18. Jaxon
JAXON
I’m so pissed at the timing of everything: that I’m meeting this woman on the heels of her running from her wedding; that she’s come at the worst possible time for me before high season; that Cayson is in baby-mama hell, so I can’t rely on him to help more; that the most significant chemistry I’ve ever had is with someone who has no intention of staying. Just pissed.
The way I’m looking at it, I have a finite amount of time with her, and although things won’t progress past this contract, why shouldn’t I enjoy the woman who has me so curious?
Part of me is nervous to entertain the idea, because I have a feeling that if I let myself start wanting her, I won't know how to stop. Then, it’ll really suck when she leaves.
But as I’m sitting in the cake tasting today, my mind wanders to all the sunrise mornings this week, and how they were my favorite part of the day.
By the time I hit the lemon blueberry slice, I decide that I’m going to pay my barn hand a visit tonight.
I’m sure she wouldn’t blink an eye if I knocked on her door for no reason, but the treat gives me an excuse to see her, and might even brighten her evening, too.
As soon as the tasting is done, I go straight to her place.
After ringing the doorbell, I’m standing as the familiar flicker of anticipation runs through me.
It’s the same one I’ve gotten every morning right before I see her.
When she opens the door, I can’t hold back my grin.
I lift the cake in explanation. In return, she tells me she painted today for the first time in a long time, and the excitement in her voice makes my smile widen.
I’m not sure I have the right to be proud of her, but I am.
She isn’t secretive, but based on the bits and pieces she’s dropped over the last week, I bet there are a couple of layers to the trauma this woman kept.
Apparently, she has set up the spare bedroom to be a painting room, equipped with tarps and drop cloths galore, and it makes me even happier she’s switching to the long-term rental instead of the bunkhouse when she leaves the luxury cabin.
“So, what’s first, cake or painting?”
She shrugs, “I mean… it’s not like I own this place, we can do both at the same time and get crumbs everywhere if we want to,” she makes a deal of leaning towards me and whispering like I did earlier.
“Oh, I see how it is. Trashing the cabin, eh?”
“Hey, I laid down a drop cloth for painting!” she says in defense, while still chuckling.
“I can show you. It’s not spectacular or anything.
Like I said, it’s been more for the exercise of getting the brush back into my hand…
and it almost feels therapeutic as I go back and forth… ” She mimics the action as she says it.
“Della, did you forget my nephew schooled me in art?”
“Okay,” she chuckles and goes to grab the canvas.
When she comes back into the room and flips it, I’m speechless because, though I’m not sure what I was expecting, it wasn’t this.
She’s not someone just getting back into the groove of things.
This is incredible. Whatever the words are for feels like I could walk into the painting…
it’s that. It’s not colorful, but there’s texture, and my eyes dart around trying to take in the subtle details.
To a small degree, it’s haunting. I can see what she means by the brushstrokes because it appears she glided back and forth repeatedly, layer upon layer…
except for the little figure in the bottom right that looks like the shadow of a person running.
“It’s not much, but it felt good…” she starts.
“Della, stop. It’s incredible.”
“No, it’s just something I played with… There are so many ways to make this better, but I was zoned out thinking about things when I was doing it, and I just mindlessly painted.”
“Stop,” I repeat, getting closer to the canvas to see it better.
“It’s beautiful. No asterisk. No qualifier.
I know shit about art, Del, but this is…
I feel this.” My eyes can’t even break away.
This fucking woman hasn’t painted in five years and produced this on her victory lap.
My God. I wonder what things looked like when she was in her heyday.
Painting couldn’t be a depreciating skill.
“Thank you, Jaxon. That means a lot. I loved painting for many reasons, but hearing and seeing how people responded to my art and how it made them feel was one of my favorite parts. So that means more than you know,” she says.
“Well, you nailed it,” I say, bringing my eyes to her. “What other kinds of things have you painted?”
Her eyes dart to a book on the kitchen counter, and I follow her glance. What did I miss when I put the cake down? It just looks like a photo album.
“What’s that?” I ask.
“It’s… well… actually, it’s a collection of my paintings. My mom and I kept a record of the things we created.”
Oh shit. That’s too personal of a thing to ask to see, even though I’d love to.
“Wanna see?” she asks, reading my mind.
My eyes look up and catch hers. “I’d be honored if you shared that with me, Della.”
“Are you telling me we’re going to eat cake and look at paintings?” she asks, unable to control the beaming smile. “That would be the best night ever.”
“Hell yes, we are.” I grab the album and the cake, while she gets two forks before joining me, sitting as close as we’ve sat every sunrise. The air between us is charged as she balances the book on our legs.
“Here we go,” she says, taking a deep breath.
We thumb through everything, page by page.
Some paintings she rambles on about, some of them, I hear her voice hitch.
All I know is that she’s… what’s a word beyond talented?
Because she’s that times some. Hearing each backstory, each tidbit, just leaves me wanting more.
The hole in her heart from not painting had to be a cavern in her soul, because the way she talks about this?
It’s her love. When she closes the last page, we look at the clock.
I have no idea how that many hours flew by.
“I’m sorry, Jax. I didn’t expect to take you through my entire painting career. I just got carried away. It’s been a long time since I’ve looked at these, much less allowed myself to think about how much I loved this. Thank you.”
The invisible magnetic pull between us tightens.
Every time we are together, we are pushing boundaries.
When I came over, I entertained the thought that we could cross that boundary tonight, but not now.
She just did the equivalent of spilling her heart out to me, and I don’t want this moment to be clouded by a kiss.
Because that spark will rage quickly, and I just…
God, it feels so right and so fucking wrong.
Clearing my throat, I stand up, but don’t miss the hurt that flashes on her face before she schools it.
I can’t kiss her. Right?
There’s too much red tape to get involved with a runaway bride. Too many strings. It doesn’t matter that I’m the one who showed up at her door because I needed to see her… I still need to keep my wits about me.
And she’d make me lose my mind.
My rather abrupt retreat the previous night has no impact when we meet for sunrise. The buzzing between us remains a constant presence, still simmering below the surface.
In just a week, it’s become my favorite part of my day. One more tally in the column of reasons I’m fucked. I’ve been watching this sunrise my entire life, so I can see the slightest variation in the spot it rises. It’s a visual metric for how every day is a day closer to her leaving.
I’m not sure what I want to happen. I’ve had a handful of opportunities to take this to the next level, and I keep finding excuses to shy away. If my brother weren’t being such a dick about her being here, he would laugh his ass off that I, Jaxon Wills, am shying away from a woman.
Trying to steal a glance, my eyes end up lingering on her face as she’s studying the changing colors of the sky. This woman is beautiful in a way that defies words. Feeling the weight of the stare, she turns to me.
“What?” A smile slowly spreads across her lips.
“Nothing. I enjoy seeing this through your eyes. It’s old news for me, but I love to watch how you take it in.”
“I think I’m going to paint it,” she says, looking back at the sky. “The colors would be spectacular.”
“God, please do,” I say. “Consider me your buyer.”
Her shoulder pushes into mine. “I’d probably keep it,” her eyes move all around the scene as if she’s memorizing each moment.
“It’ll be a reminder of how I got back on the horse.
No pun intended.” She cracks up at her own joke, and if I could bottle that sound, I would do it in a heartbeat.
When our daily meeting ends, she stands, and I follow before we break to tackle our days.
I’m seeing some friends for drinks tonight in a town an hour away, and spending the night at my buddy’s house. If there were any other ladies attending, I’d bring her, but it might get awkward if she were the only one.
It doesn’t stop me from thinking about her the rest of the evening and getting into a night-long text conversation bugging her to send me photos of her progress on the sunrise painting.