Page 48 of At First Dance
“Can’t?”
Her mouth tugs into a half smile. “That’s one way to put it.”
I step aside, and without a word, she moves past me into the house. The silence wraps around us immediately. Thick. Charged. Familiar, somehow.
She makes it as far as the kitchen table before she stops. Her hand brushes over the edge like she’s grounding herself.
“You made dinner,” she says softly.
“Wasn’t sure if you’d want any.”
“I ate soup,” she replies, voice brittle. “Burned it.”
Something inside me cracks at that.
She turns to face me, eyes wide but unreadable. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For pushing earlier. About the camp. About… everything.”
I step closer. “Don’t be.”
“I crossed a line.”
“So did I.”
Her breath catches, and I see it—the memory of the way I leaned in, the moment our lips brushed, the way I backed out like a goddamn coward.
“I didn’t mean to make things harder,” she says, not quite looking at me.
My reflex is to give her a one-word out, but I make myself do better. “You didn’t. I did that all by myself.” I rub a palm down my thigh, trying to ground what’s sprinting in me. “I have a history with slamming on the brakes when something matters.”
Her mouth tilts in a soft admission. “Me, too.” She steps closer, tiny grit on the boards squeaking under her bare feet. “I’m scared, Rowan.”
“Of?” I ask, even though I can feel the shape of it.
“That I’ll never find a place I can be who I am without earning it every day. That if I stop performing, I lose my seat at the table.”
Something inside me—that bone-deep part that knows fence lines and first frosts—answers for me. “You don’t have to earn anything here,” I tell her.
Her eyes lift, sharp and searching. “You don’t put on a show either,” she says softly. “I like that. I don’t know what to do with it, but I like it.”
That lands square. I’ve always treated quiet like a tool and a wall, and somehow, she’s managed to read it like a promise. One strand of hair is stuck at the corner of her mouth, fighting every attempt she makes to tuck it away. My hand moves before my head can veto it, knuckles grazing her cheek, tucking it behind her ear. She leans into the touch—barely, but enough that the world narrows to the warmth under my fingertips and the way our breath goes out in the same little rush.
“You almost kissed me last night,” she says, not accusing, just placing a marker on a map we’re both holding.
“Almost,” I admit. “Because I wanted to. And because wanting things has… not always gone great for me.”
“Same.” Her laugh is breath and nerves. “But I also keep thinking about how it felt to almost have your mouth on mine.”
A sound—half groan, half prayer—scrapes my throat. I take a small step closer, because if I don’t, I’ll spend the rest of the night pacing the boards. “There’s something else I have to say before I make that worse,” I manage. “You… posed with my brother. The whole world thinks—”
“That I dated Crew,” she finishes, gaze steady. “I didn’t. We smiled for cameras and did what our contracts told us to do. He was kind. But I never felt like this.” Her fingers open and close at her sides, then still. “This is new.”
I want to believe her. I do. But there’s another knot to untie. “He’s a good man. I don’t—won’t—blindside him.”
“You’re not.” She tips her chin. “We’re not sneaking or lying. We’re standing in your kitchen in the light. If anything happens, it’ll happen that way.”
