“How about I rub your feet? They have to be killing you after standing on concrete all day,” he offered, unable to resist the urge to touch, to connect in a more tactile way that he was beginning to understand was important to Jules.
Jules’s eyes lit up with delighted surprise. “Like I’m going to say no to that.”
“I didn’t figure you would,” Keaton murmured, moving behind Jules to knead the tension from their shoulders. The act was intimate, grounding him further in the moment, in the shared space they’d created together.
As his hands moved with gentle precision, Jules sighed contentedly, their tension melting away under his ministrations. “You’re full of surprises, Keaton Anderson,” they teased, voice laced with warmth and affection.
“Just trying to keep up with you,” he replied, a smile tugging at his lips.
Keaton and Jules eventually curled up together on the floor, wrapped in the comfort of their connection. The world outside seemed to fade away, leaving only the promise of what they could build together.
TWELVE
Jules knelt in the shade beside the mural wall, knees pressed into cool concrete, hands already stained with yesterday’s cobalt and ochre. The street was mostly empty—vendors rolling carts across uneven pavement, bakery doors propped open, the air heavy with the scent of sugar and baked goods. Jules lined up their brushes by size and thumbed through their battered sketchbook, reviewing the day’s plan. They’d made good progress yesterday, but not as much as they’d hoped for.
The unfinished mural sprawled across the brick: wheat fields here, a burst of wildflowers there, one section still a mess of lines and half-imagined shapes. Jules studied it, chewing the inside of their cheek as they made small, looping notes in the margin. The right side needed more movement—maybe a sweep of gold, something to balance the hard lines of the barn. They mixed a new batch of paint, the familiar scrape and swirl grounding, but their mind wouldn’t quiet.
Anticipation buzzed beneath their skin, tangled with something sharper—anxiety, maybe, or that old ache that came from being watched. In the quiet, it was easy to imagine the street fillingup, people drifting over, eyes lingering on every brushstroke. They wanted to lose themselves in the flow, to be just hands and color and the low hum of music from the bakery radio. But already, they could feel the weight of expectation settling on their shoulders.
Yesterday, they were unprepared for how many people approached them, asking about their vision for the mural. Even the compliments they received were a pain because every visitor pulled them out of the flow.
I just want to disappear into color,Jules thought, squeezing a blob of yellow onto the palette.
They set the first brush to the wall, letting the bristles drag a sunlit arc through the blue. For a moment, the tension eased. The mural belonged to them—at least until the second day of the Art Crawl started.
Jules was so focused on their work that they barely noticed the opening of the makers’ market or the first indie music artist taking the stage outside Brew & Barrel. Locals drifted over in ones and twos, drawn by the bright sweep of color growing across the wall. Jules could feel the shift even before anyone spoke: a gentle pressure, not unwelcome, but impossible to ignore.
“Morning, Jules!” Mrs. Barnes called, her arms full of peonies and greens from her garden. She paused, head tilted, taking in the new patch of wildflowers Jules had added near the bottom corner. “That’s my old barn, isn’t it? You made it look better than it ever did in real life.”
Jules grinned, wiping a streak of yellow from their knuckle. “Art’s good for a little revisionist history.” They angled thebrush, adding a few more dabs of gold to the wheat field. “You think it needs more?”
Before Mrs. Barnes could answer, a pair of little kids darted up—one clutching a frosted donut, the other tugging their sleeve. “Is there a dragon in the clouds?” the older one asked, eyes wide.
“Not yet,” Jules replied, crouching to their level. “But that does sort of look like a dragon’s tail. Maybe I should turn it into one.” They flicked a quick curl of blue into the sky, letting the brush dance. “Do you want to help me decide where the head goes?”
The kid nodded excitedly. Jules handed over a spare chalk stick and lifted her up, letting her sketch a lopsided snout. Mrs. Barnes laughed, the sound light and easy, and pressed a paper bag into Jules’s free hand. “For later. Artists need fuel.”
A few families gathered near the curb, sipping coffee and trading quiet compliments. “You should do a whole series,” said Mr. Burton, one of Jules’s old teachers. “The history of Maple Hill in murals. If that’s too ambitious, even canvases that could be hung in businesses around town would be delightful. I’ve got some old photos I could show you.”
Jules’s cheeks warmed. “That’s—wow, I never really thought about that. But I’d love to see the photos.”
As the street filled, the rhythm of painting shifted. The community’s presence was a steady thrum—kids asking questions, parents offering snacks, neighbors sharing stories about long-gone hardware stores or the year the river flooded Main Street. Each interruption tugged Jules out of their head, but the flow didn’t break. Instead, it grew richer, layered with laughter and stray bits of local memory.
“It’s like the whole town’s painting with me,” Jules said to the dragon-drawing kid, who beamed in response. Before long, a group of kids had taken over a blank section of the wall and were adding their own touches to it. Jules’s heart swelled, realizingthiswas why they loved art so much.
For a while, everything felt easy. Their hands moved in time with the swirl of voices, paint mixing with sunlight. The mural took on new life—unexpected pops of color, shapes suggested by a child’s imagination or a neighbor’s memory. Jules felt the joy that had diminished the day before returning: the sense of belonging, of being woven into the fabric of Maple Hill alongside every story and every hand that reached out, even just to pass a napkin or point out a favorite flower.
In those moments, art was simple. It was connection, laughter, the low buzz of community. And for once, Jules let themself believe they could be part of it all, not just the artist on the edge, but someone seen and welcomed, brush in hand, right in the heart of things.
The crowd around the mural ebbed and flowed as the morning spun on. Jules lost track of time, letting the cadence of laughter and questions settle into the background. Their arms grew heavy as they worked, sweat beading at their temples. When the last of the families wandered away, the bakery’s radio hummed in the background, broken only by the distant clang of a delivery truck.
That’s when Jules felt it—a different kind of attention. Not the soft, familiar curiosity of neighbors, but something sharper, more precise. A man lingered at the edge of the sidewalk, arms folded. He wore a navy blazer despite the heat, sunglasses perched on his head, a leather notebook in hand. Jules had seen him once or twice during the Art Crawl, always watching, neverspeaking. Now, he stepped closer, his gaze coolly appraising the mural.
“Impressive use of color,” he said, voice clipped and urbane. “Would you say your palette choices are more impressionist or expressionist?”
Jules blinked, brush poised midair. The question felt like a pop quiz in a class they’d never taken. “Uh, I don’t know. I just go with what feels right. I’m mostly self-taught.”
He scribbled something in the notebook. “Interesting. Who are your influences? Any formal training?”
