Page 52 of XOXO, Yours

Now I find it—and I say this as someone who spent the better part of her adult life treating closeness like an infectious disease—I find it the closest feeling of home I've ever had. Even more so than the little family Hope and Cora and I built. Of course it helps that they’re usually here too. Because now we’re all family.

"You're smiling at nothing again," Gracie says, appearing beside me with two glasses of sweet tea.

"I'm smiling at something," I say. "I'm just not going to tell you what."

"Is it Payton?"

"It's the potato salad."

"It's Payton," she says, satisfied, and hands me the tea.

It's Payton.

He's across the yard right now, crouched down next to his Uncle Graham’s step-son, who has gotten into some kind of dispute with a lawn ornament and is explaining his grievances at length to whoever will listen. Payton is listening. Fully, unhurriedly, in the way he does with kids that still catches me off guard sometimes, even though I've seen it dozens of times. He listens like whatever this child has to say is the most important thing currently happening in the yard.

It probably is, to him.

That's the thing about Payton Blankenship that I didn't understand when I was busy trying to keep him in a very specific box. He's not patient because he's performing patience. He's patient because he genuinely, constitutionally believes that people are worth the time it takes to really see them.

Every time I realize that, I feel a bit like the Grinch whose heart has grown.

He believed that about me before I believed it about myself.

I'm still working on the believing-it-about-myself part. But I'm working on it, which is more than I could have said six months ago, so I'm choosing to count that as progress.

Kelsie drops into the empty lawn chair next to me, plate in hand. She follows my gaze across the yard with an expression that is pure Blankenship—warm but also a little smug.

"He's annoyingly good with kids," she says.

"I know."

“I don’t think he would have ever told Mom and Dad he didn’t want to work the ranch and instead wanted to teach without you.”

“That’s kind of you to say.”

“Not kind. Just true. I'm glad you're here, Jules." She says it simply. "I mean that. You're good for him. But also just—I'm glad you're here. With us."

My chest does that thing where it tightens. That sensation I used to avoid at all costs. I let it roll through me.

"I'm glad I'm here too," I say.

The sun is going down when Payton finds me, the yard settling into that particular gold-and-shadow hour.

"Walk with me?" he says.

We end up at the edge of the yard where the grass meets the tree line, far enough from the main gathering for quiet without being absent. I can still hear the overlapping noise of his family behind us, Oliver laughing at something, Mimz's voice carrying over everything the way it always does.

Payton has his hands in his pockets, which he does when he's thinking particularly hard. I've learned his tells. He's learned mine. We've been learning each other in the small, daily, accumulated way that I used to think sounded exhausting. Now I understand it’s just what it looks like when someone is actually let in.

"Can I show you something?" he says.

"That's an ominous opening."

"It's not ominous." But there's something in his expression—not nervous exactly, maybe some excitement laced with apprehension. "Jules."

He unbuttons the top two buttons of his shirt.

I have seen Payton Blankenship without his shirt on many times. I am, in general, a fan of the experience. But this is different—he's pulling the collar aside, exposing the left side of his chest, just above his heart, and I look at what's there and my brain stops working completely.