Chapter Seventeen
No Screen Between Us
Bull and I kept talking.
One conversation became another. Then another.
Before long, seeing her name on my phone had become part of my day.
Texts turned into FaceTime calls. I learned her expressions, her laugh, the looks that eventually required no explanation.
She learned mine too.
We talked about serious things. We talked about absolutely nothing. Sometimes those were the best conversations.
Bull could make me laugh. Really laugh.
? ? ?
There was distance between us. Bull was in Georgia. I was in Kentucky.
In some ways, that helped us. We couldn't build something around physical attraction alone. We had to communicate.
So we talked.
For hours sometimes.
Bull saw me during a complicated time in my life. I wasn't presenting some perfect version of myself.
She listened.
That mattered.
? ? ?
I wasn't looking for another relationship. But feelings don't always wait for permission.
If something funny happened, Bull was the person I wanted to tell. If I'd had a bad day, I wanted to hear her voice.
That's how somebody quietly becomes important. Not through one enormous moment, but through a hundred little ones.
Eventually, we needed to meet.
Bull decided to make the drive from Georgia to Kentucky.
? ? ?
Because life has a sense of humor, I had to work a twelve-hour shift the day Bull arrived.
She reached Kentucky around three that afternoon. I was still at work and wouldn't get off until around seven.
I worked and watched the clock.
Around seven, my shift finally ended.
I walked outside.
And there she was.
Bull.
No phone. No screen. No miles between us.
? ? ?
Naturally, we tried to kiss.
You'd think two grown women could handle that.
Apparently not.
We were both so nervous that our faces forgot how to cooperate.
Teeth. Noses. A collision of some kind.
Then we laughed.
It wasn't perfect. It was awkward, funny, real. Us.
After work, I parked my car and climbed into Bull's Jeep.
That evening, we went to a Fourth of July celebration. Bull met my sister, my brother, and some of my nieces.
There was no slow introduction into my world.
She drove hundreds of miles, nearly knocked teeth with me during our first kiss, and then got introduced to family.
Welcome to Kentucky, Bull.
? ? ?
That Fourth of July carried an old memory too. Years earlier, I'd been at a Fourth of July celebration when police told Mom and Dad our Paintsville house was on fire.
One Fourth of July had become connected to losing a home.
This one was quietly beginning a journey toward finding another.
? ? ?
Eventually, the visit had to end.
Before meeting, saying goodnight meant ending a FaceTime call. After meeting, goodbye meant watching someone physically leave.
When Bull headed back to Georgia, I knew something had changed.
I couldn't put her neatly back inside my phone.
Whatever this was becoming, it wasn't just a friendship happening through FaceTime anymore.
Kentucky was my home. Georgia was Bull's.
If we were going to build something together, eventually those two separate lives would have to become one.