Page 33 of Almost Yours
I dig through it, flipping past crumbling covers and cracked vinyl until one catches my eye. “Patsy Cline,” I read, holding it up for him to see.
He grins. “Perfect.”
We clear a spot on a battered table. Rowan sets the record player down carefully, turning it so the side faces him. There’s a small metal crank tucked against the wood.
“Okay,” he says, examining it. “This might take a minute.”
He tests the crank once. It resists, then loosens with a faint click. Rowan nods to himself and starts turning it, slow and steady.
“There you go.” He lowers the needle with a delicate touch, and after a moment of crackling static, Patsy’s voice fills the barn.
He crosses his arms over his broad chest. “Told you she still had life in her.”
The music fills every dusty corner, Patsy crooning about lost love and broken promises. For a while, we just stand there.
Rowan shifts first. He moves toward me with unhurried confidence that makes my knees threaten to give out, and even though he doesn’t reach for me, his nearness is a touch all on its own.
“I used to picture this,” he says, barely above a whisper.
I swallow hard, my heart thundering against the fragile walls of my chest.
The song fades out, leaving nothing but the soft hiss of the needle and the awareness of him standing there, looking at me like maybe he’s picturedmorethan just this.
He rubs the back of his neck. Watching this huge, tattooed man, who’s survived every rough edge life ever threw at him, stand there in a moment of pure vulnerability just about wrecks me.
“I should’ve danced with you back then,” he says, his gaze skimming past mine as if he’s afraid of what he might find if he looks too long. “All those times I wanted to and didn’t.”
“I thought I’d screw it up,” he mutters, almost to himself. “Thought you were too good, and I was too…me.”
My throat stings with all the things we never said, all themoments we let slip through our fingers. Still, I manage a smile. “And now?”
This time, he meets my eyes, and that look folds around my ribs and tugs hard.
“Well, I’m still probably gonna screw it up,” he says, chuckling under his breath. “But I’d rather risk it than regret it again.”
He steps toward me, closing the last of the distance, and holds out his hand.
No performance. No swagger. Just Rowan, steady and sure, asking for a chance.
I slide my fingers into his without hesitation. His palm is rough and warm and…perfect. Like it was always meant to find mine in every lifetime.
Patsy’s voice rises again, drifting back in on a new song, the music crackling softly through the barn. Rowan draws me in slowly, giving me every chance to pull away, but I don’t think I could if I tried.
I lean into the solid lines of his body, into the hand he rests at my waist, into the way his thumb brushes absentminded circles against the back of my hand.
We sway there in the middle of the barn, feet barely moving, the light slanting gold across the dusty floor, the air thick with hay and sun-warmed wood.
“You’re not screwing it up,” I whisper.
Rowan makes a sound deep in his chest that sounds a lot like relief and pulls me in just a little closer.
I let my head fall against him, right over the beat of his heart, and for a few long seconds, I forget about the years apart and the missed chances.
“This is nice,” I mumble against his shirt.
His thumb traces small circles against my lower back. “Yeah,” he says, his voice rumbling low against my skin. “It is.”
The song fades out, the final notes drifting into silence, but neither of us moves. Finally, I take a small step back. Just enough to remember how to stand on my own two feet. The barn seemsbigger without him wrapped around me. Emptier, too. Like the air got sucked out the moment I stepped away.
