Ivy
Hampton, Virginia
Dalton’s kitchen is quiet when I find him.
Not empty—just still in that late-evening way where everything feels a little softer. The overhead light casts a low glow across the butcher-block counters, and the faint clink of a glass in the oversized farmhouse sink is the only sound as he sets it down.
I pause in the doorway longer than I mean to, watching him for a second. This shouldn’t feel like such a big deal. It’s a simple question. Except it isn’t. Not with him. Not after what he witnessed in Vegas.
Because asking Dalton for something always feels like stepping a little further into something I don’t fully understand yet. And maybe I don't trust myself to.
He glances up, noticing me almost immediately, his attention shifting in a way that’s become familiar. Quick. Focused. Like whatever he was doing doesn’t matter anymore. “Hey, I was just about to start dinner. When will Hadley be home?”
“She’s actually sleeping over at my mom’s tonight. They have a field trip to the science museum tomorrow and Mom’s chaperoning. It just seemed easier than having her pick Had up early in the morning.”
I step into the kitchen, my fingers brushing absently over the edge of the counter as I try to ground myself in something small and unimportant. It doesn’t work. My thoughts are still too loud.
“Okay. What about you? Are you hungry?” He turns his muscular frame so he’s fully facing me. His golden-brown eyes are focused so intently on me I have to look away. “Are you okay?” he asks. When I look up, I realize he’s studying me a little more closely now.
“Yeah. I just…” I let out a quiet breath, then force myself to meet his eyes. “I had a question.”
Something in his posture shifts, not tense, but attentive in a way that makes it very clear he’s already taking me seriously. “Okay.”
I hesitate anyway. Because I already know what he’s going to say.
“Do you think I’d be fine if I went to the studio for a few hours?” I ask, keeping my tone as even as I can. Casual. Like it doesn’t matter.
But it does. I see it the second the words land. The way he stills. The way his gaze sharpens just slightly, like he’s already running through it in his head. “Alone?” he asks.
There it is.
I shrug, even though I expected that question. Even though I built the entire ask around it.
“Yeah,” I say, a little too quickly. “I have an alarm there and I’ll set it back as soon as I’m inside so—”
“Ivy.” He doesn’t raise his voice. He doesn’t need to. I stop anyway.
There’s a quiet beat where he looks at me, and I can see him choosing how to say what he wants to say without pushing too hard. “I don’t love the idea of you being there by yourself,” he says finally.
It’s not controlling. Not overbearing. If anything, it’s careful. Measured. And somehow that makes it harder to brush off.
I nod once, my gaze dropping briefly to the counter between us. “I figured,” I murmur.
Of course he doesn’t. I knew he wouldn’t.
A small silence stretches, just long enough that I feel it settle into something heavier.
Then I lift my eyes back to his.
“That’s kind of why I asked,” I admit.
Something in his expression shifts immediately. Not dramatically. Just enough.
“I haven’t been there since everything happened,” I continue, my voice quieter now, more honest than I intended.
“And I need to go back. I just…” I swallow, shaking my head slightly.
“I need to dance and clear my head and just be there, in my space. It’s a safe haven for me.
And it’s mine. Not Kyler’s or yours or the United States military’s. Just mine.”
He doesn’t interrupt or rush to fill the space. He just listens.
And for some reason, that makes it harder to get the rest of it out. I take a breath. “Would you come with me?” The words feel heavier once they’re said. Like they mean more than I planned for them to.
There’s a brief pause.
“Of course, Ivy.” His answer comes easily. Like there was never another option.
I blink, something in my chest loosening and tightening at the same time. “Really?” I ask, softer than I mean to.
His gaze doesn’t waver. “Of course,” he repeats, like it’s obvious.
“You need to dance. I know what that means to you. It’s probably about the same as what flying is to me.
I would never expect you to give that up.
” He says it like maybe someone once tried to ground him, like he knows from experience that when you have something as pure and healing as dance is for me and flying is for him you can’t be expected to go without it for long.
A quiet breath leaves me, something close to relief slipping through before I can stop it. “I really hoped you’d say yes,” I admit.
The corner of his mouth lifts faintly, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes this time. “Good.”
“Thank you.” For seeing me. For knowing me. For protecting me. For understanding that I’m not okay but have the best chance at feeling like I am after a few hours in pointe shoes, soaked in sweat and struggling to catch my breath.
Then he steps a little closer.
Not enough to crowd me.
Just enough that I feel the distance shrink.
“Ivy,” he says, his voice lower now, steadier, “you don’t have to ease into asking me for things.”
My breath catches, just slightly.
“If you need something,” he continues, his gaze holding mine in a way that feels…
deliberate, “you can just ask. And if I can do it, I will.” The certainty in his voice lands somewhere deep in my chest. And the way he’s looking at me when he says it makes it very clear that he’s not just talking about tonight.
I hold his gaze for a second too long.
Long enough that it starts to feel like something else entirely.
“You make that sound really easy,” I say quietly.
His expression shifts, just a fraction. “It is,” he says.
And this time, there’s nothing casual about it.
My stomach flips, sharp and sudden.
Because I know what that means.
Or at least…I think I do.
And that’s the problem.
I look away first, breaking whatever that moment was before it can settle into something neither of us is ready to deal with.
“We can go after dinner,” I say, forcing my voice back to something steadier.
“That works. I’m about to cook. Does fettuccine alfredo with broccoli and spinach sound okay?”
My stomach growls like it knows. I nod vigorously. “It sounds amazing."
“Perfect.” He smiles but it quickly gives way to a distracted smirk as his gaze bounces from my eyes to my mouth and back again.
Neither of us moves.
The space between us lingers, thick with something unspoken, something neither of us is quite willing to touch yet.
And as I stand there, acutely aware of him in a way I probably shouldn’t be, one thought presses in, quiet and unwelcome.
This would be easier if it didn’t feel like he meant every word he just said.