Page 78 of At First Dance
On the drive into town, he kept one hand on the wheel and one on my knee—not possessive but present. At the stop sign before the bridge, he traced slow, absentminded circles there, like he was learning a song under his breath. He turned the radio down when a caller shouted, rolled it back up when an old waltz came on, and sang exactly two off-key lines to make me laugh. When we parked, he came around to my side and offered his hand like we were stepping onto a dance floor and not cracked pavement, and I took it, because last night made me brave in a new, quiet way.
He holds the door a beat longer than necessary, palm out, then weaves us through the morning crowd. First time in public since we… didn’t sleep. First time trying on the shape of us outside four walls and a dim lamp and the steady way he breathed after.
He pulls out my chair. Orders me water without asking because he’s noticed I forget. When I take off my sweater, he shrugs out of his jacket and drapes it over the back of my chair; protectiveness disguised as practical. The corner of his mouth keeps trying to curve. He won’t let it. But it’s there. He feels the lightness too.
We take the table near the back—our unspoken preference, offering the most privacy. His knee bumps mine and stays. I could sit here and memorize the new parts of him—the soft after, the way he keeps catching my hand under the table like he’s surprised it still fits so well—but I didn’t come just to float on last night.
“Gossip mill’s working overtime,” he says, picking up a menu he knows by heart. “Marge already refilled the sugar like we’ll need courage.”
“It’s either a slow news day,” I murmur, “or a pop singer just ruined the reputation of a respectable cowboy.”
He shoots me a sideways look. “Respectable?”
“You wear denim-on-denim without irony and say things like rotation schedule in public.”
A huff of a laugh. It makes something low and grateful open in my chest. He feels different today—lighter, yes, but careful in a new way too. He keeps checking in without words. When my phone vibrates
Bailey:
You alive? do not forget carbs
His thumb strokes once along the inside of my wrist, and my whole nervous system sighs.
Marge appears with coffee like she’s been waiting for this exact moment since 1987. She takes our order with a smile that says she’s already decided we belong together. Rowan adds bacon to my avocado toast because last time I stole his. I glare, and he looks smug. It feels ordinary. I didn’t realize how much I wanted ordinary until this minute.
The whispers at the counter rise, crest, settle. He watches me, not them. “We can take it to go,” he says quietly. “If it’s too much.”
I shake my head. “I like being seen next to you.” Truth, delivered without armor. His eyes flare—barely—but I catch it. A yes that lives in his ribs.
By the time the coffee hits the table, my hands won’t stop moving. I fish out a pen and tug a napkin closer.
Rowan leans back, arms crossing, amused and wary in equal measure. “That tone. The one that starts with hear me out and ends with me up a ladder.”
I draw anyway. A rough square. Rows inside. A rectangle at the edge. “Camp,” I say, because I’m done pretending it’s a passing thought. “One field for strawberries, one for corn. A greenhouse for herbs in early spring.”
He tilts in despite himself. “That’s not how you draw a greenhouse.”
“I’m not an architect. I’m a dreamer with caffeine and a Sharpie.” I add little stick figures beside a barn. “This is the petting zoo. This stick kid is petting a goat.”
“That goat has antlers.”
“Artistic license.”
He chuckles, quiet but genuine, and it sends a thrill through me. That laugh is rarer than rain in July.
I keep going, layering the sketch with energy. “Look, I’m not trying to tell you how to run your life. But I’ve seen the way kids respond to this place. Howyoulight up when you talk about teaching them. You’re not as much of a hermit as you pretend to be.”
He runs a thumb along his jaw, eyes dropping to the napkin. “You think I could do it?”
The raw vulnerability in his voice knocks the wind out of me.
“I think you could change lives,” I whisper. “Starting with your own.”
Before he can answer, there’s a tap at my elbow.
I turn—and see her.
A little girl, maybe seven or eight, with tangled curls and wide brown eyes almost too big for her face. She’s wearing a sequined shirt with a unicorn on it and has a pink plastic purse slung across her body.
