Chapter Eight #2
She wanted to trust Pax.
No matter how hard her chain-smoking gramma tried to kill it, no matter how many times it led to the shittiest moments in her life, Josie was a romantic. She wanted to believe people had good in them and someday she would get her own happy ending.
Except…
For all his presence woke a familiar tingle in her bones, Josie knew better than anyone that attraction could happen between two people who should never sleep together—let alone be in the same state together.
A spicy shot of cinnamon suddenly filled her nose and Pax sneezed, then looked at her as though she’d sprouted horns.
“It’s not a lie,” he blurted.
Josie stared.
In no scenario would she have spoken her thoughts out loud. That sort of nonsense belonged in bad rom-coms. How then…?
“All of Number Five wanted you to feel welcome,” he said.
They were brown. His eyes. She knew they were brown but not until today had she known they were a dark brown, like the bark of an oak tree, with a few ribbonlike twists of coffee-with-cream spiraling out through the irises.
The pleading expression on his face drew wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and tiny butterflies woke in her belly.
“Did it work?” Pax asked. “Do you feel welcome?”
Words sat like pebbles on the back of Josie’s tongue, too heavy to shape.
“I…” What did that even mean, feel welcome?
As a child she had been an unwanted burden—to her mother, to the state, and then to her gramma, passed around from shelter to shelter with her mom, group home to group home by the state, coming to rest for a bit with her grandparents, but leaving shortly after Grampa died and Gramma had given up.
When Josie took off for New York City on a Greyhound, she’d bounced from YWCAs to rented rooms until, finally, when she’d met Dan, they’d moved into a place of their own.
Even that apartment hadn’t been welcoming. Gloria had it painted without telling them and Dan had insisted it was a kind gesture. By the time she’d had Amos, Josie had stopped wishing for a home or searching for welcome and was happy to be warm, fed, and not on the streets.
“Welcome” meant safety, and safety was forever beyond her reach.
“You can change that,” Pax said.
The smell of wet paint overtook the last hint of cinnamon. “Change what?” Josie asked. Change the direction of her hope, or her certainty the worst outcome awaited her?
“Amos’s bedroom. Any room. Say what you want and…and we’ll change it.” Deep and hoarse, as though he’d spent years calling out orders like a drill sergeant, when Pax lowered his voice, it sounded like wool might feel. As if Josie could take his words and wrap them around her.
“It took me a long time to settle in after the…after I left the army,” Pax said. He rubbed his chin and looked up at the sky, took a deep breath, then looked Josie right in the eyes. The impact of his stare made her insides jump.
“After so many years of living with other soldiers, I had no picture in my mind of what ‘home’ meant.” A breeze riffled through his hair.
Pax pushed the hair out of his face and continued.
“It came in spurts. The way my shoulders dropped when I came home and hung up my jacket. How I have a certain spot on my couch where I like to have my tea in the morning. A section of my entry wall is bare because I’m waiting to find exactly the right picture to hang. ”
This should have felt uncomfortable, the intensity with which they gazed at each other, the way he spoke, as if securing a promise between the two of them. It wasn’t, though. It was like he was answering a question she’d forgotten she’d asked.
“Of course, it took time. I changed what I didn’t like and brought in things—things like flowers and art—I would have dismissed as too nice for me before.
It took intent. I had to force myself not to expect a bunch of soldiers to come tromping through at any minute.
Mostly, I had to believe I deserved a safe, warm space to myself. ”
Josie had thought it impossible that Pax, or anyone, could understand the allure of what he offered. Feeling welcomed, able to place her worries aside and take her contentment for granted, but he’d somehow seen into her heart and voiced what she needed more than anything.
“Maybe you can begin with the courtyard. None of us know what we’re doing when it comes to creating a garden,” he said, gesturing with his chin at the knot of people milling around the dirt like colorful ants.
“You can make the outside a safe place for you and Amos, and I’ll wager the rest of the tenants will benefit, too. ”
A lock of her hair twisted in the wind like a tentacle, and Josie held her breath when Pax reached over and gently pushed it back over her ear.
He stood so close the lapels of his coat brushed against her.
“If there is something missing in your apartment I can get for you, please ask me.” His gaze locked on hers and the noise of the crowd around them lowered to a gentle murmur.
What was the apartment missing that would make Josie trust she and Amos were safe?
Something suggesting permanence and normality.
“If Mr. Amos enjoys music, you might consider a piano,” he said softly.
A piano.
Talk about permanence and normality.
Unnerving, this man’s ability to see her thoughts.
Too easy to get her hopes up. Too easy to watch them fall again.
“Thanks for the offer, Mr. Pax,” Josie said, using the title deliberately. Distance. She needed distance from this man, any man who might tempt her to lower her guard. Josie’s life wasn’t the only one that could go off the tracks in a fiery wreck.
She stepped away from his warmth, and the wind took the opportunity to rake its talons down the front of her body.
“I don’t need to change a thing, so don’t give us a second thought. Amos and I are fine,” she told him. Josie shivered when Pax mirrored her actions and took a step back as well, but she forced a smile anyway. “Everything is fine,” she said, “just the way it is.”