Page 84 of At First Dance
She lifts a hand like she might put it on my chest but then thinks better of it. “You did that,” she says. “I just sang a four-line song about beans.”
“Best one I’ve heard,” I answer, and that makes her laugh in the way that shows the left canine a little more than the right. It’s a stupid detail to fall for. I fall anyway.
“Left for me,” she says finally, tipping her head toward the cottage. “I’m going to shower and label my moon.” She raises the egg. “Then nap like a seven-year-old who survived the petting zoo.”
“Right for me.” I hook a thumb toward the barn. “I have a strap on the east gate that needs convincing, and the pump by the greenhouse is sulking.”
We don’t move. Not at first. The thing between us sits there, solid as a fence post, and it isn’t asking to be named. Only tended.
She steps in and brushes her shoulder against mine. It’s smaller than a kiss, but braver than not doing it. “Later?” she asks.
“Later,” I say, and mean it.
She heads left, and I head right, and in the middle of the fork where the porch lights will touch when the day goes soft, I tell the knot in my chest it can let go a little more. I don’t have to name anything today. I only have to keep showing up, keep speaking plain, keep letting the mess be part of the lesson. That’s a kind of building too.
The farm is the same as it was this morning, and nothing’s the same at all. Ten paper labels flap, brave as flags. Sir Wiggles is, predictably, AWOL. The east gate strap forgets itself and holds.
An hour later, I’m back on my own ground, crossing off the dumb little boxes in my head—salt blocks, water lines, mineral tubs—except I’m not really crossing anything off because Ivy’s with me, and it turns out, I don’t count time right when she is.
We saddle Jasper and the old mare for a slow check along the fence line. She swings up easy, knees braced, fingers light on the reins like she was born knowing how to ask and not demand. We talk about nothing that matters—Bailey’s best bee story, and which neighbor’s rooster sounds like a smoker’s cough. I’d let myself enjoy the way she laughs with her whole face. I like the company. Full stop. So much that I miss the tells I should never miss: wind shouldering out of the south, the metallic edge in the air, the way the calves go still and listen.
I’m watching the way a wisp of hair sticks to her cheekbone. I’m not watching the sky.
The light shifts—drops a note lower—and a white seam splits far off over the pines. The delayed belly-roll hits a few seconds later. Not close. Close enough.
“Damn,” I breathe, already turning Jasper. “That’s on me.”
“What is?” she asks, cheerful, trusting, and I hate that I didn’t earn it just now.
“Storm building fast. We should’ve started back sooner.” Another flash, brighter, and my stomach goes cold. I picture the lists Ivy made me promise I’d learn—heat, stress, flashing lights—and I want to kick my own shins for letting the first two pile on while the third announces itself right over our heads.
I edge Jasper alongside her mare and touch her knee, steady. “Hey. Eyes on me, not the sky,” I say, calm as I can make it. “We’ll cut over to the equipment shed by the north lot. Two minutes.”
She nods once. “I’m okay.”
“Good. Stay close.” I slide my cap off and pull it low on her, then add, “If the flashes bug you, look down at the mane. Tell me if you feel… anything.”
“Got it,” she says, and I can hear the steel under the soft.
We move out, not a run—steady, smart. The wind lifts the hay in long shivers. Another flash. I put myself between her and the open, angling her mare to my right so I take the widest slice of sky. By the time we reach the low, tin-roofed shed, the air tastes like rain and pennies.
I get her inside first, swing the door, and drop the bar. It goes dark in that good, even way—no sudden strobe, just the gray of a storm-room. I push a battered canvas coat into her hands and drape it over her shoulders, then crouch to loosen the mare’s cinch so she can breathe easier.
“You good?” I ask, close enough that I don’t have to raise my voice over the rain starting to drum.
Her palm finds my forearm. “I’m good,” she says, and adds, because she knows me now, “Really.”
I nod, but the anger at myself has already lit. “I should’ve been watching the sky. I know better.”
“You were talking to me,” she says, a little smile in it.
“Not an excuse.” I glance at the thin line of light under the door, then back to her. “Next time, I pull us in sooner. If the flashes bother you at all, I’ll throw a blanket over the door seam.”
She tilts her head. “Next time?”
“Storms happen,” I say. “And you’re not staying inside just because I forgot my brain.”
The rain sharpens until the roof turns into a drumline. She steps in closer, shoulder to mine under the coat, cheek finding my chest like she’s choosing the quietest place in the room. I fold her in without thinking—palms open between her shoulder blades, my body a wall against the slit of light at the door.
