Chapter Six – Ivy #2
He steps in behind me—close but careful—his chest just brushing my back as he wraps one big hand around mine on the grip, the other settling lightly at my forearm to anchor it. Heat rolls off him, slow and sure. The world narrows to cedar, sun, and the weight of his body guiding mine.
“Lock your wrist,” he murmurs, breath grazing my cheek. “Let the tool do the work. Straight in.”
I adjust, and he stays with me, shaping the angle until the bit bites clean and sings. The vibration travels through my fingers and up my arm, straight to someplace that has nothing to do with carpentry.
“Like that,” he says.
My breath stutters. “Got it.”
We move as one, hole by hole. He shifts with me, a living bracket—never crowding, never rushing—just there. When it’s time to set the bolts, he keeps one palm firm under the gate’s weight while I slide the hardware through and spin the nuts on by hand.
“Snug them down,” he says, passing me the socket. “Quarter turn past tight.”
I work the ratchet while his fingers brush the back of my wrist, steadying, and every nerve I own sits up and pays attention. The final bolt seats with a small, satisfying bite.
“Moment of truth.” He eases back, testing the swing. The gate glides clean, no drag, no scrape—just a smooth arc and a clean click when the latch finds home.
A smile breaks over my face before I can stop it. “We’re geniuses.”
“Hardly.” His mouth tilts, eyes on mine. “But you’ve got good hands.”
I pretend that compliment lands anywhere but where it does. “You make a decent teacher.”
He tips his chin, approval like sunlight. “Again?”
“Again,” I echo even though I’m not sure if I mean gates or this slow, careful way he’s touching me without really touching me at all.
He doesn’t move, and neither do I. For one brief, pulsing heartbeat, the only sound between us is the soft rustle of grass and the distant call of a mourning dove.
Rowan straightens abruptly. “Barbecue’s tonight.”
I blink. “What?”
He wipes his hands on a rag, not looking at me. “Town throws one every summer. Burgers, beer, bad dancing.”
“Sounds charming.”
“Mostly, it’s an excuse for people to stare at each other and pretend they don’t gossip year-round.” He pauses. “You should come.”
The words surprise me. I’m not sure if they surprise him too.
It doesn’t land like a warm-and-fuzzy invite so much as a practical don’t-sit-home-and-wallow pass—logistics dressed up as kindness.
There’s grit in his voice, a careful distance in the way he doesn’t quite meet my eyes, like he’s still chewing on the fact that I left without a real goodbye.
It feels less like a date and more like a lifeline tossed from the shore with a note that says: this doesn’t mean anything except you don’t have to drown alone.
I tell myself I’ll take it anyway, even if part of me aches that he didn’t ask because he wanted me there, but because it would’ve felt wrong to leave me behind.
“I thought you didn’t do town gatherings. ”
He shrugs. “I don’t. Not really.”
“So why ask me?”
“Because maybe you need a reminder that not everything out here wants something from you.”
That hits harder than I expected.
I nod slowly. “Okay. I’ll come.”
Rowan meets my gaze then, his eyes dark and unreadable. But something else is there. Something pulling.
He looks away first.
The barbecue hums like summer itself—lanterns bobbing, a jittery generator keeping the string lights alive, and smoke curling up from three mismatched grills.
Kids dart between knees with sparklers. Someone’s aunt sets out a pan of cinnamon-dusted funnel cakes like she’s starting a holy war.
When Rowan parks, the passenger door complains, and I hop down in jeans and a soft T-shirt, hair in a loose braid that’s already giving up at the edges.
People look. Of course, they do. But they’re not gawking. They’re mapping me into the same picture that already holds their kids’ school plays and last winter’s power outage. Neighbor eyes hit differently.
Rowan falls into step at my side, easy and solid, and the space around us shifts.
His shoulders square, jaw set, a quiet perimeter I can feel even when he’s not touching me.
Two teens lift their phones halfway—he tips his chin, not unkind, and they lower them.
An older couple pauses mid-whisper. He greets them by name, and they pinken, then smile at me like we’ve been introduced properly.
At the drink table, a knot of kids rubberneck. Rowan angles his body so I’m tucked between him and the coolers, his hand hovering at my lower back—a promise with no pressure. A woman with a messy braid and a toddler on her hip beelines over.
“Rowan? You brought someone?”
“She’s a guest,” he mutters.
“Could’ve fooled me.” Her grin goes wide. “I’m June. Third plate of cornbread. Zero regrets.”
“Ivy,” I say, laughing.
“Oh, honey, we know.” She winks.
She breezes off, and Rowan leans in, mouth close to my ear. “There’s still time to fake a stomachache.”
“Please. I’ve survived award shows. I can survive a grapevine.”
He doesn’t smile, not really, but the corner of his mouth betrays him. He disappears for a minute and returns with two paper trays and an extra napkin tucked under his forearm like it’s a love language.
“Did you bring me brisket?” I ask.
“Don’t read into it.”
We claim a spot near the edge of the grass—far enough from the speakers but close enough to catch the lantern glow. Our arms brush as we eat, but neither of us moves away. The warmth sits low and steady, like banked coals.
Rowan’s arm brushes mine as he sits back. He doesn’t move it. And I don’t either.
“Watching.”
“Me?”
“Not everything’s about you.”
I give him a look. “It usually is.”
He cracks a smirk. Barely.
A few of the townspeople start egging each other toward the makeshift stage—if a plank of wood and two hanging lanterns count. An older man with a banjo starts plucking a tune, and someone yells out, “Give us something, Ivy!”
I freeze.
Rowan stiffens beside me. “You don’t have to—”
But I’m already rising. I don’t know why. Maybe I need the reminder. Perhaps it’s out of duty. Maybe I want to prove that this version of me—barefoot, bourbon-warmed, wearing borrowed denim and a braid—can still sing.
The crowd falls quiet as I step onto the platform, heart thudding.
I ask the banjo man, “Do you know ‘Wildflowers in July’?”
He nods, adjusting the tuning keys with a soft smile. “Good choice.”
The chords begin, slow and wistful. I wrote this song three years ago in a tour bus parking lot, staring out at a sunrise I never got to touch.
I close my eyes. Then begin.
“I used to run, head full of noise
City lights and plastic poise
But I remember wildflowers in July
Mama’s boots and a baby blue sky…”
My voice isn’t perfect. It wavers in the middle and cracks just once.
But it’s real.
When I open my eyes at the last line, the crowd is hushed. And Rowan is watching me.
The applause is soft. Reverent.
I step down slowly, pulse still racing, but something inside me settles. Like maybe I’ve stitched a part of myself back together with every note.
Rowan stands as I approach, something unreadable in his eyes.
“Why’d you sing that one?” he asks quietly.
“Because it’s the first one I wrote just for me.”
He doesn’t say anything. Just nods.
“Line dancing starts in ten! Hydrate!” a far-off voice shouts into the crowd.
The band shifts from background to invitation. A fiddle saws out the first bars of a boot-stomper, and a half cheer rises. June reappears and points at the chalkboard: LINE DANCE LESSONS — NO SHAME, JUST FUN.
Rowan looks like a man considering flight. I lace my fingers through his and tug. “Come on, cowboy.”
He lets me pull him to the trampled square. Rows form, loose and laughing. I squint at the feet around me like they’re going to reveal state secrets.
“Left, right, kick,” I murmur, immediately late.
“Weight on your left,” Rowan says, stepping in front of me, palms hovering. “Now step. Toe, heel, shuffle—yeah. Like that.”
I try and fail spectacularly. I tip my head back and laugh, bright and uncurated, and feel his gaze like heat on my skin.
The line surges forward, I tangle my own ankles, and he’s there without thinking, his hand finding my waist, steady and sure.
Everything in me leans into that touch like a plant toward the sun.
“Don’t let go,” I tease.
He doesn’t. “Wasn’t planning on it.”
Two songs in, I almost have it. Three songs in, he starts sandbagging—adding a little heel-click flourish just when I’ve found a rhythm—smug in a way that makes me elbow him and makes him laugh, startled and boyish.
It’s ridiculous and perfect, and I can feel parts of me unclench I didn’t know were tight.
The fiddle softens, and the rhythm melts. Couples turn toward each other as if the air itself gave the command. Someone kills the floodlights near the grills, and the world narrows to fairy lights, the thrum of summer, and a steel guitar that turns the night to velvet.
Rowan shifts, uncertainty flickering across a face I’m starting to memorize. Then he offers his hand, bashful in a way that kneecaps me.
“Dance with me?” he asks.
I put my palm in his. “Yeah.”
He draws me in. One hand finds the small of my back, warm and protective; the other cradles my fingers like they’re important.
We sway. The generator hum becomes a heartbeat, and the chatter around us goes soft.
I rest my cheek against his chest. He breathes in like he’s making room for me, and the world tilts into place.
“You’re good at this,” I say, voice low.
“Lots of weddings,” he murmurs. “Lots of waiting.”
“For what?”
He considers. “For the right song.”
I tip back enough to see his eyes. Lantern light threads gold through green. My thumbs press into the fabric at his shoulders and the small sounds he makes—barely there inhales—go straight to my pulse.
“Your laugh,” he adds, almost like he didn’t mean to speak. “Sounds like home.”
“You don’t even know my home,” I whisper.
His gaze dips to my mouth and returns, a tide pulling and retreating. “Maybe I don’t need to.”
The last chord lingers. We don’t move. Somewhere behind us, June whoops, a sparkler cracks, and the lights flicker with the generator’s hiccup. The spell should break, but it doesn’t. It condenses, like rain deciding to fall.
He clears his throat. “Walk?”
“Please,” I say, because staying means doing something we can’t undo.
We slip along the park’s edge, past the hum of grills and the sweet scorch of corn, down the sandy path where the bay lies itself out in ink and silver.
Behind us is laughter, a guitar’s loose chorus, and kids tracing stars with sparklers that spit and fade.
Up by the tree line, a couple drifts into the shadows, and the night politely looks away.
At the truck, he opens my door but doesn’t step back.
Lantern glow threads gold through the scruff along his jaw and finds the tiny scar at his temple.
We stand too close, breath mingling, the kind of nearness that hums in the space where words would go.
My fingers skim the doorframe, and his knuckles brush mine.
Static jumps. Neither of us moves for a full, suspended second.
A sparkler crackles, and someone whoops. The couple emerges laughing, and the world widens by an inch. He shifts first—just enough to let air through—then reaches past me to steady the handle, forearm warm along my shoulder. I climb in, heart loud, and he closes the door softly like it matters.
On the drive back, windows down, the night pouring cool over our wrists, our hands keep finding each other on the bench seat and retreating.
Back of his fingers to the back of mine.
A quiet apology. A quiet promise. No talking.
Just the road unwinding and the same thought pulsing between us, bright as a sparkler’s last flare. Not here, not yet.