Page 81 of At First Dance
I glance up.
He’s leaning on the gate. Sweat-damp shirt, dusty jeans, that eternal I’ve-been-working-with-livestock look he wears like a second skin.
He holds up a glass jar. “Sun tea.”
I blink at him. “You made me tea?”
“Don’t make it weird.”
I walk over and take it, sipping the warm liquid with a grateful sigh. “It’s delicious. You’ve ruined me for store-bought.”
He clears his throat, eyes on my mouth. I step closer. He doesn’t move.
A beat. Another. Then his fingers brush mine, and something inside me sparks like a struck match.
And just like that, we're no longer dancing around it.
That night, I sit on the porch of the cottage with the camp flyer napkin in my lap and my guitar beside me. I strum a few soft chords, words blooming from my lips like petals, gentle and easy.
It’s not a song yet, but it feels like one, like the beginning of something that matters.
As the stars stretch across the sky and the crickets sing, I close my eyes and let myself believe that this town might have room for a girl like me.
Maybe Rowan does too.
And if I’m lucky…
Maybe he’s already letting me in.
Chapter Sixteen – Rowan
I’m up before the sun finishes rubbing the sleep out of its eyes. That’s normal. What isn’t is the knot tucked under my sternum like a pocketed stone. It showed up when Bailey texted at 5:11 a.m.—Story hour at the farm? Ten kids. Maybe twelve. I’ll bring juice. You bring anything that won’t bite. Please. xo—and it hasn’t budged since.
I feed the horses first. Grain, then hay. Jasper noses my shoulder like he’s owed conversation as well as breakfast. I rub the star on his forehead until his eyelids drop, then run a brush down his neck in long, even strokes that shine the bay back into him. Chickens next. They pour from the coop like somebody cut a ribbon, all bustle and commentary. I check the latches twice even though I’m the one who set them, then I’m headed over to Otter Creek Farms.
The barn breathes with me; it always does. Usually, that’s enough to set me right. Today, it gets me halfway there. I keep seeing a line of small faces under the oak, parents close behind, waiting for me to be the kind of man who knows what to do with ten different kinds of worry at once. I can mend a fence in the rain with a headlamp and a pair of pliers. I can read a sky and know when it’s thunder or a problem. Kids? Kids are their own weather.
Gravel chatters. Bailey’s SUV noses under the oaks and bounces to a stop like it’s done this lane its whole life. The back opens, and a flock tumbles out—Velcro, braids, one kid already wearing his sneakers on his hands like puppets. Bailey’s got a clipboard, a tote bag, and the look she gets when she’s about to herd humanity with a smile.
And then the passenger door opens.
Ivy climbs down in faded jean shorts and a white T-shirt, and the boots that drive my wildest fantasies. Her hair’s in a loose braid that the morning has already started to work on. She’s got a book tucked under one arm and a light in her eyes I’ve only seen here—back of the farm light, not stage light. She looks at me first. Not the barn. Not the flock. Me.
“Morning,” she says.
“Morning,” I answer, and pretend that word doesn’t feel bigger in my mouth than usual.
We set the blankets in a half-moon under the oak, the swing nudging at my shoulder in the breeze like an old friend. I haul the water cooler over, stack paper cups, and set a crate for Ivy to sit on. Bailey posts a sheet of construction paper on the trunk with painter’s tape:Walk feet. Farm voices. Ask before touching. Mud happens.She already has two moms nodding and a dad signing up to bring muffins next time.
“Ready?” Ivy asks, tapping the book cover with her thumb. She means it likeare you okay if I take this?I nod because of course I am. Because it makes sense here—her voice, kids’ knees folded underneath them, sun through leaves.
She starts. “Once, there was a girl who wanted something to grow.”
The flock goes quiet in a good way. Not the held-breath way. Shoe-Hands leans forward until he tips and catches himself with his palms. A little girl in polka dots migrates an inch at a time until her knee touches Ivy’s shoes like she planned it that way.
“What does a seed need?” Ivy asks, holding her palm out like she’s got one in it.
“Water!” three kids chorus.
