Present Tense (Out of the Fire #3) - Candace Blevins Page 0,74
up and trained.”
He nodded. “Possibly, but I believe it’s a non-issue. Are you angry with me for punishing you?”
“No.” The answer came out too quickly, so she analyzed why she wasn’t upset with him. “You haven’t been unfair. You’ve talked to me about it, even had me agree with the consequences before you doled them out.”
Fabio lifted a box and walked to the grand staircase. “In the past, we’ve used the fake strands of greenery on the railing, and supplemented with some real sprigs.” He put the box down in front of the steps and turned back to Kelsey. “The designer we brought in to help us the first year, when our decorating was a total disaster, had us settle on a color scheme for each room. Since then, we’ve changed it up a little. We have a gold theme, a red and green theme, a blue theme, a solid red theme, and a silly Lego theme that’s all different colors but it still works.”
“We did the white theme in here last year,” James said. “I’d just as soon not do that in any room this year.”
Kelsey looked around the living room in Italian earth tones. “The gold seems a good fit for this room.”
“It’s what the designer put in here the first year. We haven’t done it since, and we’ve added to it a little,” Fabio said. “I think it’s time to do it in here again.”
“I’d like to do the blue in the den,” said James.
“Maybe the white and red in the kitchen?” Kelsey asked. “Like a candy cane?”
“We’d need to buy some stuff with both white and red,” Eunice said. “We asked the designer a million questions, trying to figure out how she put stuff up and it looked great, but we’d put similar stuff up and it’d been a nightmare. Turns out, if you have a two-color theme, some of the stuff has to have both colors, to pull the rest of the room together.”
Kelsey looked around the room at these three large alpha men, and tried to put it together with what she was hearing. “Ya’ll learned about design? On purpose?”
“We thought we’d decorate the house for Christmas,” James explained. “We honestly thought it was just a matter of going to the store, finding stuff we liked, and then coming home and scattering it around the house.”
“It looked like an elf threw up,” Fabio said.
“So we hired a designer I know from the scene,” Eunice said. “And she used what we bought, without buying much more, but moved it around. All the gold stuff in here, the red and green decorations in the kitchen, and the darker red stuff in the den. We had to buy more gold for the living room, and the next year we did gold in the den and added even more.”
“If your solid red is a burgundy, it won’t work with the white. Might do red and gold in the kitchen, if that’s the case. Move some of the gold from in here in there. I can probably pull it off without having to buy too much, especially if you’ve been adding to the gold.” She slipped a ponytail holder off her wrist and pulled her hair back. “I had a pearl and gold theme in my personal space at the coterie house in Sydney, but I didn’t bring any of it with me. I’d like to go shopping before I figure out what color theme to buy for my suite.”
“We used the Lego theme in the den last year,” said Fabio. “It probably won’t be used this year, if you want to use it.”
She didn’t want to hurt their feelings, but no way did she want a Lego theme in her suite. She closed her eyes and considered the best way to make use of what they had. “How about red and gold in here, red and green in the kitchen, blue in your den, and I’ll look at what’s leftover to see if I can put it together in my suite, or whether I’ll need to go on a shopping trip. Your Target is open at night, yes? I’m told they will have much of what I need, excluding clothes and shoes. The vampires have a trip planned in a few weeks to go to a designer shop in Atlanta, for high end clothing. It’ll open at night just for us.”
“Works for me,” Fabio said. “You sound like you know what you’re doing, so it’ll be fun to