My tote bag vibrates before he can answer. I dig inside, grabbing my phone, but it’s just a voicemail notification.
“You gonna get that?” Joshua opens the passenger door for me as we reach the truck.
“Hang on.” I click thelistenbutton, put it on speaker, and buckle in as he makes his way around to the driver’s side.
“Hi, this message is for Bluebell Everest. My name is Laura Donahue. I’m the booth coordinator for the Dallas Farmers Market.”
Joshua glances at me as he starts the truck, and the woman goes on to say they received a cancelation and have a booth open for the last week of April. She leaves her info, and I grin as I slip my phone back into my bag. Joshua’s eyes drop to my curved lips before he pulls the truck out of the lot, and then he smiles. It’s a slow, charming smile that makes my insides hot and cold all at once. He’s alarmingly gorgeous when he looks at me like that.
“What do you sell?” he drawls, turning a corner.
“Anything I can make. At home, Mom used to rent booths every year, and I’d help out, so it’s kinda like a tradition now. I love it.” I chew my lip. “One day, I think I might even open a shop. I mean, I don’t know. Maybe my mom can run it with me.”
He cocks a brow, side-eyeing me.
“What?”
“Didn’t really see you as the selling type is all.”
I shake my head. “It’s not about selling. It’s about making something from nothing and pouring myself into it, then sharing it with a total stranger. It’s like ... ”—I look up, trying to figure out how to string my thoughts into words—“like another way of connecting, you know?”
I think his lips quirk, but he hides the expression by pressing his lips together before looking out the window.
“You and your connecting,” he mumbles almost affectionately.
“Here.” Reaching across the center console, I take his right hand in mine, letting him steer with the other.
His eyes flash with amusement, but he doesn’t stop me. For a few seconds, I just hold him like that, absorbing his signature warmth as it seeps into my pores.
“Do you feel that?” I ask.
“What am I supposed to be feeling?”
I smile softly. “Me.”
Staring ahead, his Adam’s apple moves up and down. He strokes the side of my hand with his thumb, a warm hum pulsing beneath his touch.
“I always feel you, Blue.”
“It’s energy,” I whisper, my cheeks burning at his words. When he lets himself go like this with me, it’s everything. “We all have it,” I continue, “our own blueprints or roadmaps. When one person’s energy touches another’s, it spirals like a domino effect, connecting us to each other’s roots. Next thing you know, we’re thousands of beating hearts in ecstatic motion.” I turn his large hand in mine, tracing my finger over his palm. “Some of us are lucky enough to find others on the same wavelength. You know that feeling, like, when you stumble across exactly the right song for you at exactly the right moment? It’s warm and easy, but it still gives you a deep buzz.” I peer up at him from below my lashes. “And when you touch, it’s magic.”
His grip tightens around my hand. He flicks his gaze to me, grey eyes stirring with emotions deeper and louder than any storm our sky could produce.
Voice gruff, he says, “So what you’re saying is ... you’re my song.”
My chest flutters, reminding me of my newfound fear of heights. I’m standing at the edge of a cliff, toes dangling, too scared to look down.
“I don’t know. I’m not saying I’m anythi—”
“You’re my song, Blue.” He says it so easily, so full of certainty, it sucks the breath from me. As if I’m not sitting here struggling to remember how to inhale and exhale, he takes a left turn, watching the passing cars casually. “So what do you make?”
“Um, jewelry mostly. Sometimes clothes, scarves.”
His lips twitch like he’s remembering something. “Anklets?”
I arch an eyebrow as we hit a red light. “What’s wrong with anklets?”
He looks at me, his gaze sliding down my bare legs and landing on the braided, rainbow-colored threads circling my ankle. “Not a damn thing.”
