Page 9 of Infinite as They Come
My eyes found hers, and there was my answer. Those big eyes.Bambieyes. All brown and deep and warm, framed by the thickest, darkest lashes I had ever seen. They captured me every damn time. Made my breathing stop a little. I could stare at them for hours. Hell, I did whenever I painted her even though I could create every last stroke without needing a reference. Over time, I had memorized all of her, and I could paint those beautiful eyes with my own ones shut.
“Your eyes,” I finally said, lips ghosting along hers for a second. “You have the prettiest eyes in the world, you know that? You know what kinda eyes you have? What kinda eyes I’ve always thought you had?”
“What?” she asked softly.
“Bambi eyes. Big, brown, beautiful doe eyes. I could look at them for the rest of my life. I hope I get to. I could never, ever get tired of looking at them. Such a pretty fucking color. My favorite color.”
Her eyes glistened a little before she tucked herself into my neck again, her arms tightening around me. “We’re done,” she whispered. “No more questions.”
I chuckled, letting all her soft hair get in my face. “You okay, baby?”
“Yeah. You just always say things to me that make me feel so loved and beautiful. Only you could make me feel like this.” She shifted back a little, eyes still wet, and Christ, I really hated seeing her like that, even if they werehappy tears. “And you know what? Soon, everyone is gonna know your name, and you’ll forget all about me.”
“Never, sweetheart,” I said, circling my arms back around her. I held her tight to me, as tight as I could get her, that scent of her lavender shampoo taking over my senses in the best way possible. Her little shirt had ridden up a tiny bit, the tips of my fingers finding her soft, smooth skin. So perfect. We stayed like that for a long moment, her face buried in my neck as I held her, all while that game show was blaring on in the background. She really thought I had it in me to make it. That I could be someone, that I could be some successful artist, and I’d never get over how good it felt to have her believe in me.
That was just the start of it, though. The tip of the iceberg, because what it really came down to was the next step I wanted to take with her. The road trip wasn’t just a way to celebrate all her hard work. It was something else. It was me trying to find that place we’d spend forever, and it was her mom’s words that had made me truly realize it. About us having more special moments.
I’d find it. That dream home she described to me all those years ago had never left my brain. I could rattle off every last detail with ease. Open space, flowers out the front, lemon tree in the back, a sky that went on forever. And I’d love her and take care of her and do everything I could to make sure she was safe. Secure. Sheltered from any bad thing that came her way. It was going to start with that house. I knew it would. And I’d get it.
For us, for her, I’d get it.
Chapter 3
Sawyer
It was a few days later when me and Holly left that motel and made it to Austin in just under two hours. We were both itching to stretch our legs, so we found a place called the Castor Motel in Round Rock, dumped our stuff there, and decided to look around the town. I was trying to force myself to live in the moment, to enjoy the peaceful days with Holly after leaving New York, but my mind was stuck in some other place as well.
Home. Our future home. After Holly went to bed last night, I had stolen her laptop and searched for house listings in the area. After trawling through a bunch that didn’t even seem to come close to what she had described, I finally stumbled upon one that stood out. It’d need a little work done on the outside, but it was in a perfect spot, the kind Holly had described to me all those years ago. The photos had shown me lots of open space, green grass that went on forever, a big garden. It was the white picket fence home I had never had. The kind she didn’t have, either—she had something entirely different, something bigger, but I so badly wanted to give her that house she told me all about. Her dream home. It sounded like my dream home too as long as she was living in it.
In the afternoon, I’d go check that house out. In the meantime, I got to spend the morning with my girl. We had been walking around town hand in hand when we found some little park with a tiny pond. There were a few ducks swimming around in it and Holly insisted on feeding them, so we grabbed a loaf of bread from the grocery store and got settled on one of thebenches. We had been sitting down for a good half hour now as Holly tore at the slices of bread and tossed the crumbs to the ground.
“They’re so cute,” Holly said with a little pout, three ducks waddling around her feet. Her fingers worked quickly, tugging off little bits of bread and letting them scatter in front of us. “Let’s get a pet duck.”
“Can I eat it after we get it all plump?” I asked.
“No, you cannot.” She laughed, giving me a playful nudge. “It’s so nice here. I love it when we go to places like this.”
That caught my interest as I sat up straighter, her words replaying in my head. “It’s a little quiet, though.”
“I know, but I love it.” Smiling, she looked over at me. “Don’t you?”
I nodded slowly. “Yeah, I do.”
“I like quiet. And peaceful. And… all this open air,” she said, neck craning as she looked around us.
The park was on the smaller side, but there was a lot going on. There were some flower beds all the way in the left corner, all bright and colorful, and more benches over to the right. The pond sat in the middle, nothing but little ripples in the water as the wind picked up.
“You always take me to really pretty places. Places I won’t forget.” She turned my way, pressing her lips to my cheek to give me a kiss. “Thank you.”
Her words had my heart beating a little faster, my hand landing on her thigh as I let my thumb trace soft, slow circles against her smooth skin. I loved that Holly liked small towns and simple things. She was like me in a lot of ways, and it was funny to think that we had gone at it over the stupidest things for the longest time when really we were so alike.
Holly dusted off her hands after throwing the last of the crumbs, and I looked down at the ground and saw nothing but green looking back at me. All the bread had been eaten, and the little white ducks waddled away from us, slipping back into the water.
“Aw,” Holly said. “They only hung out with me for my bread.”
“I’ll cheer you up.” I shoved a hand into my pocket and got my wallet out, sliding out one of the business cards Holly had got me. Turning it over, I pressed it to her thigh, the blank side looking up at me. “You got a pen?”
“Mhm.” She opened up her purse and pulled one out. “Here.”
