Page 103 of At First Dance
“Yeah.”
“Fair coming back to town?”
I shake my head. “No.”
He nods slowly, then looks back at me. “That singer girl. Ivy.”
My throat tightens, but I force the cap back on the bottle. “What about her?”
“You building this for her?”
I pause but don’t answer.
He doesn’t press. Just watches me with that look—steady and unreadable, like the sky before a storm.
“She’s good for you,” he says after a while.
I blink. “You don’t even know her.”
“I know you.” He kneels beside one of the crossbeams and runs a calloused hand along the grain. “Been a while since I saw you build something for someone.”
“I’m not—” I start, then stop.
Because I am.
I’m building this with her in mind. Every board. Every goddamn nail. I’m putting together something better than the mess I made with my words. With my fear.
I’m building something that might show her what I haven’t said.
My father looks up at me from where he’s crouched. “You want her here when it’s done?”
I nod once. “Yeah. I do.”
He nods, like that’s all he needs to know. Then he pushes to his feet, slow but steady, and picks up the other end of the beam I was about to lift.
“Then let’s finish it.”
We work in silence for a while. The kind of silence that builds things. That settles over sweat and shared effort and a lifetime of knowing when to speak and when to let your son breathe.
Later, as he loads his tools back into the truck, Dad looks at me over the open tailgate.
“She comes back,” he says, “you oughta tell her.”
I frown. “Tell her what?”
“That you’re not building a stage.”
I stare after him as he drives off, the truck kicking up dust along the old gravel path.
Because he’s right. This isn’t just a stage. It’s a promise.
By the time the sun sinks behind the tree line, I’m covered in sweat and sawdust, arms heavy from the work. But it’s a good kind of tired—the kind that fills you up instead of emptying you. The kind I only seem to find when my hands are building something that matters.
I drop onto the tailgate of the truck and crack open the water bottle again. The clearing is still. Crickets have started their nightly choir. Somewhere down near the creek bend, a bullfrog croaks.
My phone’s still in my pocket, pressed warm against my thigh. I pull it free and swipe the screen.
No new messages.
