Page 7 of At First Dance
You disappeared. Rude.
Lila:
Also, can’t believe you brought Ivy to my wedding after she was stuck in a ditch. I never got the story on why she was here anyway.
Lila:
She was lovely. Bailey adopted her. Don’t be weird.
I thumb back.
Me:
All set. She’s fine. Go be married.
Then I drop the phone face down and lean my hips against the sink, listening to the cicadas rake the night open and stitch it shut again.
It’s a funny thing—how quickly a place adjusts around a new presence. The cottage has hosted cousins and hands and the occasional tourist who wanted more “rustic charm” than they could stomach. But tonight, with a pop star sleeping undermy oak, the land feels… steadier. It likes showing off when someone’s seeing it for the first time.
I make a circuit—small house rituals I could do blind—to set the coffee, rinse a pan, and leave a dish towel folded clean. When I pass the hallway mirror, I catch my own reflection and snort—clean-shaven jaw I only bother with for weddings and funerals, hair tamed for a total of an hour, and white shirt now rolled to the forearms. Lila’s going to frame a picture of me looking civilized if I don’t burn the evidence first.
I kill the lamp and head for bed. The ceiling fan turns and turns. Sleep takes me in a blink.
I’m up before my alarm, same as most mornings. My brain snaps to the list before light has time to decide what color it wants to be. Boots. Barn. The horses nicker when I step into the dim area, all soft breath and patient eyes, and the routine slips over me like a shirt I’ve worn thin: hay tossed, grain scooped, water checked. The chickens complain on schedule. I let them out anyway because nobody likes being penned too long.
By the time I’m back at the porch, dew makes the grass glitter. The kind of damp that clings to your cuffs and your lungs. I pour the smoldering dark liquid and fill two paper cups—one black, one with cream and sugar the way my sisters like it—and add a napkin over the lids because the walk down can slosh if you’re not careful.
The path to the cottage runs under the oak’s spread, crushed shell crunching just enough to announce me. I slow before the steps and knock my knuckles against the jamb instead of barging in. “Morning.”
Nothing for a beat. Then the lock turns and the door swings inward on a soft breath of lemon and cedar and something uniquely Ivy.
She’s there—barefoot on the old wood, hair down and mussed from sleep, an oversized T-shirt skimming her thighs like she borrowed it from a life that stayed in bed longer than she did. Sunglasses are nowhere in sight, which means those eyes are. They’re not the icy camera blue I’d braced for; they’re warmer, stormier. The summer sky decides whether to rain or bless you.
“You weren’t kidding about the coffee,” she says, voice rough with sleep.
“I’m a man of my word.” I hold out the cup with the cream and sugar. “Didn’t know how you take it. Guessed right?”
She wraps both hands around the cardboard like it’s a heat source. The first sip softens something in her face I didn’t know was tight. “Perfect.”
I nod at the counter. “I can fetch you a second if you burn through that one.”
“You think highly of my caffeine tolerance.”
“I think highly of starting the day with more than air.” My gaze flicks past her—bed made clean, bag tucked near the couch, and flower crown abandoned on the little table like a surrendered weapon. “You sleep?”
“Shockingly well.” A corner smile. “No elevators dinging or footsteps in the hall. Just… quiet.” Her eyes lift to mine. “Is that weird to say? That quiet felt loud until it didn’t?”
“No.” I get it more than I want to explain. “Out here, quiet’s not empty. It’s just everything else doing its job.”
She leans her shoulder to the jamb, the T-shirt slipping off one bare shoulder with a kind of stubborn elegance she couldn’t fake if she tried. “Is it always like that? The mornings?”
“Mostly.” I jerk my chin toward the back pasture. “Fog settles where the creek bends. The sun burns it off slowly. You should see it when the geese come through—they lift like someone pulled a sheet.”
“Say that again,” she murmurs.
“What?”
“That thing about the sheet.”
