I look over my shoulder and find him leaning against the doorframe, one hand braced high, his dark T-shirt pulled smooth across his chest. His hair is still damp from a shower, and I hate that I notice. I hate more that I notice the lazy curve of his mouth when his eyes drop to the list in my hand.
“The paint started it.” I grin back.
His smile deepens, and my stomach does something foolish.
“Need to go into town?” he asks.
I lift the list. “Hardware store. Grocery store. Possibly a church, depending on whether I can pray this place into fixing itself.”
“I’ll drive.”
It is not a question. It should annoy me. It almost does. But then I picture climbing into my old truck with no air-conditioning and a gearshift that sticks when the day gets too hot, and I decide I am secure enough as a woman to accept help when it comes with a functioning engine.
“Fine,” I say. “But if you complain about how long I take picking out screws, I’m leaving you in aisle four.”
“Darlin’, I’ve slept in cars, train stations, airports, and some questionable motels. I can survive aisle four.”
I want to tell myself the warmth in my cheeks is from the summer heat, but that would be a lie. It’s all Easton.
Twenty minutes later, I am sitting in the passenger seat of Easton’s Bronco, my supply list tucked against my thigh and the windows down because he says the air feels better that way. I want to argue, but the breeze lifts the loose strands of my hair off my neck, and the ranch rolls away behind us in a wash of sprawling green hills. For a moment, with the sun on my face and Easton silent beside me, the weight in my chest eases.
Easton drives with one hand on the wheel, the other resting near the gearshift, his arm tan and strong where it catches the light. He is comfortable in the silence between us.
“You said you’ve been on the road a lot,” I say, watching the fence posts flick past. “What’s it like? I mean, you’ve been all over the world. I bet you’ve seen some beautiful places.”
“I have.” He glances at me, then back at the road. “Sometimes you wake up in a place you’ve never seen before and the whole day feels like it belongs to you. No one needs anything. No one expects you to be who you were yesterday.”
There is something in his voice that gives me pause.
He continues, eyes on the road. “A porch light left on. A floorboard that creaks in the same spot every time. A kitchen that smells like coffee in the morning. Somewhere imperfect, maybe, but familiar enough to make you want to stay.”
My throat tightens before I can stop it. He’s talking about some random place. At least, that is what he probably thinks he is doing. But all I hear is my ranch—the peeling paint, the stubborn faucet, the crooked rail, the rooms I keep pouring myself into because leaving it half-loved feels impossible.
So, I say nothing. I look out the window and let the wind pull at my hair, pretending the blur in my eyes is only from the sun. And I pretend not to feel his eyes on me.
“And other times?” I ask softly.
“Other times, every room starts to look the same.” His jaw shifts. “You eat dinner alone because you don’t know anyone, and you tell yourself that’s freedom until it starts feeling a whole lot like nobody would know if you didn’t come back.”
The road hums beneath us. I look at his profile, at the strong line of his nose and the mouth that seems made for teasing but is not teasing now.
“That sounds lonely.”
He looks at me then, just long enough to make my pulse stumble. “It was.”
Was.
One word, and somehow the inside of the Bronco gets smaller.
By the time we reach the hardware store, I am grateful for the excuse to get out from under the weight of whatever is happening between Easton and me.
Inside, Easton is annoyingly useful in a way that should irritate me more than it does. He steers me away from the wrong screws without making me feel foolish, listens while I describe the stubborn faucet, then drops a package of washers into thecart. “Start here,” he says. “If that doesn’t work, I’ll pull it apart when we get back.” He also adds a new hammer after catching me trying to convince myself the cracked handle on mine is rustic and gives it character. “It’s dangerous,” he says. I open my mouth to argue, but his eyes meet mine first. “And you should avoid dangerous things.”
“Should I?” I ask.
His voice drops just enough to make my pulse trip. “Probably. But I hope you don’t.”
Next stop, the grocery store. I thought it would be safer here. Groceries are practical. Groceries don’t look at me like they want to kiss me. I move through the aisles faster than necessary, grabbing everything needed for a steak dinner, tomatoes, lettuce, shredded carrots, onions, mushrooms, and potatoes, while Easton follows with the cart, sneaking in Fruity Pebbles and Captain Crunch and looking far too pleased with himself when I catch him.
