*There will be a 🎧 emoji for when you should play the song.
EDITED
Justice had magnetism. I could feel it pulling me in from the second I entered into his space.
He didn't feel the need to fill the silence of the car ride with random chatter, but somehow, I just knew he was one of the most charismatic people I'd ever met.
"You good?" He questioned with a raised eyebrow and a smile hidden in the corner of his lips.
"Yeah. Sorry, I zoned out."
"No need to apologize. You paint before?" Justice's arm slid over to the center console, and he appeared relaxed in his reclined seat. What looked like specs of white paint ran up his forearms.
"A little." I mumbled, turning to look out the window.
Now that I was closed in a car with him, I was beginning to realize how dumb it was to meet up with a random stranger when I could barely start a conversation with people that sat next to me in class.
In the corner of my eye, I could see his head turn as he looked me over. He must've come to some conclusion because he rolled up his window and pushed the button for the sun roof.
The sky was clear, and I could catch glimpses of the stars in between the passing yellowed streetlights.
"Recline your seat." Justice stated, eyes never straying from the road and one hand still steady on the wheel. The other reached for the volume and turned it up.
How that simple action was attractive, I'll never know, but he pulled it off effortlessly.
Deciding that there was no harm in reclining the seat, I obeyed. My eyes were instantly fixed on the sky, and phone in hand, I poised to catch what I was seeing.
Only Justice's hand moved to block my camera, and I glanced at him in question.
"Just feel it." The warmth from his hand seeped into mine, reminding me that I had become a stranger to physical touch in the past months.
He released me as I set my phone back in my lap and watched me from the corners of his eyes as I stared up at the sky.
🦋
We pulled up slowly to what looked like an abandoned warehouse. Quickly, I sat up and called Divine back while I got as close to the door as possible.
"My friends have my location, and I have pepper spray!" I shouted, fumbling for my pepper spray out the small bag I brought without taking my eyes off him.
"Okay...?" Justice raised an eyebrow before killing the ignition. I could hear a low rumble of amusement as he opened the door and got out. "You coming?" He asked once he came around and opened the door again.
Justice relaxed easily on the door, elbows rested on its edges. I hadn't noticed quite how tall he was before, but now I could tell that he could easily be 6'3".
I scrutinized him wearily, not really listening to Divine's questioning on the other end of the line.
Maybe I was watching too much Criminal Minds.
"Hyacinthe Jasmine Claiborne, you betta answer me." Divine demanded, her voice echoing slightly in the cool night.
"I'm fine. False alarm." I responded before hanging up abruptly and taking a step out the car. He smiled eagerly as he shut the door behind me. "Don't get too big for your britches. If I don't see any paint, you're in for an ass whooping."
Justice's deep laugh rang out, and I ignored the way it seemed to warm me up and make my insides all tingly.
"I'm sure your lil ass could do it too." He spoke, laughter evident in his voice.
I refused to start crushing on him, but damn, he was making it hard.
Companionship only! I repeated in my head, trying to sound more convincing each time.
This man was trouble, but I couldn't fight the urge to do something daring for once. After all, I'd already come this far, and I couldn't just go back home.
Not without knowing what Justice had in this warehouse. The curiosity alone was eating me alive. 🎧
He walked ahead of me slightly as my shorter legs struggled to keep up with him. Before I could ask how we were supposed to get in, he pulled open a garage door to reveal an artist's dream.
Walls, both fully painted and completely blank took up the space. Some pieces even extended across the floor.
Bright colors were everywhere, and all sorts of paint canisters were on various pieces of tarp, cardboard or wood.
"This guy that came up out the hood bought this place for the community. Said art kept him out of trouble, so he wanted something for kids to use." He walked deeper into the warehouse as I looked around in wonder. "Only they don't really use it, so high school and college kids come here to... vent? I guess."
"Like a secret hideout?"
"Yeah, exactly like that." He chuckled before he gestured for me to follow him. "One of my old pieces used to be here, but I felt like painting with you, so I covered it up." He shrugged with his hands in his back pockets.
My eyes traveled from him to the huge white wall in front of us. He said it like it was nothing, but he'd managed to cover the entirety of the wall with white to the point I couldn't even guess what was there before. It probably took buckets of white paint and more patience than I was capable of.
And he did it all to paint with me?
Justice pulled a crate out of nowhere, filled to the brim with spray paint of varying colors.
"This enough?" He questioned, already bent down to shuffle through everything before he looked up at me.
From this angle, I had the perfect view.
The majority of Justice's arms, save for his forearms, were covered in a black long sleeve, but I noticed how the fabric stretched and tightened over his biceps. It teased a hidden strength to his body while his neck smoothly flowed into a strong jawline.
"Yo," Justice spoke again, tilting his head slightly in question. The hoops and studs shining in his ear almost sparkled from the lights above him.
"Huh?"
"You good with spray paint?" He smiled as he said it slower, and it dawned on me that I never answered his question. Damn it to hell.
"Yeah, that's fine." He nodded at my answer before disappearing for a moment. He only returned when music began to softly fill the air.
Once he was beside me again, I turned and stepped out the way for him to start on our shared work, but he shook his head.
"You start, I'll get in where I fit."
And somehow, I didn't doubt it. The world definitely moved to make space for Justice, and I knew I'd be no better.
"So, why'd you make a Tinder?" I asked, eager to fill the silence and distract my mind from screaming that he was definitely staring at me.
Even worse, I couldn't tell what he was thinking.
"Why not? I didn't have anything to lose. What about you?"
"The short version is my roommate dared me to."
"And the long version?" I stilled before my arm fell to my side, painting ceased.
"I guess I'm tired of everyone having a better college experience than me. I barely go to parties, and if I do they're boring. I have next to no friends here. It just feels like I'm missing out on what it means to be in college." Vulnerability seeped into my voice despite my best attempts to stop it. Luckily, I was able to hold in the tears that had started to burn in my eyes.
Hyacinthe Claiborne was not a crier.
Silence was heavy in the room as Justice thought over what I said. It must've given him time to form a response, but it also gave me an opportunity to reign in some of that emotion.
"I think your college experience can be anything you want it to be." He finally spoke, and I scoffed at the wall from the simplicity of his answer.
My arm had since returned to its duty of coloring the blank wall. I had begun to crave the subtle, soothing nature of the sound and feel of spray paint. Not to mention it was a pretty good distraction at the moment.
"That's easy for you to say. Men make friends as soon as y'all walk in a room, and if you're not throwing the party, then you know a guy who is." I said, and Justice chuckled from behind me.
"I'm not gone lie, I've been to my share of parties, but it seems what you're looking for is experiences." The warmth of his body startled me slightly as he slid by me to stand on the side.
"That's what I said." I smartly responded, trying to ignore the effect he had on me.
"No, experiences. Like you want to do everything you can while you're still young. You want to make memories type shit." My mouth hung open as I stared at him in shock, the painting entirely forgotten.
Justice had practically reached into my mind and said exactly what I was thinking but couldn't put into words.
I wanted friends that texted me at three in the morning and asked me to go swimming. Or even friends that dragged me out of bed at the crack of dawn to watch the sunrise before we go to brunch and get drunk off bottomless mimosas.
I wanted all of it, and I knew some of it I could do by myself, but part of the fun is sharing a memory with someone else.
Not to say that I was reliant on others. In fact, I could be entirely self-sufficient, I just didn't want to be. I wanted to be an introvert by choice, not by circumstance.
Justice turned toward me with his eyebrow slightly raised before he bent slowly to look me straight in my eyes. The hand without the paint canister reached out and gently pushed my jaw up to close my mouth.
"I can be part of that if you let me." He said, fingers still holding me gingerly.
I nodded mutely as we held eye contact for a moment, and it was suddenly just us two on the planet.
"Thank you." I whispered, and he smiled.
I'm almost sure he glanced down at my lips while he did it, but it was too quick for me to know for certain.
Here's to hoping.
🦋
Justice and I managed to get done a big part of the piece before my yawning stopped being adorable and just started sounding like a cry for help.
The ride back was enough to lull me into a light sleep while his hand held the silver bars of the my seat's headrest.
I was tempted to watch him drive again, especially since he was so damn attractive while he was doing it, but it was relatively impossible to keep my eyes open. Even more surprising was the fact that he let me sleep and almost seemed expectant of it.
Justice had a way of reading me so entirely that it was shocking from someone I just met, and for some reason, I trusted him. I trusted that whatever he could see in my eyes would never be used against me.
"Hey," I groaned slightly at the interruption from my perfect nap, "I don't know where you live. It's a lil late for you to walk back."
I cracked open my eyes to see Justice leaning slightly toward me, locs completely undone from the bun before. They framed his face perfectly, and his position allowed me to see a hidden silver chain underneath his black shirt.
"Um, it's just a little farther from here." I directed him back toward my apartment since he'd driven to the McDonald's from before.
Once we pulled up, I grabbed everything and checked to make sure I didn't leave anything. Though, he didn't seem too concerned if I did. As if he knew this wasn't the last time I'd be riding with him.
I paused as I got out the door, turning back to look at him.
"You aren't gonna send me a dick pic when I leave, are you?" I asked, eyeing him skeptically.
"I wasn't planning on it." He laughed. "Why? Did you want me to?"
Yes! My mind betrayed me.
"No, I just wanted to make sure you weren't going to ruin the night we had. I'd hate to have to block you."
"Cinthe, why would I ruin this when it's only just getting started?"