TECHNICOLOR
Sunday morning found them in that soft, nowhere stretch of time where it was somehow both nine a.m. and two p.m. emotionally.
Penelope was sprawled sideways across the bed, head propped on her elbows, one ankle hooked lazily over Jack’s thigh. Jack was on his back, pillows stacked behind his shoulders, bare-chested, one hand resting on her calf like it had wandered there hours ago and seen no reason to leave. The sheet was somewhere near their shins. Sunlight was forcing itself around the edges of the blinds with the cheerful violence of a thing that had never once been asked its opinion.
They had already done the can’t-keep-our-hands-to-ourselves part of the morning.
Twice.
Now they were in the post-glow zone: warm, a little ruined, and stupidly chatty. Their best setting.
“Okay,” Penelope said, squinting at the ceiling. “Top five breakfast foods. Go.”
Jack hummed. His thumb made one absent little circle at the back of her calf, like his hand hadn’t gotten the memo that they were off duty.
“Pancakes,” he said. “But not the sad flat ones. The thick ones. The ones that feel like a commitment.”
She nodded solemnly. “Aggressive first choice.”
“It’s breakfast. It should have some self-respect.”
“Continue.”
“Coffee.”
“That is not a food.”
“Then explain why I’m full after three cups.”
“Because you don’t eat breakfast,” she said. “You drink anxiety.”
He smiled without opening his eyes. “Breakfast burrito. Fancy toast. Leftover pizza.”
She gasped. “Leftover pizza over hash browns?”
“I said what I said.”
She shifted higher onto one elbow so she could look at him properly. His hair was still a mess from her hands. There was a faint pillow crease near his temple. He looked offensively relaxed for a man who, forty minutes ago, had been saying things that should probably qualify as infrastructure damage.
“The correct answer,” she informed him, “was breakfast sandwich, hash browns, toast with irresponsible amounts of butter, leftover pizza, and Penelope in his bed.”
He barked out a laugh. “Wow. Subtle.”
She stretched like a cat, the movement dragging her foot slightly higher over his thigh. His hand just followed, sliding to her knee.
“Ask me any question,” she said. “I’m full of wisdom.”
“Okay, Socrates. Why does Brandon breathe like that in meetings?”
She didn’t even have to think. “Because he’s a mouth-breather and the universe hates us.”
“Scientific.”
“Thank you.”
They fell into easy silence after that, the good kind—no pressure, just jokes sitting under the surface waiting for whoever got bored first.
Penelope turned her head and looked down the length of him. He was staring at the ceiling like it had mildly disappointed him. The sheet rested low across his hips. His legs were angled slightly where they’d landed after the last round of rearranging and no one had cared enough to fix them because they’d had more important things to do.
His hand slid down and wrapped around her ankle again, fingers warm and absent-minded.
She smiled to herself.
He exhaled. “I do need to be an adult later, though.”
She made a face. “Rude.”
“Change the air filters. Tighten the shower head before it decapitates me. Pretend I know what a wrench does.”
She turned more fully onto her side. “What’s wrong with the shower head?”
“It droops.”
She blinked. “That feels loaded.”
“It’s plumbing.”
“Still loaded.”
His mouth twitched. “I tried to tighten it, but—” He lifted a hand and made a vague little gesture toward the bathroom. “Bad angle. Can’t get enough reach without standing, and, famously, that’s not currently in my skill set.”
It was said the way he said most practical limitations now—clean, dry, matter-of-fact. No drag on it.
“Same with the filters,” he added. “Ceilings are out of my jurisdiction. I was going to have Aiden come by later and do the heroic tall-person bit.”
That familiar ache hit her in the chest.
She didn’t let any of it show.
“Aiden,” she repeated.
“Mm.”
“As in your brother Aiden gets the handyman arc.”
Jack glanced over at her, amused. “That is a deranged sentence.”
“Oh my God.”
“No.”
“You have broken things.”
“I have apartment maintenance.”
“You have things in your home that require attention, and I—” she put one hand dramatically to her chest “—am right here.”
He stared at her. “Pen. I was joking.”
“I’m not. I have tools.”
“…tools?”
“Jack.” She climbed over him, hair falling forward, eyes bright in that way that usually meant he was about to lose an argument and possibly a whole afternoon. “Do not take this from me.”
He laughed under his breath. “You’re genuinely this excited about maintenance.”
“Yes,” she said. “We’re going to Home Depot.”
He blinked. “Now?”
She looked at him like he’d suggested they skip oxygen. “Yes. Now.”
An hour later, Home Depot smelled like sawdust, rubber, and men named Brad making very confident mistakes.
Jack rolled in beside her through the automatic doors, one hand on the push rim, looking around with the alert caution of a man entering a very orange country. Penelope had her hair yanked into a terrible bun, his sweatshirt over leggings, sneakers only technically tied. She looked like she could build a shed or set one on fire, depending on customer service.
“Okay,” she said, pulling a cart toward them and then immediately abandoning it. “Mission parameters: air filters, some kind of wrench for your shower head, maybe a better shower head, and I want to look at clamps.”
Jack looked over at her. “Clamps.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“That sentence has never once improved a situation.”
“We’re starting in plumbing. Filters are aisle twenty-something. Tools are twelve. Come on.”
Three different employees offered help in the first five minutes.
Every time, Penelope smiled brightly and said some variation of, “We’re good, thank you,” in the tone of a woman who had been spiritually formed by retail environments and trusted no one inside them.
Jack watched her steer them through the maze like she had a blueprint in her skull.
“Do you live here?” he asked quietly as they turned into plumbing.
“Basically.”
“Should I be intimidated?”
She smiled—sharp, a little suggestive. “Bit late for that.”
He looked at the wall of shower heads. Then at her.
“When you said you had tools,” he said, “what level are we talking here? IKEA Allen key? Or are you secretly one bad weekend away from flipping a bungalow.”
“I don’t know.” She was scanning the shower head options like she was reading a menu. “I have drills and saws and stuff.”
He blinked. “Saws.”
“Yeah.”
“Plural.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Why do you have saws?”
She turned and stared at him. “You know that built-in under my TV.”
He squinted. “The one with the doors and the little brass latches.”
“Yeah. I made that,” she said.
He blinked. “You built it.”
“Yes.”
“With what, vibes?”
“Maple mostly,” she said. “And screws. And clamps. And several deeply codependent Saturdays with a miter saw.”
His brain visibly stalled.
She continued scanning shower heads like she had not just detonated his understanding of her.
“I used to do projects all the time,” she lifted one shoulder. “Shelving, built-ins, weird little furniture things. Then I discovered the sex dimension and now I spend my Saturdays in your bed.”
He opened his mouth.
Nothing useful came out.
“Not complaining,” she added. “For the record. Just saying. I miss building stuff. So let me fix your shower, Darwin.”
Before he could answer, a voice called from the end of the aisle. “Penelope?”
A guy in an orange apron and safety glasses appeared, grinning. Mid-forties, graying beard, the comfortable energy of someone who’d been here long enough to know where everything was and stopped caring about corporate.
“Dave,” she said, like this was perfectly normal. They did a quick half-hug around the shower head display. “You still hoarding the good plywood?”
“If management asks, no.” He looked at Jack and smiled. “You with her?”
Jack huffed a quiet laugh. “Apparently.”
Dave grinned. “Good luck. She’s got opinions.” He turned back to Penelope. “You building again? Haven’t seen you in here since that bookshelf project. The one with the finger joints.”
“That was like a year ago.”
“Yeah, and they were clean as hell. I showed the picture to my nephew.” He nodded at Jack. “She does corner joints like she’s got a degree in it.”
Penelope made a face. “Okay, relax, Dave, it was one bookshelf.”
Jack looked at her.
She shrugged, suddenly a little shy. “I watch a lot of YouTube.”
Dave laughed. “YouTube doesn’t teach you patience. That’s all you.” He clapped her shoulder. “Anyway, I’m in lumber if you need me. Good seeing you.”
He wandered off.
Jack stared at her.
“What?” she said.
“You have a guy.”
“I don’t have a guy.”
“You have a Home Depot guy who shows pictures of your woodworking to his nephew.”
She pointed at a shower head. “This one has good pressure. Focus.”
A few minutes later Penelope snagged a pack of air filters off the shelf, turned, and shoved them into his hands.
“Here,” she said. “Hold this.”
He wrestled them onto his lap. They were big and weirdly light, too tall and too wide, the cardboard slipping against his sweatshirt every time he tried to angle them into something stable.
He looked down at them.
Then up at her.
Then back down again, like maybe on the third try they’d become less stupidly shaped.
“I feel like I’m being mugged by a very flimsy robot,” he said.
Penelope had already turned toward the next shelf, but the line made her glance back.
Then stop.
He was still trying to make the filters behave with an expression of concentrated annoyance that was, unfortunately, very funny. Not because he looked helpless exactly—he didn’t—but because he was clearly applying real thought to a problem with absolutely no dignity in it.
She just stood there for a second, watching him.
Fond, mostly.
Also increasingly delighted.
He shifted the pack higher on his lap. One corner slid out immediately.
By the time he finally looked over, she was visibly losing the fight not to laugh.
He narrowed his eyes. “What?”
She shook her head once. “Nothing.”
He looked back down and tried again.
The filters gave another soft, useless skid.
That did it.
A laugh slipped out.
Jack looked up. “Oh, that’s rude.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, not sounding sorry at all. “It’s just—I cannot believe I’m witnessing you get neutralized by this stupid weightless rectangle.”
He stared at her. “That is such a dramatic reading of the situation.”
“You’re losing.”
“I am not losing.”
One side slipped lower across his thighs.
Now she was actually laughing.
“This is so annoying,” he said, laughing himself. “I can’t believe you’re laughing at me right now. Rude.”
A man pushing a cart of lightbulbs passed the end of the aisle, glanced over, and made the fatal mistake of making eye contact.
Jack gestured at Penelope with one hand. “Can you believe this?”
The guy slowed for half a second, caught Penelope laughing and Jack with the filters sliding all over his lap, and immediately looked like he wished he’d taken a different aisle.
“Uh,” he said. “Looks like you guys have it handled.”
Then he kept moving.
Penelope laughed harder.
Jack watched the man flee. “Unbelievable. No solidarity.”
“That poor man wanted absolutely no part of your persecution,” she said.
He adjusted the filters again. They slid with the same soft, useless little skid.
Penelope looked at them, then back at him, smiling so hard she had to duck her head for a second.
“Oh my God,” she said. “This is going to keep me warm for weeks.”
“I hate how much joy this is bringing you.”
“I know.”
She stepped in then, and plucked the filters neatly off his lap, tucking them under her arm like they weighed nothing.
“See?” she said. “You need me.”
He let out a laugh he was trying not to have. “That felt manipulative.”
“It was manipulative,” she said. “But was it inaccurate?”
He opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Then sighed. “You’re having way too good a time.”
She beamed. “I’m having a wonderful time.”
“You are a menace.”
“You literally cannot wheel and carry a cardboard ghost at the same time,” she said. “This is not on me.”
He put one hand back on the push rim. “I was managing.”
“You were being slowly eaten by packaging.”
He laughed again, shaking his head. “Give me one.”
“No.”
“Penelope.”
“You’ve lost air-filter privileges.”
Back at his place, it was weirdly fun.
That was the irritating part.
It should have been ordinary. Domestic. Mildly dusty.
Instead it had the energy of a heist conducted by two people who were absolutely too into each other to be trusted with household tasks.
The filter was in the hallway ceiling.
Penelope made him park under the vent “for tactical support.”
They didn’t have a ladder, so she dragged a dining chair out from the kitchen.
Jack watched her go back for the mop bucket.
Then watched her flip it upside down.
Then watched her stack it on the seat.
He stared at the construction.
“That is not stable.”
“It’s fine.”
“That is a legitimate Jenga situation.”
“It’s load-bearing Jenga.”
“Penelope.”
She was already climbing up, screwdriver in one hand, the other braced against the wall. “Just hold my ankles.”
He rolled closer, reaching up to steady her calves as she wobbled slightly on the bucket.
“If you fall,” he said, “I’m telling everyone you died doing something deeply on-brand.”
“I would never die doing home maintenance. Too boring.”
She got the vent cover loose. Dust rained down the second she pulled it free.
She coughed, laughing. “Oh wow. These are disgusting.”
“Rude,” he said. “I live here.”
She held out her hand without looking. “Filter.”
He passed one up. She swapped it out with efficient little movements, forearm tightening as she pushed the new one into place.
“Beer me,” she said.
“You are standing on a bucket on a chair.”
“And?”
He rolled his eyes, went to the kitchen, grabbed her beer, came back, and held it up to her like she was a chaotic little queen on a very precarious throne.
She took a sip one-handed, screwed the vent cover back on, then hopped down with a grin.
“Beautiful,” she said.
She had dust on her forehead. His screwdriver in one hand. Beer in the other. His sweatshirt hanging off one shoulder.
Something in his chest did a small, dangerous thing.
“Shower head next,” she said.
For that she stood on the edge of the tub with the monkey wrench while he parked in the doorway and handed her things like a one-man tool cart.
“Okay,” she said, twisting the fixture. “Test.”
He reached under the spray, turned it on, felt the stronger pressure hit his hand.
He looked at her.
“That’s actually better.”
“I know,” she said, wiping her hands on a towel. “I’m very powerful.”
“You are very something.”
She slid off the tub edge—and then, because consent and boundaries had apparently become theoretical subjects between them—dropped sideways across his lap.
He caught her automatically, one arm around her waist.
“Look at us,” she said. “Being functional adults.”
“We changed a filter and replaced a shower head.”
She beamed. “Basically married.”
He looked up at her, hair still terrible, eyes bright, entirely pleased with herself.
“Don’t propose in a bathroom,” he said.
“Why, you gonna say no?”
He huffed a laugh and rolled them back toward the living room, her still draped across his lap, his hands on the wheels, both of them slightly high on dust and domestic competence.
He transferred to the couch, settling in while she grabbed them both another drink. When she came back, the apartment felt different in that strange tiny way adjusted things always do—cleaner somehow. More inhabited. Less theoretical.
She dropped onto the couch beside him and slung her feet across his lap like they belonged there.
Which, increasingly, they did.
For a while they just sat with the TV half-on and the day humming quietly around them.
Then Jack said, lightly, because saying it seriously felt too exposing, “So. Woodworking.”
She glanced over. “What about it?”
“Just weird to think there was a whole version of you spending Saturdays with Dave talking about finger joints.”
She snorted. “Dave’s married.”
“Still sounds like he’d leave his wife for a good piece of plywood.”
She laughed, then went quiet for a second, one hand tracing idle shapes on his forearm.
“I didn’t stop existing,” she said. “I just… reallocated my Saturdays.”
He turned to look at her.
“It’s not like I gave up building things,” she continued. “I just started showing up here instead of aisle twelve. Which—” She poked his stomach. “—for the record, is a significant upgrade from talking to Dave about wood glue.”
He smiled. “Dave seems nice.”
“Dave once explained the difference between polyurethane and lacquer for twenty minutes while I was trying to buy a paintbrush.”
“Okay, yeah, I’m better than Dave.”
She grinned, feet nudging his thigh. “Significantly.”
He looked at her for a second—hair still a disaster, dust faint on one cheekbone, his sweatshirt drowning her—and felt something settle in his chest that he didn’t have clean language for yet.
“You know you can still do both,” he said quietly.
She tilted her head. “Both?”
“Build stuff. Be here. You don’t have to pick.”
She studied his face for a beat.
Then smiled—small, sure, a little bit fond in a way that made him feel uncomfortably seen.
“I know,” she said. “But also—” She gestured vaguely at the apartment, at him, at the space between them. “This is better than anything I’ve built.”
He opened his mouth.
She cut him off. “And before you get weird about it, I mean that in the least precious way possible. Like, objectively. A bookshelf is not better than the sex dimension.”
He huffed a quiet laugh. “What is this?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “But it’s in Technicolor and I’m not going back.”
He blinked.
She sat up slightly, animated now. “Like—okay. Before this I was in Kansas. Perfectly fine. Sepia-toned. Functional. And then you happened and now everything’s in full color and I’ve seen the flying monkeys and I can’t un-see them.”
He stared at her for half a second.
Then started laughing.
“Are you calling me a flying monkey?”
“No,” she said, completely serious. “You’re obviously the weird, hot Tin Man. The point is—Kansas was fine. This is better.”
He was still smiling, something warm and helpless blooming under his ribs. “You’re completely unhinged.”
“You love it.”
That, unfortunately, was true.
She settled back against the couch, feet still across his lap, looking pleased with herself.
“And anyway,” she added, “you’re doing the same thing.”
“What?”
“You had a whole system before me. A life. Routines. Ways of doing things alone. Now you occasionally let me stand on buckets and beer me from the kitchen. That’s not nothing.”
He looked at her for a second.
Then away.
Then back.
“No,” he said quietly. “It’s not.”
She looked at him for a second, then smiled.
Then she poked him in the stomach again.
“Also. When were you going to tell me you’ve been breathing in prehistoric vent dust?”
He laughed. “I was hoping to die before it became an issue.”
“Not on my watch, Tin Man,” she said. “Go get the good popcorn.”
He looked down at her feet still on his lap.
Then up at her face.
“You’re bossy.”
“You love it.”
He didn’t even argue.
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