Chapter 18 The Dance Hall #2
"My feet need a break from your education," I tell him, stepping back but keeping hold of his hand. "Buy me some pie and tell me something I don't know about you."
"Something you don't know?" He leads me back to our table, where the fries have gone cold but the beer is still waiting. "After seven years?"
"There has to be something." I slide into the booth and pull the basket toward me, eating a cold fry without shame. "A secret hobby. A hidden talent. A childhood dream you never told me about."
He's quiet for a moment, and I watch him decide how honest to be.
"I wanted to be a pilot," he finally says, something almost shy in his voice. "When I was twelve. I used to sneak aviation magazines into my room and hide them under the mattress like other kids hid...well, other magazines."
"A pilot?" The image delights me: young Jackson, dreaming of the sky while surrounded by cattle and dirt. "Why didn't you ever mention that?"
"Because it was stupid." He shrugs, but I can see the old embarrassment underneath. "The ranch needed me. Gran needed me. Flying was just a fantasy."
"It's not stupid." I reach across the table and cover his hand with mine. "Did you ever take lessons?"
"A few, after Dad died." He turns his hand over to lace our fingers together. "Gran encouraged it, actually. Said I needed something that was just mine. But then she got sick, and the ranch got complicated, and I just... stopped."
I keep hold of his hand while he considers the idea. "You could start again."
"Maybe." He looks at me with an expression I can't quite read. "Your turn. Something I don't know."
I consider lying, deflecting, keeping the conversation light. But he just gave me something real, and I want to give him the same.
I turn my beer glass by the base, feeling unexpectedly shy about it. "I've been looking at a short culinary course in Paris. Pastry, mostly. I keep opening the page and closing it again."
Jackson leaves his hand under mine. "What's stopping you?"
I look down at our hands. "The timing. The business. And being the person in the room who has to ask how something works again. I like knowing what I'm doing."
Jackson raises his brows, clearly enjoying finding something I don't already do confidently. "You'd rather stay home than ask a question?"
I eat another fry before admitting it. "It sounds stupid when you put it like that. Apparently I'm allowed one ridiculous fear."
Jackson smiles at me across the table. "Only one? I've been allotted about thirty."
I squeeze his hand before he can add anything else to his list. "You use yours faster."
He lifts my hand and kisses my knuckles. "Do you want to go? Leave the timing out of it for a minute."
The question lands somewhere deep, somewhere I've been avoiding. What do I want? Earlier this summer, I would have said my husband back, my life back, everything the way it was before. The good years were real. I want more of them, but I want room for things I haven't tried, too.
"I want my business to grow," I say slowly, working through it as I speak.
"I want the Montana job to be the first of many.
I want to cook for people who appreciate it and get paid what I'm worth.
" I pause, meet his eyes. "And I want Paris.
I want to take a class where I'm allowed to be bad at something until I learn it. "
He moves his beer aside so he can lean closer to me. "That's a good answer."
I let him see how much it matters that he's listening. "It's an honest one."
Jackson reaches for my hand across the table, his attention still on my plans. "Send me the page sometime. I'd like to see it."
The band starts a song I recognize, something about trucks and summer and love that never dies, and Jackson nods toward the dance floor.
Jackson offers his hand again, watching my face instead of the dancers. "One more? I promise to only step on your feet twice."
I glance at my boots, making a show of counting the toes I still need. "Only twice?"
He offers his hand across the table, inviting me to test the claim. "I'm trying not to oversell myself."
I let him pull me back into the crowd, let his arms wrap around me, let myself enjoy this moment without cataloging everything that could go wrong.
The music is too loud and the floor is too sticky and Jackson's timing is still about half a beat off, and none of it matters.
What matters is the way he looks at me like I'm the best thing he's ever seen.
What matters is the way I feel when I look back.
Later, in the parking lot, he walks me to my truck and kisses me goodnight against the driver's door.
"Thank you for tonight," I say against his mouth, not quite ready to let go.
Jackson keeps his arm around me while I lean against the truck. "Thank you for saying yes."
I keep my hand against his chest while I admit it. "I'd like another night like this."
His smile in the dim light is everything I need to see.
"Tomorrow." He keeps hold of my hand beside the truck. "Henderson dinner. Will you come with me?"
I tap his chest lightly, reminding him that I have work to finish there. "I'm already catering it, remember?"
He catches my hand before I can pull it away. "Come with me anyway. Be my date after you're done being the chef."
I pretend to consider whether he can tolerate the company, although I already want to stay. "That's a lot of me in one night."
"There's no such thing." He kisses me again, soft and quick. "I'll see you tomorrow."
I drive home with the radio off, replaying the night in my head. The dancing. The pie we ordered and barely touched because we were too busy talking. The way he said what do you actually want like my answer mattered more than anything else.
I want this, I think as I climb the stairs to my apartment. I want him. I like the man who practices dance moves alone and tells me about his childhood dreams.
I want to see what we can build.
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