Page 66 of At First Dance
“It’s the rest,” she corrects gently. “You getting enough?”
“Trying.”
“Mm-hmm.” She tilts her head toward Stan’s jars. “Make sure you take one. Bailey tells me you’ve acquired a taste.”
“I’m being blackmailed with elderberry.”
“She’s a menace,” Mrs. Wright says fondly. “Come here.” She pulls me into a hug that smells like flour and line-dried sheets. I stand there stiff for exactly one second, and then I let myself lean into a mother who isn’t mine and never will be yet somehow makes me feel like I’m allowed to be tired.
When she steps back, her voice goes conspiratorial. “You might as well know—he’s been useless at pretending he’s fine.”
The he is unnecessary. My heart knows anyway. “I’m the one with a note on the door that says ‘do not disturb,’” I murmur.
“You can be tired and still miss someone,” she says, like she’s handing me permission on a paper plate. “You can need rest and still choose. Both can be true.”
I worry the strap of my tote. “I don’t want to make his life harder.”
“Do you make his life louder?” Her mouth quirks. “Yes. Harder? No. He knows his own mind, even when he’s quiet about it.”
I think of his hand around the Mason jar’s middle; the thumbprint on the glass when I lifted it later, cool and sweating in my palm. I swallow. “Thank you. For… not treating me like a headline.”
She snorts. “I live with men who forget their own birthdays unless someone writes it on the calendar. If you were a headline, I’d still need you to bring a dessert to the potluck.”
I buy a jar of wildflower honey and two peaches that smell like July. Mrs. Wright tucks a small bag of pecans into my tote when I’m not looking. “For when you decide to bake something instead of running,” she says, and pats my cheek like she’s blessing me. “Tell Bailey to stop stealing my scone recipe.”
“She would rather perish,” I say solemnly.
“Figures.”
On my way out, I pass Bailey herself, hair in a messy bun, book in hand. She points two fingers at her eyes, then at me. “Drink water,”she mouths. I mime a salute and mouth back, “I’m okay.” She narrows her eyes, reads my pulse without touching me, and nods once.
Back at the cottage, I set the peaches on the counter and forget about them for an hour because the air is thick and the page is louder. The song turns its head and shows me a new angle—a minor climb that feels like walking toward a door you want opened and aren’t sure you should knock on. I play it twice on the guitar I swore I would give back, but now I’ve grown fond of. The sound fills the small room, and something in my chest loosens like a stuck window.
As if summoned by music, boots thud on the porch boards. The door stays closed. The steps stop.
Silence lengthens. My skin prickles.
“Ivy?” His voice is a low question through wood. Gooseflesh ripples along my arms like I’m the field and wind just remembered my name.
I step closer, palms damp, throat dry. I stare at my own note, at the way the ink bled on the y. I should tell him to come back tomorrow. I should protect the little, fragile edge of peace I carved out. I should—
I open the door.
Rowan stands one step down, as if he made himself shorter before I thought to be afraid. Cap in his hand. T-shirt soft with wear. Eyes steady and sleepless. When his gaze drops to my mouth and returns politely to my eyes, I feel it everywhere I have a pulse.
“Hey,” I say, because full sentences have abandoned me.
“Didn’t want to ignore your sign,” he answers, lifting a Mason jar sweating with condensation. “Brought you more tea bags.”
“I appreciate that.” I keep one foot braced against the door because if I don’t, I’ll invite him into a very small room with a very large amount of unresolved tension.
“I can leave the canister on the rail.”
Or I can stop pretending not seeing him is safer. “It’s okay,” I say. “You can… hand it to me.”
He steps up one board. The porch light hasn’t clicked on yet. The day’s last amber is doing the work, slanting over his jaw, catching on the tiny white scar at his temple I’ve started measuring my restraint by. He passes me the jar. Our fingers don’t touch. It still feels like a spark jumps, a low, clean heat that has nothing to do with summer. “How are you?” he asks, plain. Not a polite formality. A census of the soul.
“Better.” It comes out true. “Hungry. Less feverish. Loud in my head.”
