Page 91 of At First Dance
Relieved for the excuse, I move toward him without another word, feeling the weight of both men’s gazes follow me.
Something tells me this day is only going to get more complicated.
I slip around the back of the barn, fingers trembling just a little as I pull my phone out of my pocket.
Missed call:Celeste.
And a text.
Celeste:
Call me back. I don’t care where you are.
My thumb hovers over the screen for a long second. I should ignore it. I should toss the phone into the nearest trough and go back to pretending I don’t care.
But I do. Not about what she thinks. But about cutting this off before she finds another way to meddle.
I pressCalland lift the phone to my ear, my pulse already spiking. She answers on the first ring.
“Well, well. The prodigal daughter returns my call.”
Her voice is crisp, coated in sugar and daggers.
“I didn’t return your call,” I say evenly. “I’m calling to tell you to stop.”
A pause. Then a scoff.
“Oh, Evangeline. You’ve always been dramatic.”
The sound of my full name makes something in me snap.
“No. You’ve always been manipulative.”
“Where are you?” she demands. “Still playing house on that farm like some tragic version of Green Acres?”
I clench my jaw. “That’s none of your business.”
“Itismy business when your name is still my paycheck. You think you can just run off and pretend this little identity crisis doesn’t have consequences?”
“I’m not pretending,” I say, voice tight. “I’m living.”
“You think anyone gives a damn aboutyouwithout me guiding your career?” she snaps. “I made you. When your father left, you were just a girl in a trailer park with a half-dead cassette player and no idea how to keep the lights on. Who paid for your braces? Your first guitar? That trip to LA when you were fifteen? Me.”
I swallow hard. “You helped. But that doesn’t mean you own me.”
“I built you from the ground up,” she hisses. “And now you’re going to burn it all down to flirt with a cowboy in a town that doesn’t even have a Starbucks?”
I almost laugh. But there’s no humor in it.
“I’m done letting you choose who I have to be.”
Silence.
Then her voice drops, soft and sharp.
“You’re making a mistake, Evangeline. One you won’t come back from.”
I stare out across the field, where Rowan is still moving between stalls like nothing in the world could shake him. Where his shoulders hold up more than fences and feed bags. Where he hasn’t once asked me to be anyone but myself.
