Page 74 of His Tenth Dance

“Which part?” Harper asked while Lennie pointed.

Kristie’s heartbeat flooded through her chest. She couldn’tbelieveshe was allowing her friends to do this. At the same time, she’d like Mission to meet her friends—and she’d like to see their reaction to him, too.

“Yeah, that’s perfect,” Jocelyn said. “Don’t make it more complicated than it needs to be.”

“All right,” Harper said. She looked up at Jocelyn, then Lennie, and finally Kristie.

They all looked at her.

Kristie swallowed, unable to speak, so she nodded instead.

Harper’s thumb dropped onto her phone. “Sent,” she said.

That seemed to break the tension in the room. Lennie clapped her hands together. “All right! We each get to pick a song, and you only get one skip. Jocelyn, you go first.”

“I want something by Fleetwood Mac,” she said, and Lennie started fiddling around with the playlist on her phone.

Kristie took her device from Harper and moved down to her station, looking at her recipe. She’d made this apple crumble three times since she’d turned in her entry form for the King Arthur Baking Company Championship. One of the rules wasthat they had to use the King Arthur brand flour in their recipe, and Kristie planned to put hers in the apple pie filling, the crust, and the crumble topping.

Her phone whinnied, and everyone pulled in a breath at the same time—herself included.

“What did he say?” Lennie asked.

Kristie reached over and picked up her phone, glad when she only had to read five words.

“Sure, I can do that.”

Lennie shrieked in delight, which startled Kristie enough to drop her phone to the counter. Jocelyn whooped, and Harper clapped, and then Lennie said, “All right, ladies! Let’s get serious. We have a real-life judge coming in only three and a half hours.”

And Kristie didn’t even scoff atreal-life judge; she simply started measuring her sugar and salt into the nearest stand mixer.

twenty-four

“All right, Granddad,” Mission said. “I’m gonna head out.”

“All right,” his grandfather said. “Thanks for coming and keeping me company today.”

“Anytime,” Mission said, and he leaned over to hug his grandfather, who sat on a low stool, working a piece of hide that he would use for one of his drums.

“What are you nervous about, boy?” Granddad asked.

Mission sat right back down. They hadn’t talked much that afternoon, but Mission didn’t need constant chatter to enjoy himself or feel close to someone.

“Kristie invited me over to her friend’s house tonight,” he said. “They usually do dessert night on the first Friday of the month, but they’re practicing for the State Fair, so they moved it to today—and they want me to judge their desserts.”

Granddad didn’t slow in his scraping of the hide. “That sounds fun,” he said.

“Does it?” Mission asked. “Because it sounds like a great way for me to get myself in trouble with my girlfriend.”

Granddad chuckled. “I thought you said you already knew what she was making.”

“Yeah, I do,” Mission said. “So how do I not pick hers?”

“I don’t think they’re expecting you to pick hers, son.”

Granddad looked up and met his gaze. “It’s not about what you pick anyway.”

“It’s not?” Mission asked. He’d gotten a text from Kristie, but it had started withThis is Harper, one of Kristie’s best baking buddies.

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