Page 52 of At First Dance
Something inside me loosens so fast it’s almost a dizzy spell.
He lifts a hand, pauses—asking without words—then holds his palm out. “Your phone?”
I pass it over before I can overthink it. He types for all of three seconds, thumb sure and unhurried, then the screen is back in my hand. At the top of my favorites list is a new contact: Rowan. He’s already texted himself a single acorn emoji, so he has my number because of course he chose something small and stubborn and alive.
“If you head to Nashville,” he says, tapping the contact, “and the noise gets heavy, you text me one word: home. I’ll answer. If you want to come back the same day, you send two words: come get. I won’t ask questions.”
Heat pricks behind my eyes again—frustrating, embarrassing, and impossible to stop. He sees it and doesn’t rush in or back away. He just stands there, big and immovable, like an oak that’s learned how to bend for storms.
“I hate that I even have to think about it,” I admit, voice small, honest.
“You get to think about it,” he corrects gently. “That’s the point.”
I nod, looking down at his name glowing on my screen, at the word he spoke to anchor it: Home. The letters blur, then sharpen. I breathe.
“I’m not deciding tonight,” I say.
“Good,” he answers, like that was the right one. “Sleep. Eat. Be a person. The rest can wait.”
The late morning sun lays bright rectangles across the yard, dust motes floating in the heat. I slide my phone into my pocket and meet his eyes.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
He tips his chin toward the split in the path—one way to the cottage, one to the house. “I’ll walk you to the fork,” he says, and when our shoulders brush in the shade of the oaks, the touch is as reassuring as anything he just added to my contacts.
At the fork, we pause where both porches throw matching patches of light across the gravel. He nods toward my pocket. “It’s not going anywhere.”
“Neither are you,” I say, and it comes out like a promise.
He huffs a soft laugh, eyes warm. “Nope.”
We linger a breath longer in the hum of cicadas, then peel off—me toward the cottage, him toward the house. His screen door snaps softly behind him, and the quiet that settles after isn’t empty. It feels held.
Chapter Nine – Rowan
The bell above the door chimes with a tired little clang, the kind that says it’s seen one too many dusty boots and forgotten receipts.
I step into the feed store and scrub a hand over my jaw, trying to shake off the dull ache behind my eyes. The sun’s already high, sweat clinging to the back of my neck, and all I want is to grab the damn seed and get out.
“Morning, Rowan,” old Ted calls from behind the counter, one hand resting on the register like it’s holding him up.
“Hey, Ted. You get that calf formula in?”
“Back wall, third shelf. Just came in this morning.”
I nod, eyes scanning the aisles. The place smells like hay dust, motor oil, and rust—same as always. Same as it’ll always be.
The TV mounted near the counter drones on with its usual midmorning entertainment nonsense—background noise. But the moment I hear her name, I stop cold.
“Ivy Quinn and football heartthrob Crew Wright spotted in Nashville the other night…”
I don’t turn. I don’t have to. The grainy footage flickers in my periphery—her laugh, that signature wave to the cameras, and Crew’s hand on her lower back.
Fake, I tell myself. Contract. Optics. All of it for someone else’s camera.
But the smile she gives him isn’t the stage kind, and when her fingers skim the sleeve of his shirt—like muscle memory, like she still knows where he ends—I feel something hot and unfamiliar lance through me.
Envy.
