiles had turned out to be a completely different colour once they were cleaned – a nicer one, luckily), the windows were sparkling and all the safety signs, first-aid stuff and fire extinguishers were stacked up ready to be put in their places.

We'd already put most of the rubbish, like the yucky old blinds, paper files and gross bin (and sexist calendar), into the skip Liam had ordered. Mum and Saff had made a start on preparing the walls for decorating, and sanded back the skirting boards, and we were planning to get the place completely painted over the weekend. The velvet sofas Mum had ordered had arrived, and were safely under their plastic wrapping and two huge dust sheets.

I'd seen a chiller counter advertised in the local paper and phoned up about that too. I'd had the idea of putting the fresh face masks and smoothie ingredients in it, displayed really nicely, maybe on ice or with flowers round, to make a cool feature in the reception area. It was only thirty quid, and I'd been so excited I'd found myself just calling up and asking about the size, and then saying I'd have it.

I knew Ben and Summer were coming to help out (although Summer couldn't stay long because she was going camping with her family). Marco had said he'd come too, but that was before the gig. As things were so awkward between us I'd just assumed he wouldn't show his face (I hadn't stabbed him with any more glass rods but we still weren't properly speaking). So I had a big shock when he came striding in with Ben. As usual, my stomach flipped over just from looking at Marco, annoyingly, and I found myself wishing I wasn't in my decorating gear of a pea-green old school shirt and my worst jeans. Only to show him what he was missing, of course, not to impress him or anything.

I introduced Marco to everyone and Ben to Mum, and soon the boys were busy arguing over who was going to lift this really heavy desk that we hadn't managed to get into the skip. They were both insisting they could do it without the other's help and even when they eventually decided to work together, they still couldn't shift it. That was when Summer strolled in, with her big brothers in tow. Once again, I felt like shutting Saff's mouth for her, as it was hanging open at the sight of Jed and Jim.

“Just in time,” she said, giving them her sultriest smile, “some real men.”

“Oh, thanks very much!” grumbled Marco.

“Fair point, though,” said Summer. “I didn't think two puny boys would be much use in this situation, so I brought some muscle along.”

By the time she and Marco had finished bickering about whether or not he was puny, Jed and Jim had the desk in the skip. Then Liam pulled up outside in his van and they went striding off to help him unload.

“I'll get out there and give them a hand,” said Marco, making for the door. But Mum intercepted him. “I think they've got the heavy lifting covered,” she said, giving him a wicked smile. “But if you could get the cobwebs off the ceiling that would be wonderful,” she added, handing him a feather duster. Ha ha! She obviously hadn't forgiven him for what happened at the gig.

While Marco was staring at the fluffy pink duster in horror, she handed Ben a Stanley knife. “And if you could get this old carpet ripped up, Ben, love, that would be brilliant.”

“Yes, of course, Mrs. Green,” said Ben, weighing the knife in his hand and looking smugly at Marco, who grumbled, “Hang on, why does he get a knife and I—”

But he got cut off by us girls all greeting Liam as he staggered in clutching a box with some pieces of glass sticking out of the top. “Morning all!” he cried, leaning it against the wall and going over to Marco and Ben. “Hi, I'm Liam,” he said, grinning and holding out his hand.

When the introductions were over, he said, “That glass is going to be shelves for your product sales. And this is for the juice bar,” he added, as Jed and Jim burst in with a long bit of countertop that looked like it weighed a ton and put it down before they dropped it.

“But we can't afford this!” Mum shrieked. “It's granite, it must have cost a fortune.”

“It was gratis,” said Liam, beaming. “I've just done a kitchen refurb and the clients let me have it.”

“But how could anyone throw this out?” Mum gasped, stroking it lovingly. “There's not a scratch on it!”

Liam shrugged. “It just wasn't to their taste. They moved into this smartly-done place and they wanted the cottagey look.”

“What a waste,” said Mum, “although I have to admit I'd have done the same kind of thing a few months ago. Oh well, our gain. Thank you so, so much, Liam.”

“You're welcome,” Liam said proudly. “But that's not all, because I managed to blag the kitchen stools as well.” He gestured towards the door where Jed and Jim were heading back in with four smart cream leather bar stools. Mum was totally wowed, and started going on about what good quality they were. “I got them in return for fitting their bathroom lights,” Liam told her. “And two free massages for the lady of the house – I hope that's okay.”

“Yes, of course!” Mum cried.

Liam beamed. “Good, because in the van I've got two chests of drawers that they were chucking out too. I thought they looked perfect for the treatment rooms and I promised her a luxury pedicure and a full body treatment for them.”

Mum was hugging him by then, and just saying thank you over and over again. Me, Saff and Grace all said thank you loads too, and I had a go on one of the cool bar stools. Then Jed and Jim went back out with Liam for the chests of drawers, Ben made a start on ripping up the revolting hairy carpet and Mum, Saff and Grace got back to preparing the walls for painting. Once the van was unloaded, Jed, Jim and Summer had to head off. So, after we'd all said our goodbyes and Saff had finally put her tongue back in, I was left standing there with Marco, him still holding the offending feather duster and neither of us knowing what to say.

Luckily Liam was ready to go to the DIY store then and we'd planned that I'd go with him, because I was in charge of the colour scheme. As well as paint, we had loads of other stuff to get, like the laminate flooring, the underlay for it, and the light fittings and lamps for the treatment rooms. He was going to use his trade discount to get it all cheaper for us. “I could do with one of you lads to help load the van at the other end,” he said, just as we were walking out of the door.

Ben leaped up but Marco threw down the feather duster, muttered, “I'll go,” and strode out of the door before anyone could argue. He sat in the back seat, so I got in the front next to Liam. I mean, it was nice that he'd turned up, but I wasn't planning to make a special effort to be friendly or anything.

It was so cool when we got to the DIY store because under the canopy bit by the entrance, there was this recycling promotion. You could bring in old paint you weren't going to use, or help yourself to whichever tins you wanted from the pile. I was so excited, realizing that if I looked through the huge stack really carefully, I might be able to get most of the paint for free. I had a good hunt for the perfect pink (I'd been planning to do the whole place in a gorgeous rich magenta) but I soon realized that most of the tins were at least half empty.

When I saw how nice the possible purples I'd rooted out and lined up looked together I had the idea to use more colours, maybe even all the colours of the rainbow, if the tones worked. So, as well as the purples, I picked out a couple of violets and a deep indigo, a scarlet, a big tin of burnt orange, a rich yolk yellow and a moss green. There was some lovely vintage grey for the woodwork and units too, so in the end we only had to pay for two massive tubs of trade white undercoat.

Things seemed to be going so well – the way it was all coming together made it feel like Rainbow Beauty was meant to be. When Marco came to get me to look at the different shades of laminate flooring (Liam wasn't sure which would go best with my new colour scheme), I couldn't help giving him a massive grin.

He peered at me suspiciously. “Erm, Abs, you do know this is
me
you're grinning at, don't you?” he asked.

“I know,” I said, suddenly really wanting to put all the silly resentment behind us, rather than just
pretending
I had. “Look, let's just forget about what happened, yeah?” I said, as I followed him into the store. “I want to focus on Rainbow Beauty now.”

“Sure,” he said. “Yeah. Whatever. Cool.”

I realized that that was as close to an apology from him as I was going to get, and decided it would have to do. I grinned and nudged him. “I reckon I'll just pick whichever flooring's the heaviest,” I said. “It'll be funny watching you trying to get it in the van.”

“You cheeky cow!” he cried, nudging me back.

It was really nice for us two to just be back to normal with no weird edginess between us. I did have to remind myself not to get
too
back to normal though, because for us normal meant me flirting with him and “accidentally” touching him, and staring at him when he wasn't looking. I had to find a new normal. A just-mates kind of normal.

On the way back we stopped off to collect the chiller counter. The fishmonger I'd bought it from hadn't mentioned that it weighed a ton, and it was hilarious watching Liam lift one end easily as Marco struggled with the other. I did try to help him but he wouldn't have any of it, so I relaxed on the pavement and made a few skinny indie boy jokes instead.

Fitting the counter into the back of the van meant piling the back seat up with some of our stuff, so we ended up all having to go in the front for the rest of the journey. The passenger bench seat was
designed
to fit two people, but it was still a bit of a squash, and every time Liam went round a corner, I ended up leaning into Marco and getting swirled up in his gorgeous smell, which made my heart pound fast and my stomach start flipping.
Don't get any ideas, Abbie Green
, I told myself sternly.
Think about how badly he showed you up at the gig. Friend, yes. Anything more, absolute no-no.

Well, that seemed to work. I shuffled away from him and gripped the door handle instead of his arm when Liam took the corners too fast. Also, when Katy Perry came on the radio singing “Hot N Cold”, me and Liam joined in at the tops of our voices, and I didn't even care if Marco thought we were lame. When it got to the chorus, I just looked at him, raised my eyebrows and gave him a wicked grin, as if the song was talking about
him
. I just wanted him to realize that I knew exactly what he was like with girls, and that I wasn't bothered about him in that way any more.

Back at the shop, we cracked on and got loads done, and Marco and Ben didn't leave till half eight, after we'd had our takeaway pizzas (I made sure I said “See ya” to Marco in the same way as I did to Ben, so he didn't think he was getting any special treatment). I split a double pepperoni with Saff as usual and it was really nice, us all sitting on the floor admiring our work (Mum wouldn't let any of us near the purple velvet sofas!).

Mum and Saff had finished preparing the walls for paint and got two white undercoats on so that we could get the colours up first thing in the morning. Meanwhile, Grace had been upstairs filling out health and safety forms and packaging our samples up for the cosmetic chemist to test (she came back down for her fave ham and mushroom pizza though). When everyone had gone home or back upstairs, I sat in the middle of the shop floor with the different paint colours brushed onto bits of paper all around me, and worked out how best to do the colour scheme. Then I just sat there and gazed at everything we'd done so far, and I felt like pinching myself to make sure I wasn't dreaming.

On Sunday, it was just me, Mum, Saff, Grace and Liam at the shop, but still, it was amazing how much we got done. Liam laid the floor with Grace's help (she worked out all the cutting angles and marked the boards up for him so he could just crack on with the actual fitting). Luckily he'd thought to get the click-down not the glue-down kind, so we could walk on it straight away.

I'd decided not to go for a complete rainbow of colours in the end, because I was worried it would look like a children's nursery, but I planned to layer different violets, purples and indigos on the walls, doors, woodwork and shelves. I'd offset that with the rich yolk yellow on the reception desk, aged down with sandpaper and a thin layer of gold. And I'd put the mossy green on the wall behind the rich purple velvety sofas. I had the burnt orange left over, because it was just too much with all the other colours, but maybe we'd be able to use it for something later on. The painting took us the whole of Sunday, and we'd have to give it all another coat and do some touching up during the week, but it already looked amazing.