35. Della
DELLA
On Thursday, I'm heading to the art store to visit Rose again and show her my art. She loves it, but I still can’t commit to the show.
I’m not sure why I’m hesitating. Maybe because although Jax and I talked about me doing it, we didn’t talk about the logistics of it, like where I would live, so committing scares me.
I intended to talk to him last night, but he got called away for a situation and didn’t come back because it was too late.
After filling my shopping basket with my head in the clouds, I wander over to the kids section and pick up some washable paints for Luke and a craft for Mazie.
The plan is for Jaxon to come over to cook dinner and just hang out.
He’s been so busy, so I am taking what I can get.
The night in the wildflowers right after work was already asking a lot.
But that hasn’t stopped us from enjoying most of our nights and mornings together.
I realize that isn’t exactly healthy, but I’m still operating on a timeline, so I am soaking up every last ounce of Jaxon I can.
Tonight, my job is to prep dinner; that’s it. When I get home from the art store, I start to paint a scene from the street I can’t stop thinking about. But like so many times in my little Amberheart painting room, I lose track of time, and when the doorbell rings, I about jump out of my skin.
Racing downstairs, I catch a glimpse of myself before I answer the door, and I’m a mess.
There’s paint streaked on my face, cheek, tank top, and shorts.
He hasn’t seen these volleyball spandex since that first night, but we’re past self-consciousness.
I’m more concerned that I never got around to starting dinner. Whoops.
“Hey, beautiful,” he says as I greet him. “It appears you are in the middle of something.” His eyebrow raises, and he rests his tongue on his bottom lip.
“I totally spaced on dinner,” I blurt. “There were these two old people sharing ice cream on the bench outside The Painted Heart. But both of them had their faces tipped towards the sun, as if each ray they were soaking up was giving them life. I only intended to start it, but I got carried away.”
He holds his hand up to stop me from continuing. “I’m not here for dinner, I’m here for the company. I’ll take care of it.”
Before I can argue, he pulls his phone out and calls someone.
“Hey Mario!” he says into the phone. “Look, I’m in long-term cabin fourteen, and we could use dinner. Any chance I can order a last-minute delivery?”
Mario? Who was that again?
“Yeah, that sounds perfect. Thank you so much, man. Charge it to me and add a fifty percent tip for the last-minute pain-in-the-ass tax, please.”
He hangs up and smiles as he tucks his phone back into his pocket.
“There, dinner is taken care of.”
“I’m sorry, thanks for doing that. What are we enjoying tonight after I screwed up the plan?”
“Stop, it doesn’t matter. Our chefs always cook something for our staff. It’s not quite the same caliber as the stuff the patrons get, but it’s still astoundingly good. We are getting Wagyu beef fried rice.”
“What?” My mouth drops open. “I’d order that as a two-hundred-dollar meal.”
“Yeah,” he laughs, “not too shabby.”
“I was going to make spaghetti with jarred sauce. Mario wins.”
“So that will be about thirty minutes. In the meantime, I want to show you something.”
“Oh, really? Is it in your pants?” I joke before I take in the excited look on his face, and know he’s not being silly.
“Yes. Always, yes,” he laughs. “But in this particular instance, it’s something else.”
Grabbing my hand, he leads me through the cabin to the back door. As I exit, I look out over the plains and squint, trying to figure out what I’m looking at. When I realize what it is, the scene unfolding in front of me takes my breath away.
“What?” the word stutters out. At least a hundred elk are traveling in a loose line over the terrain.
There’s a quiet rolling thunder as this brown river weaves across the landscape.
I’m awestruck as I take it in. Without taking my eyes off them, a barrage of questions gets lobbed Jaxon’s way. “What are they doing?”
“It’s the migration.”
“Where are they going?”
“They go to higher pastures as the weather turns.”
“There are so many,” I say, knowing full well this will be my next painting. “Do they move all day?”
“No, just dawn and dusk. Pretty cool, right?” he says.
Turning to him and catching his eye, I just nod my head. “It’s… gosh, it’s beautiful.”
“I love experiencing this beside you, Della. Even though I’ve seen these things my whole life, it’s a different kind of captivating with you.”
“Thank you for sharing your world with me, Jaxon. I would hope I would have lifted my head from my canvas, but I was pretty engrossed in what I was doing, so I might have missed this. Can we sit out here for a little while and watch?”
“Let me get us a drink,” he offers, and I agree because this feels too big to miss. When he returns with two glasses of wine, he sits on the swing and drags me to sit with him, not letting go of my hand.
“This almost feels sacred. Like, I will never forget this for the rest of my life.”
For a moment, his eyes settle on mine, and it looks like he’s wrestling with his words. “Maybe you can come back and visit for a few weeks every year. Sunrise and elk migration.”
The moment he says it, the breath is stolen from my lungs. No. I don’t want to come back every year. I am not sure I want to leave at all. But that kind of thinking isn’t fair; it’s not part of the plan.
But what plan? I have no freaking plan. I can’t put Jaxon on the hook like that. There hasn’t been a word spoken about me staying, and I’m not sure he wants me to. Do I even want to?
Who am I kidding?
If the man propositioned me to stay at this very moment, I wouldn’t think twice before saying yes, knowing full well how crazy that is.
“What are you thinking?” he asks.
“Just how wonderful it is,” I lie. “All of it. You included.” I turn to smile at him and rest my head on the back of the swing, studying his face in the twilight.
Maybe I’ll paint his perfect features after the elk migration.
He leans in to kiss me tenderly, and this time, my breath is stolen for a different reason.
Out of all the places I could have landed, I am the luckiest person in the world to have landed here.
We sit mostly in silence as we drink our wine and watch the show. When our Wagyu beef fried rice arrives, I can’t believe this is considered a lesser meal. It’s the most delicious thing I’ve ever eaten.
“Okay,” he says as he puts the dishes we used away. “Where is this painting you were so caught up in?”
“You want to see it?”
“Tatroe, have I ever not wanted to see what you made? You’re the best artist of all time.”
It’s a preposterous claim, but the way he says it with such conviction makes me believe in that possibility, and without letting go of his hand, I take him to my painting room.
It’s a mess that isn’t helped by the fact that I pretty much dumped everything out when I got home, and it’s scattered all over the floor.
He bypasses all of it and walks straight to the easel.
“It’s far from done,” I blurt out before he can say anything, but he holds up his hand as if to shush me.
“Look at the way you capture light, my God.”
I give him a face.
“What?” he defends himself, mirroring my expression. “I’ve been trying to learn more art terms, but I know I would sound foolish if I started dropping terms like negative space and leading lines. You’d know I was full of shit.”
The words he’s saying get lost because all I’ve heard is that he is trying to learn something for me. “With all your free time?”
He just shrugs as if it’s no big deal, “I will always find time for you, Della. I know I told you before that this is the craziest time you could have come into town, but that holds. Even when the season really gets going, things will lighten up. But yeah, as I’m shoving food in my mouth at my desk, I may or may not have looked up some beginner art YouTube videos.
” He looks around like he’s almost embarrassed at his admission.
“What’s all that paint? And beads? And a black light?
You dipping your toe into the rave scene?
” he asks, pointing at the things spilled out of the bags, trying to take the attention off of him.
Now it’s my turn to be a little embarrassed.
“Well, remember how I told you that Luke spoke to me on Sunday, and it was about painting? I thought I might get some paints for him and that the black light might be another way for him to experience the art. I didn’t look that up or anything, though, and could easily be talking out of my ass.
And the chunky beads are for Mazie because I can’t get something for one and not the other.
But as I’m looking at it, that might scream choking hazard? I don’t know.”
His mouth is open as he looks at me with such intensity that I might melt under his gaze. “You are… oh my God, Della. You are the most amazing person I’ve ever known.”
There is almost too much emotion in this room as we both admit to the little ways we think about each other all the time. But something in the air shifts, and his gaze turns hungry. Without taking his eyes off me, he goes to the glow-in-the-dark paint and cracks the package open.
I’m too caught up to say anything, just entranced by every movement he’s making. Walking back towards me, he opens the first paint and dips his finger inside and smears it on my right cheek. I’m still speechless as he strokes the other.
“Wouldn’t you know, after the videos I’ve watched, I consider myself a bit of a painter.” His voice drops, rough and low.
“You liar,” I whisper. “You said you were equivalent to Mazie.”
“Ah, I believe I said my talents capped out at finger painting. Which is what I think I might want to try today. Can I paint you, Del?”
I nod, stuck under whatever spell he has on me.
“Your tank top is dirty; I’m going to need a clean canvas,” he says, and with that, he grabs the bottom of the fabric and lifts it over my head. Now I’m standing in front of him in just my shorts.
Finding my voice, I speak. “What about you?”
At that, he takes the bottom hem of his own shirt and lifts it off.
I will never tire of this view. His chest looks like it’s sculpted out of marble, and ready to bear the weight of the world.
Though initially skeptical, I fucking love the idea of painting all over those perfect muscles. Talk about a canvas.
I tentatively dip my finger into the tub and make a little heart on his chest. He returns the gesture and looks at me to make the next move.
I step away from him, grab two other colors, and open them, gesturing him to come to me.
He does, and I paint pink war stripes under his eyes.
He looks so absurd that it makes me giggle.
Taking a third color, I trace the outline of his abs, fully expecting him to do the same.
Instead, he slathers paint on his one hand and grabs my breast. I smirk at him, fill both my hands with paint, and leave two handprints on his chest. After that, it devolves into a paint fight.
We are laughing, groping, and putting streaks of paint on each other along the way.
It’s such ridiculous fun. At some point, he’s plugged in the black light, so we are literally glowing.
I put a stop to the chaos by grabbing his face with both my hands to kiss him.
The way my fingers mold around his cheeks, paired with the paint I can feel between our skin, makes this moment my perfect.
From there, we start making out, and I’m wrestling his shorts down because I apparently can’t get enough of this dick. Before I kneel, he reaches into the paint and writes letters across my chest. I can’t make them out until I look down and realize they spell mine.
I look back up at him with my gaze bouncing between his.
“You’re fucking mine, Tatroe.”