Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The meadow at night was a different thing entirely. The fairy lights had come on as the sun dropped behind the Rockies. The meadow transformed into gold and warm, the kind of light that made everything look like it was happening on another plane of existence.
Eliot stood at the edge of it and looked. He'd done that a lot since arriving in Valor. Stood at the edge of things and looked. He was becoming, against his will and better judgment, a man who noticed things that weren't weather data.
The food stalls had done considerable business. The smell of roasting corn and cider moved through the evening air. Children were slowing down, bodies deflating onto blankets or parents' laps. Couples who had seen cardiac cloud formations earlier in the day were getting closer and closer.
Dalene was dancing with Lila. Eliot remained close by her since the incident with Tristan. Always within arms reach. Sometimes she reached for his hand as they talked with neighbors. Other times she stood on her own. He let her do her thing, mainly because he enjoyed watching her.
The band was an ensemble of military veterans.
Local, acoustic, the kind of music that made people's feet move without care for how others saw them.
The dance area was a flat stretch of grass between the food stalls and the fairy light canopy.
By the second song the area had filled with couples moving in that unhurried way of people who loved a reason to be close to one another.
The first song they played was a Fleetwood Mac song. Eliot's gaze found Dalene as she glanced over Lila's shoulder. A second later she was in his arms. He had no memory of moving closer to her. He simply wanted it and then she was there.
Her yellow dress caught the fairy light. Her freckles gleamed under the glow. "Dance with me," she said, when he reached her. Not a question.
He offered his hand and when she'd stepped into his arms, it felt like arriving. That was the only word for it. Her hand in his, her other hand at his shoulder. She fit against him perfectly. His hand settled at the curve of her waist. They moved.
"You're thinking about the clouds?" she asked against his shoulder.
"I'm thinking about the atmospheric conditions."
"Which are."
"Optimal for poor decision-making."
She laughed. The sound moved through him like a system he hadn't forecast, even though all the data was right there.
Eliot understood that clearly, standing in a Montana meadow with Dalene Austen's laugh against his neck and his hand at her waist and the fairy lights above them entirely indifferent to what was happening below. He had fallen.
Not falling.
Fallen.
Past tense. Complete. The trajectory was finished, and the landing had happened and the only thing left was to figure out what he should do now that he'd arrived somewhere he hadn't planned to be.
But hadn't he planned it? After he'd seen her coming over the wall and he'd approached her.
After she'd asked him to pretend and he'd agreed.
It was all so predictable. Wasn't there movies with this plot line?
Ones where the guy ended up running through an airport to profess his love before she got on a plane.
Eliot looked up to see Reed and Sarai near the food stalls.
Reed had his arm around his wife. The veteran's prosthetic hand resting at the small of her back with the easy, unconsidered confidence.
Sarai's head was tilted against his shoulder.
Both of them were entirely, completely unconcerned with the meadow or the festival or anything at all except each other.
"Thank you," Dalene said against Eliot's shoulder. Quiet enough that it was just for him.
"For what?"
"For helping me make people see that I'm fine."
"You were fine the whole time. People weren't pitying you because they thought you were broken.
They were showing you they cared. That's different.
" He felt her start to say something, but he was not done.
"You take on everyone else's worry and carry it yourself and then you have nothing left.
You need to let people care for you sometimes. "
Dalene huffed. "So you think you know me so well?"
"Yes. I think I do. I've seen your patterns. I can read you like a storm front."
"You think I'm a storm?"
"I think you're the rain that comes after the storm and washes everything away to make it fresh. You just need someone to hold you still under your own shower so you can reap that benefit for yourself."
She opened her mouth. Closed it. Looked at him for a long moment, but didn't argue. "You're right. I'll work on it."
Eliot grinned. "That was too easy."
Dalene grinned back. Then it faded. The grin went soft at the edges, the kind of soft that meant something underneath it.
"This was the perfect ending," she said.
"To what?"
"To us." She said it lightly. "The festival is almost over which means—" She looked at the fairy lights above them. "We said end of the festival. Clean stop."
"What if we end the fake relationship right now?"
Eliot felt her go still. Not the pulling-away kind of still. Tension in the status quo. Friction in what had been settled. In meteorology that meant a front was moving through. Something was about to change.
"What if," he continued, "we start a real relationship right now instead."
Dalene looked up at him with a wide, unguarded expression. "A real relationship?"
"With real feelings. Real dates. Real kisses."
He watched her swallow. It took him a moment to refocus and remember what he'd been about to say. "This dance; what if it counts as our first date?"
The fairy lights moved above them. The band played on. The meadow went about its evening entirely unbothered by what was happening in the middle of it.
"Okay," she said. "I agree to the dance being the first date."
The song ended. The singer began to banter as some of the musicians reset, preparing for another song. The dance area breathed around Dalene and Eliot. Couples separated. Some went back to their blankets. Others continued to hold one another in the silence between sets.
"Since our first date is over," Eliot said, "can I steal a kiss?"
Dalene grinned. The full version. The one that sounded like the first drops of rain on a sunny day.
She nodded.
Eliot didn't hesitate. He leaned down and kissed her.
The first time he'd kissed her it had been urgent. It had been a true stolen thing. Something that was unearned. Something he decided on the spot to take in case he never got the chance again. This was nothing like that.
This was slow. Unhurried. The kiss of a man who had nowhere else to be and no reason to rush. And so Eliot kissed Dalene like he had all the time in the world. He was beginning to think he might.