Page 22 of XOXO, Yours

She pulls back first.

Not far. Just far enough to look at me, both fists still wrapped in the front of my jacket, her breath quick and warm against my chin. The streetlight buzzes overhead.

She pats my chest. “Okay then. Drive,” she says.

I have never gotten into a truck so fast in my life.

She lives twelve miles out, in the tiny town next to Saddle Creek called Limestone. It’s the kind of town that’s one blinking yellow light, a Dollar General, and a Baptist church with a marquee out front that says something about Jesus and air-conditioning. Also home to the Limestone Brewery, but I don’t care about any of that right now. She gives me directions one word at a time.

“Left.”

For the first five miles she stays plastered against her door like I might bite. Then, somewhere past the cattle guard at the county line, her hand lands on my thigh.

I nearly put us in the bar ditch.

She chuckles. “Eyes on the road, cowboy. Take a right at the Dairy Queen.”

“My eyes are on the road.”

“Your eyes are on my hand.”

“Your hand is on my leg.”

She looks over at me, streetlight sliding across her face and then gone. “Want me to move it?”

“Absolutely not.”

She laughs, low and pleased with herself, and thankfully doesn’t move her hand. Instead, she strokes up my thigh.

“Next driveway on the left. With the carport.”

Her house is a little white single-story on a street with no sidewalks. The porch sags in the middle like a hammock. The door is painted a bright, cheery yellow. The mailbox under the porch light has a sunflower painted on it. The porch light flickers. It’s either a short or that bulb is on its last leg.

I make a mental note of it while Jules fumbles her keys. She swears at the lock under her breath.

“You’ve got a real thing against inanimate objects tonight.”

“The inanimate objects started it.”

The door finally gives. She flips on a lamp, and I stop dead in the doorway.

It’s not a big house. Living room, a kitchen past a half wall, a hallway going dark toward the back. But every surface is covered in color. Canvases leaned three deep against the walls. Mason jars full of paintbrushes sit on the windowsill. More of them, empty but with paint smears on them, sit on top of the old upright refrigerator.

A big painting hangs over the couch, all red and gold and slashing blue, that I don’t understand at all and can’t stop looking at. I think it’s flowers, bold and happy, but a little abstract.

“You did all this?”

She drops her keys in a bowl that’s clearly handmade and likely by a child. “Occupational hazard.”

“Jules. This is⁠—”

“Payton.” She’s already backing toward the hallway, tugging her hoodie up and over her head. A faded gray T-shirt underneath rides up with the hoodie, and I get a glimpse of her pale, perfect skin.

“You can look at my paintings. Or you can look at me.”

I’m already looking at her, stalking towards her.

Her bedroom has one lamp and a quilt so brightly colored, it’s practically shouting. She turns around at the foot of the bed, and before I can say anything, she hooks two fingers in the knot of my tie and tugs.