Who Said Anything About Love?

Madeline’s POV

“I’ve got it!” Amelia yelled excitedly from across the room, whipping away from the almost dry wall to where we sat.

We’d finished lunch and were now just sitting around on one of the white sheet chatting. The whole three or so hours we sat talking, waiting for the paint to dry, I felt Tom’s eye’s burning into me. A couple times I’d caught his gaze but he never pulled away; he just smiled coyly and continued talking. Bill and Eli —as he liked to call her— never noticed a thing; they were too wrapped up in their excited chatter to.

“You’ve got what?” I questioned, stitching my brows in the center of my forehead and tilting my head to the side. I heard Tom chuckle and I guess it was the expression on my face.

“We’re going to sign the walls!” she said happily, jumping up and down a few times with her hands joined in front of her waist.

“Why?”

“Because I want you too. It’ll be a reminder of the fun time we had today.” she smiled happily and turned to look over the wall once more.

It looked amazing, like a rainbow exploded inside the room and that one wall collected all its projectile. Sure to anyone else it looked like a bunch of five year old were let loose with buckets of paint, but Eli saw something in it and what ever it was shown out in her.

“So are we just going to sign our names anywhere?” Bill asked as he stood and walked over to her.

“No, not exactly. I thought of something else.” she smiled as she turned to meet his questioning eyes.

“What then?”

“We’ll make hand prints and then paint the first letter of our names in them.” she smiled and her eyes shown excitedly.

“Awesome!”

Bill and Amelia started discussing the handprints idea and then I felt that burning sensation again. It wasn’t a bad burning either. I turned and saw Tom looking at me again, grinning like a fool and I couldn’t help but laugh.

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing. Help me fold this sheet back up, will you?” I asked as I stood and straightened out my clothes.

“Ja.” he stood and did the same before bending down and grabbing the corners opposite the ones in my hands.

After the sheet was folded and set aside we joined Bill and Amelia and started picking out colors to make our hand prints out of.

“I want read!” Bill exclaimed.

“I think I’ll use this bright yellow!” Amelia said as she began prying the top off and started stirring it with a paint stick.

“I want that blue one.” Tom and I said in unison.

We all started laughing and then went to grab the can of paint. Turns out he wanted the darker blue when I wanted the powder blue, but still found it funny.

Bill placed his high on one side while Amelia placed hers near the center. Tom placed his on the left side of the wall randomly and I was still looking for a good spot.

“I want mine really high up.” I said in a sort of whiny voice, knowing very well I wouldn’t be able reach that high.

“Here, come ‘ere.” Tom said and I walked over to him.

“What is it?” he got down on one knee and gestured for me to step up.

“So you can reach higher.” he explained.

He put out his clean hand for me to take hold of with mine and I stepped up, wobbling a bit. I let go of his hand and then placed mine atop his head so I could reach further.

Then I felt his hand grab a hold of the back of my leg right at my knee and my breathed hitched and became stuck in my throat. I tried to ignore the calloused skin pressed firmly against me.

I reached and quickly pressed my painted palm against the wall and then stepped down.

“Merci.” I muttered softly.

“Any time.”

We then washed our hands and after another 30 minutes went back to paint the first letters of our names onto the handprints. I was to nervous to have Tom touch me again so I asked him to just paint the letter for me.

We stepped back and took a look at the finished product and Amelia was very pleased with our days work.

“Haha, if you say the letters in order from oldest to youngest it says T-BAM!” Bill said breaking our silence that quickly erupted into a fit of laughter that bounced and echoed off the walls.