Truth in Watercolors (Truth Series Book 2) (21 page)

“Stop, you’re freaking her out,” she growled.

“I don’t mean to freak you out, Capri. Just pointing out the obvious. So are you like, his girlfriend?”

I looked down at the phone still clutched in my fingers.

“I think so?” About five minutes ago, I thought so. Now, I wasn’t so sure. What Lennon said was completely true. Wes had never been one to shy away from taking a girl home, so why wouldn’t he take me? We’d had the opportunity, and we’d talked around it many times. So didn’t he want to be with me?

“I doubt Wes even knows how to have a girlfriend.” Kensie squeezed my shoulder in her hand.

“Not likely,” I said feeling all hope fall to the floor.

“So this could be different for him. You could be the one who is different,” she assured me.

“I don’t know,” I said unconvinced.

“What about you?” Kensie let go of me and sat up. “You’ve had a lot of relationships, if we can even call them that.” She winced. “Is this thing with Wes different from the other guys you’ve dated?”

Her words stung, but I understood where she was coming from. I’d become a serial monogamist, dating guy after guy, one after the other. I’d been in such a dating routine I think I’d stopped considering if these were quality guys I even really cared about. The end goal had become to keep myself distracted from the one I really wanted. “What I have with Wes is something so new; I don’t think I’ve ever felt it before.”

“Whoa.” Lennon choked on her margarita, but I ignored her, focusing instead on why Wes was so significant to me.

“The other guys were just placeholders. They were there to distract me from what, or whom, I’ve always wanted. Now that I have him, I’m stunned at how much he is, at how much he means to me. I was certain that if I gave in just once, I’d recover quickly, but now I see that I can’t recover from someone like Wes in my life. He’s stained my heart.” I sucked in a slow breath feeling relief at speaking the truth I’d never even admitted to myself.

“You’ve always wanted that guy?” Lennon asked dumbfounded.

“You need to leave,” Kensie deadpanned to Lennon, making me laugh.

“No please, don’t banish me from wedding planning purgatory.” Lennon threw her hand over her forehead.

“Continue, Capri.” Kensie nodded back to me.

“I know that I’m more me with Wes than I am with anyone else. I know that under that goofy personality is a sweet and thoughtful guy. I know he makes me laugh and challenges me to be a stronger person.”

“Wow. This is real,” Lennon whispered, and Kensie nodded with a wistful smile on her face.

“See, this is real for you, and you’ve never had real before. Don’t doubt that he isn’t feeling the same exact way,” Kensie reassured me.

“You’re so smart.” I leaned back into her.

“Just make sure you buy him some new sheets.” Lennon scrunched her nose up at me.

I reached for Kensie’s glass, swiping the lime from it, and chucked it at Lennon’s head. “You bitch.”

“I love you, too.” She winked at me, and I smiled back. I did. I loved these girls.

The pencil scraped against the paper leaving a thick line on its trail and a dusting of lead scattered around the white surface. It had been years since I’d sketched. I’d moved on from it to watercolor shortly after August moved out of the house. So much was changing around me then, but I felt completely still. I thought a change in art medium would satisfy the rumbling within me.

What I hadn’t anticipated when I purchased my first set of watercolors was how the unease would only be satisfied by trying to capture trembling in my heart within the water brushed across the page. Picasso said, “The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.” There hadn’t been anything cleansing in my art. When I painted, I simply blew the dust onto a new surface. For me, it was a carefully crafted stream meant to tangle me up and hold me under.

My talk with the girls tonight and messages with Wes had me craving a bit of nostalgia. I needed to let my insides out into an art form that gave me freedom before my mind became a trap. As soon as I arrived home, I pulled out an old sketchbook and a set of charcoal pencils from the bottom drawer of my nightstand.

A soft smile tugged at my lips when I started shading in the simple heart I’d drawn. I even added a three-dimensional touch with a feminine, feathered arrow piercing through the center of it.

I pulled out a thinner leaded pencil and was just about to start on the letters when he burst through my door. I jumped, sending the pencil into the air, and my sketchbook falling from my lap.

“Holy crap, Wes!” I shouted, gripping my hands over my chest. “You scared me to death. How’d you get in here?” He wore the same beanie he had on at Tommy’s the other night with his usual jeans and tee, so hot.

“August gave me his key. Told me your folks were out for another two days.” He waggled his eyebrows at me carrying a white paper sack in one hand and a tray of cups in the other.

“Wait, is that In-N-Out?” I took the bag from his hands as he slid down to sit beside me on my bed.

“It is. Thought I’d woo my lady with a late night snack,” he turned, pulling out one of the cups, “and a milkshake.”

“I’m feeling very wooed right now,” I told him, digging into the bag and pulling out a cheeseburger.

“Whatcha got there?” he asked reaching for my sketchbook. With a full mouth, I batted his hand away. The jerked movement sent a glob of sauce falling onto my shirt.

“Crap,” I mumbled while reaching into the bag for napkins.

“You should probably consider nixing the white.” Wes laughed before shoving a handful of fries into his mouth. He pulled my sketchbook onto his lap and began flipping the pages. I tried to yank it from him, but he grabbed my hand and held it firmly in his. The more I tried to wriggle it free, the tighter his grasp got. In a fit of giggles, I finally gave up and accepted my immediate embarrassment.

“This is a really cute heart, C.” Wes grinned at me and let my hand go.

“I was messing around,” I said reaching for the book again, but he pulled it out of my reach and leaned across the room to grab the pencil I’d sent flying.

“What are you doing?” I asked trying to peer over his shoulder, but he turned and blocked my view.

“Mind your own business,” he grumbled, making me laugh. I left him to it and dove back into my burger.

A few minutes later, he tossed the book, along with the pencil, into my lap. Then he stuck his hand into the bag and took out his own cheeseburger.

“It’s just like your tattoo,” I said brushing my fingertips across the sketch of a marlin Wes had doodled onto the corner of the paper. He just nodded at me with a full mouth.

I tapped my pencil against the pad and scanned my room. What could I add to this? The marlin was obviously a part of Wes, so what was something that represented me? After pondering for too long, and becoming frustrated that I couldn’t think up what to draw, I doodled out the Chevy emblem in the bottom right corner.

When I handed the book back to Wes, he smiled proudly and quickly got to work on his next addition. “You ever gonna move out, C?” he asked while he sketched.

“Yeah.” I rested my head against the mattress behind me. “Soon, I think.”

“How come you never wanted to live in the dorms with your girls?” Wes asked, handing me the sketchbook back. I smiled when I saw he’d sketched the crystal ornament he’d given me for Christmas.

“I didn’t want to leave my parents.” I put the pencil to paper and started my next doodle.

“After the accident with Ella?” he asked stretching his arms above his head.

“No, well, yes and no. I didn’t stay for them. I stayed for me.” I finished the shading on the guitar and passed the book to Wes.

His head fell against the mattress when he smiled at me. “Perfect,” he whispered and leaned in to touch his lips softly and briefly to mine. Then he quickly turned around to shield me from his next drawing. “Why did you stay then?”

“It was safe here. So much was shifting and changing. As much as I wanted to go, I couldn’t do it. My parents knew about my colorblindness, so I’ve always felt like I could hide here. I wasn’t ready to step out.”

“Now?”

“Now, I feel, I don’t know. I feel like the road in front of me has been lit up. When I look ahead in my life, it isn’t shadowed like it used to be.”

Wes turned and handed me the sketchbook, with just enough of a smile for his dimples to begin to show. “That’s awesome, C.”

My heart expanded, and I smiled back. Wes seemed to always make me feel special. I opened the sketchbook that he’d handed to me and turned to the page we were working on. “My mermaid,” I whispered, amazed that he had captured the same beauty in it that he had painted on me that day.

I looked at Wes, who pursed his lips deepening the dimples. “C’mere.” His voice grated against my skin. He took my hands and pulled me into his lap. He leaned in and ran his nose down mine breathing me in. I held my breath absorbing his touch. “I missed you today,” he whispered his words against my lips.

“Me, too,” I whispered back. He ran his hands around my waist and pulled me into him sealing our lips with a kiss. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders. This kiss was different from the rest. The way his tongue caressed mine, and the slow pull of our lips, conjured a heat that spread deep into my soul.

I shifted to straddle him and deepened our kiss, but he kept it slow and intentional. I lifted my hands and pulled off his beanie letting it drop to the floor so I could tangle my fingers in his hair. I needed to feel him grasped between each finger. For years, I’d sat in this room thinking of him, dreaming of him, and capturing him in my art. I was finding it hard to believe he was here, and he was mine.

Wes lifted my waist slightly and pushed me back on my bedroom floor, crawling over me. He pulled away from me only briefly and ran his hand down my cheek. “This is wild,” he whispered. His eyes traced all over my face. The awe in his voice had me feeling a little uneasy until he spoke again. “You were right here all along.”

I nodded and pulled his lips back to mine in an attempt to swallow the tears that had threatened to seep from my eyes. He shifted his weight and settled between my legs. The solid feel of him right where I’d begun to ache pushed a soft moan from my lips. He groaned back in response and pressed himself tentatively against me. I pressed back. I wrapped my hands around his back and clenched my fingers against his skin, silently demanding more.

“Wes.” My dad’s voice echoed down the hallway.

“Fuck.” Wes flew off me and scrambled to his feet.

“I hope you left those thoughts of yours you mentioned the other day at home.” My dad’s question rounded the corner with him when he approached my door. I straightened my hair and pulled down my shirt but remained seated on the floor.

“Yes sir, Mr. Hunter, sir.” Wes’ words ping-ponged against each other.

“Oh hell,” my dad said and rolled his eyes. “Steve, Wes.” Then he directed his attention to me but only briefly. His eyes darted around the room choosing random places of focus instead of me. “Capri, I think you may want to consider moving out soon.”

“Hell, yes!” Wes shouted and leaned forward with his hand in the air to my dad. My dad shook his head, and Wes brought it back to run his hand through his hair.

“Wes.” My dad looked at him again, and something strange passed between them. A series of nods, blinks, and grunts even. Then my dad left.

“Sorry, they weren’t due back for another two days,” I said as Wes helped me up.

“We’re finding you a new place, Capri.” He leaned over placing a kiss on my cheek. “I need to be able to dry hump my girl in private,” he called over his shoulder but stopped at my door and turned to look at me. “’Night, baby,” he said and winked on his way out.