But then I thought, if she could pick up a brush with me in the silliness of the exercise, it might help her feel safe to try again and experience joy for something she deeply misses.

Have I been too pushy? Maybe this is too much. Just like I might have been too much last Friday. Does she regret it?

Me?

All of this?

“Bea.” I stare down at her, finally saying what I’ve been debating for days now. “If you don’t want to, we don’t have to do this. If I’m pushing—”

“Oh God, Jamie, please don’t feelingly apologize. I can’t take it.” She sighs, staring up at the hand-lettered cursive sign boasting a paintbrush t with a heart-shaped red flourish at the end: paint to your heart’s content. “I could have said no,” she says bleakly. “And I didn’t. So here we are.”

My gaze travels Bea as she pulls out her lip balm and sweeps it over her mouth while still staring at the sign.

“What is it?” she asks, meeting my eyes. “Something in my teeth?”

Her jacket is canary yellow, her dress a deep blue-green that makes her eyes sparkle like gemstones. She’s wearing purple tights with tiny golden pineapples printed on them. It’s all so . . . her, it makes my chest ache.

“No, Beatrice. You just look very lovely.”

She cocks an eyebrow. “You’re not buttering me up by telling me what I already know. Teal’s my color.” Swooshing by me, she throws open the door. “They better serve more than one glass of wine during this shit show.”

As soon as we enter, she stops abruptly, sending me tumbling into her. “Honestly, Beatrice. One of these days we’re going to manage a public outing without a bodily incident.”

She wears a horrified expression on her face as we’re greeted by what I’m hesitant to call music, it’s so earsplitting. “What is that?” she says.

I listen, trying to make sense of the odd sounds echoing from the speakers around us. But before I can catch more than a few seconds, a woman appears from the back of the shop, smiling brightly. “Halloo!” she calls loudly.

“Oh God, no,” Bea mutters.

Carefully, I nudge her a few feet inside. “I’m sure she’s just excited to see her first customers of the night.”

“James, I cannot handle people like this—”

“Welcome!” the woman says brightly, waving us in. “Come in. Come in. I’m Grace, owner of Paint to Your Heart’s Content. Oh, you two. What a beautiful couple, what radiant erotic energy. I feel it already.”

Grace strolls ahead of us in head-to-toe Valentine red and pink. Her silvery hair is swept up in a bun with matching heart-shaped barrettes peeking out. When she smiles at us over her shoulder, her red cat-eye glasses sparkle with pink hearts at the hinges.