Chapter 39 #3
Against the far wall, even more canvases are lined up—at least a dozen, maybe more. All different sizes. Some still wrapped in plastic, others bare and ready. Large squares, long rectangles, small panels I could finish in a day if I wanted to. The sight of them makes my throat catch.
There’s enough here to last me a year. Maybe longer.
This isn’t just a little setup anymore. This is a real studio.
For a second, I just stand there, completely and utterly shocked. It feels like someone saw the part of me I never expected anyone to notice, and decided it was worth making space for.
I take a step forward, slowly, my fingers brushing the easel. The grain is smooth. There’s a small folded note taped to the edge of the canvas, written in his handwriting.
“For you and your beautiful brain. Always. Merry Christmas, Peach—S”
“I wasn’t sure what you’d need,” Sawyer says behind me.
I jump, my hand flying to my chest as I spin around.
He’s leaning against the doorframe, his arms crossed over his chest, his hair damp from his run. He’s smiling—soft, sheepish.
“Sawyer,” I breathe. “This is…this is too much.”
I look around again, like maybe if I blink, it’ll disappear and I’ll find a couple brushes and a blank notebook on the floor instead. But it’s still here. All of it. And the more I try to take it in, the more impossible it is to look away.
He walks toward me and presses a kiss to my forehead, his hand anchoring gently at the curve of my waist.
“It’s never too much,” he says, his voice low against my skin.
I lean back enough to meet his eyes. “Why did you hang all my paintings?”
He shrugs, like it’s obvious. “Because people deserve to see your talent. It shouldn’t be something you hide away.”
And just like that, my throat gets tight again. “Thank you.”
He brushes his thumb over my hip. I nudge him with my elbow, trying to swallow the ache in my chest.
“This isn’t fair,” I say with a frown. “This is way better than what I got you.”
I think about the gift tucked under the tree—wrapped in butcher paper and twine, because I panicked at the store and couldn’t bring myself to buy anything with cartoon reindeer on it.
I’d gotten him a leather-bound field journal, the kind vets use on ranch calls, with his initials pressed into the corner in gold foil, plus a new field bag I found online—canvas, durable, with compartments for all the things he’s usually stuffing into his jacket pockets when he goes out on farm calls.
It’s practical. Useful. Something he’ll actually take with him and something he’s said he’s wanted.
But it’s not… this.
He smirks. “Good. That’s how it should be.”
I roll my eyes, but I’m smiling. “Any ideas for what I should paint first?”
He tilts his head, considering. “Me?”
I let out a dry laugh. “Right. Because that wouldn’t be intimidating at all.”
He lifts his brows and wiggles them. “A naked portrait? Isn’t that what they used to do paint back in the day?”
“Oh my God.”
“I’m just saying, I’d be a very cooperative subject.”
“Cooperative is not the word I’d use.”
He grins and closes the space between us, brushing his nose against mine. “Whatever it is, I can’t wait to see it.”
Then he kisses me. His lips press gently to mine and I lean into him instinctively. His mouth parts slightly, and when I open for him, he deepens the kiss—his tongue finding mine, patient and unhurried, like he wants to savor it.
His hand settles low on my back, pulling me closer until there’s no space between us, and all I can feel is the warmth of his mouth, the press of his chest.
I didn’t realize exactly how much I love him until right now, and how I’ve never loved anyone like this before.
It feels like running downhill barefoot—fast and a little reckless, like I might trip but I don’t care because the wind’s in my hair and I’m laughing too hard to stop.
That’s what it’s like with him. It’s not careful.
It’s not quiet. It’s showing up exactly as I am and being met with all of him in return.
No pretending, no shrinking, just this wide-open kind of love that makes everything feel a little brighter and a little less heavy.
I didn’t know it could feel like this—easy and wild and mine, all at once.
And I think the most surprising part isn’t that I love him. It’s that I don’t feel the need to explain it.
Not to him. Not to myself.
Because I’ve spent so much of my life trying to take up less space. Not because I wanted to—but because it was always easier for everyone else when I did. When I was agreeable. Quiet. When I softened the parts of myself that made people uncomfortable.
I was always told to be something different. A little less opinionated. A little more friendly. A little less intense. A little less me .
And I think some part of me believed that’s what love required. That if I ever wanted to be chosen, I had to show up as a version of myself that wouldn’t scare anyone off.
But Sawyer never asked for that. He didn’t fall in love with a filtered version of me. He fell in love with the whole thing. The quiet. The sharp. The restless. The soft.
He doesn’t reach for the best parts of me and ignore the rest. He meets me in the mess. He sees the parts I’ve kept hidden, the fears I’ve tried to reason away, the softness I only ever showed when no one was watching—and he doesn’t run. He stays. He stays, and stays, and stays.
And somewhere in all that staying, something changed. I stopped looking for the exits. I stopped bracing for the moment he’d decide I wasn’t enough.
Because it never came.
Instead, he built me a room. He filled it with light and color and space, and he called it mine. He kissed me like I was already enough. And for the first time in my life—I believed it.
That’s what loving him feels like. Not reckless or performative or fragile.
Just true. Like coming home to myself.