Page 55 of Paint Our Song

Miles grins. “Can I listen to the song you’re writing?”

His cheeks redden. Calvin puts a hand over his mouth and mutters something incoherent, and guilt seeps within Miles for teasing him… even if it was a genuine question disguised as a joke.

“I’m kidding, go ahead,” Miles says. With a glare, Calvin opens the sketchbook.

“What do you do with these?” Calvin asks, going through the pages.

“Nothing. They pile up,” Miles says.

“Seems like a waste.”

“I keep the ones that I really like.”

Calvin studies the page the sketchbook is currently opened to. It’s of a flower field, with two ladies in sundresses holding hands and laughing. Calvin goes through more of the pages, and Miles listens to the soft sounds of the pages being flipped.

Then Calvin’s shoulders stiffen, and he abruptly looks up at Miles. “Is this me?”

Miles freezes. It’s the painting he made of Calvin, back in thegarden. The same one Mom had seen yesterday and had looked at way too long, with an expression that said too much.

Fuck. He forgot about that.

“Um.” Miles rallies for an excuse, anything that makes him not seem like a crazy, obsessed stalker. “No?”

“Miles,” he says, way too calm.

“Oof. Yeah. Yeah, that’s you.” There’s no use to denying it. It’s clearly Calvin.

“What’s this for?”

“It’s for nothing,” he says, as casually as he can. “You looked good. The garden looked good. So, I drew it.”

Calvin’s quiet for a moment too long.

“It’s nothing,” Miles repeats, grinning widely. His cheeks and ears burn. “Just a fun thing I wanted to do. You can keep it, if you want.”

“I won’t.” He flips the page again, coming to sketches of different types of flowers. “I get it. It’s hard to describe, but sometimes I get the overwhelming want to write a song about what I see. That night was nice, with the bonfire and all.”

It wasn’t the bonfire; it was all him. He was the life of it, and everything else was an afterthought.

Calvin flips the page once more, and there are the sketches Miles had been working on the night before. Right there on the paper are Calvin’s different expressions, and Calvin rubs his nose. His ears are pink.

Miles closes his eyes and sighs.Fuck.“This is really awkward.”

Voice too soft, Calvin says, “…All good.”

He closes the sketchbook though, not bothering to look throughthe rest of the pages, even if Miles knows there aren’t any more drawings. That had been the last page he had worked on. Miles wills away the way his heart sinks, because he’s pretty sure he just broadcasted his now very obvious crush on him.

Chapter Fifteen

They’re quiet for a long while, and Calvin looks away, toward the direction of the lake. The sun’s finally set, and the air is a lot cooler now, and there are some sounds of kids playing on the downstairs deck.

“I like your mom,” Calvin says, breaking the tension.

Alright, then—they’re not going to talk about the sketches.Good.

Calvin continues, “She reminds me a lot of my mom, actually. They’re both very kind and… chatty.”

“I think she likes you. You and your gentle and precise gardening hands, apparently.”