Letters Signed XOXO

Chapter 1

chapter

one

Payton

I’ve always been a romantic guy.

This was apparently hilarious when I was growing up. I was a shipper and even tried my hand at some fanfiction. Because, well, I love love. I’m man enough to admit that.

My brothers have always given me shit about it.

My sisters weren’t much better. I was always the kid who actually liked weddings.

Who didn’t make gagging noises when people kissed in movies.

Who had a girlfriend in the seventh grade for exactly nineteen days and spent three weeks afterward listening to sad songs because I was pretty sure I’d lost the love of my life.

In my defense, I was twelve.

Also, Kaylee Patterson had really pretty eyes.

But I never understood why wanting to fall in love was supposed to be embarrassing.

My brothers say it’s because I’m young and naive.

My sisters say I read too many of our mama’s romance novels.

Maybe they’re all a little bit right. But I’ve spent my entire life surrounded by proof that the kind of love people write books about is real. Why the hell wouldn’t I want it for myself?

I come from a long line of love. People who find their other half and commit for life.

My grandparents are crazy about each other, and have been for longer than I’ve been alive.

My parents still hold hands when they walk across a parking lot.

Not because anybody’s watching. Hell, half the time, I don’t think they even realize they’re doing it.

They just reach for one another instinctively.

And now I’m watching it happen to my siblings.

One by one, they’re finding the person who makes everything click into place. Remarkably, their teasing has all but come to an end now that they’re living their happy ever afters.

So I never wonder if it’ll happen for me. Now I’m just waiting on the when.

Somewhere out there is a woman I’m going to love for the rest of my life. Maybe I already know her. Maybe I’ll meet her tomorrow. Maybe it’ll take another ten years.

I’m not in a hurry.

Okay, that’s a lie.

I’m a little bit in a hurry, but only because I’m ready to love her. I’m ready to pour myself into a relationship and be the man I know I was meant to be.

I’m twenty-two; I know I’ve got plenty of time.

My point is, when it happens, I’ll know. I’ve always believed that—or just known it deep in my bones.

I just haven’t found her yet. At least, I don’t think I have…

Tonight was supposed to be about Mimz and Pops.

Fifty years. String lights and brisket and half of Saddle Creek two-stepping on a dance floor. Dad cried during his own toast. Pops kept his short and made everybody cry anyway. Then Cora’s slideshow finished off whoever was still standing.

I’m not ashamed to say I went down in the first round.

Fifty years of my grandparents looking at each other like that. That’s the whole thing I’ve been trying to explain to my brothers since the seventh grade.

So I’m parked by the dessert table with my second bowl of peach cobbler, watching my big brother, Henry, slow dance with his new wife Gracie.

I saw that one coming years ago. I smile smugly at my cobbler.

At the far edge of the yard my other brother, Oliver stands with our grandparents’ live-in aide, Cora.

They’re having some kind of private moment.

Oliver stepps closer to her and I’m grinning like an idiot about it when Cora goes down.

It happens fast. One second Cora’s cheek is on his chest. The next her knees just quit, and Oliver’s got her before she gets anywhere near the grass. He scoops her up and turns. I’m the first one he sees so he hollers my name across the yard.

I jog over.

“Shit,” I say. “Everything okay?”

“I’m thinking dehydration.”

“Want me to grab Uncle Graham to take a look at her?”

“No. I’m taking her in. Let everybody know.”

So I let everybody know. In my family, that means I tell Mom, and then forty people know inside of a minute. Mimz goes straight for her purse and her keys, and it takes Pops, Dad, and a well-timed lie about her Buick being blocked in to keep her from hijacking it.

Then she sits down hard in a folding chair, takes Mom’s hand, and tells the rest of us, that while she doesn’t have official confirmation, she is certain that Cora is pregnant.

A baby.

Nobody knows whose. For the first time all night, nobody in my family has a single smart-ass thing to say.

I’m in my truck ten minutes later. My phone buzzes while I’m sitting at a red-light.

Oliver: Her sisters are on the way. Jules and Hope. Keep an eye out for them.

Oliver: Don’t be weird.

I don’t know why he thinks I’ll be weird. I’m never weird.

Saddle Creek Memorial on a Saturday night is basically three pickups, a security guard, and a waiting room that smells like floor cleaner. Oliver’s in the back with her. There’s nothing to do but wait, and I have never once in my life been any good at waiting.

I go hunting for coffee. I’m halfway down the hall when I hear her.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

Something smacks metal. Hard.