Page 7 of XOXO, Yours

“Jules…”

My shoulders stiffen. Every muscle across my back goes tight at once, a full-body flinch dressed up as stillness.

“Who wants to know?”

Instead of being put off, he looks amused, that same twitch tugging at his mouth.

Of course he does.

“Payton Blankenship.” He holds out his hand, big and open, palm up like an offering. “Oliver’s brother.”

Oh.

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

Of course he is.

I look at his hand and then back at his face, doing the math I should have done three minutes ago. Apparently the Blankenships have access to some kind of secret cowboy laboratory where they grow ridiculously large men with broad shoulders and excellent bone structure.

It would explain Oliver and this one.

I put my hand in his.

His fingers close around mine, warm, calloused, rough in a way that catches faintly against my skin, big enough to swallow my whole hand, which I absolutely do not notice.

I definitely don’t notice the way his thumb brushes once, barely, against the side of my wrist before he lets go.

“Oliver said you were coming,” he says. “He texted me from the back. Told me to keep an eye out for Cora’s sisters.”

I pull my hand back, tucking it against my stomach like it needs protecting.

“Should I be concerned Oliver warned you about us?”

“Probably,” Hope snorts behind me.

Traitor.

“What did he say?”

“That you and Hope are her sisters.”

Something in the way he says it makes me pause, makes my chest go still for half a second.

Not foster sisters. Not friends from foster care. Just sisters.

An acknowledgment of our self-made family group.

My chest does a weird little squeeze, a hot pressure right behind my sternum that has nothing to do with the fluorescent lights or the vending machine hum.

“She’s ours,” I say.

My voice comes out rougher than I mean it to.

His smile softens, loses its teasing edge entirely.

“Yeah. I get that.”

I shove another bite of chocolate into my mouth because apparently eating is safer than talking to Payton Blankenship.