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We’re waiting for the paint to be mixed and looking at brushes when familiar notes come through the speakers. I reach forward, grabbing her wrist, her head moving to look at me, a small curious smile on her lips.
“Do you hear it?” I ask, my chin tipping to the open ceiling of the home improvement store.
“Hear wh—” she starts but stops when the noise coming from the speakers hits her ears. One of those top 40 hits stations is on, and right now, our first big hit is playing. My hand moves, and I wrap an arm around her waist, tugging her close, slowly swaying our bodies to the love song we wrote together.
A song about laying under the stars, deciding we were it for each other even though we were young and stupid. A song about finding your person and knowing you’ll spend eternity with them.
We sway like that in the paint aisle for a few moments before she speaks.
“I missed you, Riggins,” she says, so low I almost don’t hear it.
“I promise I missed you more,” I tell her, moving to spin her out, watching a smile break over her face, a small giggle leave her lips. She spins back into my arms, and we start swaying again.
“Come on. Let’s go paint our house,” she says when the song ends, her palms framing my face before she presses a kiss to my lips.
I don’t correct her when she calls itourhouse.
I fully plan on making everything ours.
37 STRAWBERRY WINE
NOW
RIGGINS
Hours later, I walk up the stairs to where she’s playing loud music in the first finished room. I lean against the doorframe as I watch her draw another green line, adding a few leaves before cleaning off the brush and adding pink to it, painting a flower to the top. She’s good at this, decorating and designing. When we were young, she loved making our small space more fun, making it ours.
Whimsical, she called it.
She wanted to live somewhere whimsical and fun, a clear contrast to her childhood home, I think.
Finally, she notices I’m in the doorway, her head picking up to look at me and smile.
She’s so fucking beautiful like this, her hair in a ponytail, a swipe of paint on her nose.
“You’ve got a little…” I say, placing the extra cans of paint I brought upstairs down on the floor and walking toward her. “Right here.” My finger taps on her nose where a streak of light blue paint is. “You’re a mess,” I say, laughing at her. “Maybe we should just rescue your clothes.”
She laughs, free and clear, filling the empty room with much-needed life. “What?”
I don’t explain with words instead I get to my knees on the cloth tarp beneath her and pinch the old Atlas Oaks tee between my thumb and forefinger. “It’s Vintage, OG Atlas merch. You can get good money for this,” I say with a smile. ”Wouldn’t want to get paint on it.”
She sets the brushes down and lifts her arms, surprising me. But I don’t look a gift horse in the mouth as she lets me take off her shirt, revealing her small breasts and flat stomach. I toss it in the corner.
“Not enough money in the world to get me to sell that,” she says. “You see, years and years ago, my husband made it for me.”
I ignore the way my heart skips a beat with her words because it’s the first time she’s acknowledged me as herhusbandoutside of an argument or trying to patch up my torn knuckles. Instead, I remember the time when she was 15 and the band and I decided we wanted to give a real go at this. We were playing small venues and kids' basements and a few shows at the Atlas, but we really only had one true fan.
Stella.
So, for her 16th birthday, we made her a stack of Atlas Oaks Shirts.
“Besides, how is takingoffmy shirt supposed to make less of a mess?” She’s in just a pair of boy short underwear because she didn’t want to get paint on another pair of pants.
I follow suit, taking off my tee so I’m just wearing my jeans. I try to fight a smile when her eyes trail over my body as I toss my shirt in the pile with hers. Then I bend, grabbing a paintbrush with green paint on it, stepping closer to her.
“Don’t youdare." I move forward. “Riggins,” she says in warning, but I get closer still. She tries to scramble back, but I get her with a swipe of color across her stomach. “Riggins!” The shock doesn’t last long, though.
Quickly, she grabs a brush, dipping it in blue, and comes back at me, hitting me in the shoulder. I laugh, taking off my pants so they don’t get destroyed, and then I go after her, swiping more paint across her nipple.
