“Hollie,” he whispered.
I turned my gaze to him, surprised to see him leaning back, his eyes soft and concerned.
He gave my hand another gentle squeeze. “You need to be nicer to yourself.”
My eyes prickled with heat but I shrugged. “I was a stupid kid.” My voice sounded more hollow than I intended.
“Is that what you really believe? Or did someone believe that for you?”
My words faltered. “That’s—what I believe.”
“List them. All those stupid things you wanted as a kid.”
I huffed, growing agitated at his persistence. A few tears trickled down my cheeks, officially ruining the night. I shrugged again, a crevice of pain opening my chest. “What all kids want—I guess.”
“Like what?”
“I wanted—my parents to be okay. I wanted Peter to live. I wanted to have a man who loved me, kids, and a family one day. I wanted to go to college. Other than that, I just…” My words tapered as shame crept up my spine.
Jesse shifted, his left hand moving to hold mine as his right hand reached behind me to play with a curl hanging down the back of my chair. “Finish.”
I swallowed so the words would come out brave. But they wobbled anyway. “I—just—wanted to dance.”
“Why didn’t you?”
I blinked, rivulets of tears now dripping from my chin. I swiped them with the top of my shoulder. “I wanted to go to Denver University and try out for the dance team, but I didn’t know what to study. Ididn’t have passions or money or scholarship-worthy grades, and I couldn’t justify the debt just to go dance for fun. Before I’d made a decision about it, I met Garrett. He was successful and wealthy and he promised to pay my way.”
The following silence felt loud. Jesse could probably put two and two together, but the truth bubbled up in my heart like poison I had to spit out of my mouth. I spent so much energy trying to avoid Garrett’s betrayals that they hit me like an avalanche. My heart quivered at the memories of how he reeled me in. “But, obviously, he didn’t pay.” I leaned back and looked at the hazy sky, my scalp tickling as Jesse lightly touched my hair. “I think he just told me that so he could take advantage of me. He always painted these beautiful ideas about the future when I had doubts.”
An abrupt cheer rose from the arena, filling the silence like a cresting wave.
“So your dream died.”
“Yeah, after we got together, dancing came at too high a price. He convinced himself I was cheating on him with one of the guys from my old troupe because I looked ‘too happy’ when I came home after meeting up with them to dance.” I snorted at the absurdity of it. “He made a big deal of his needs on the nights I tried to leave the house, or gave me lectures about moving provocatively, or he just…belittled it until I was ashamed.” I sniffed loud, trying not to fall apart again. “My insecurities got so loud, I couldn’t even dance alone in a closet.”
Jesse’s hand, growing a little braver, gingerly sunk into the roots of my hair, letting the strands slip between his fingers. My eyes fluttered closed as chills skittered down my arms. His question was undemanding. “What did you like about it?”
I smiled. “It felt like a different dimension. I could forget everything but my body and the music and say whatever I didn’t have the words for. I turned to dancing during some hard years as a teen—it was how I coped with heavy family stuff. Something about it just…set me free.”
“Do you miss it?”
“Yes.”
Jesse’s fingers lightly scraped my scalp, and ittook everything in me to keep my eyes from rolling back. His touches felt safe and familiar, oddly intimate. Garrett’s touches were often gentle, but I couldn’t trust them because he always demanded a worthy return on his investment.
Jesse wasn’t like that.
I melted deeper into my chair, relishing in the way my body responded to him. After a few quiet moments, his hand fully cupped the back of my head and he tensed his fingers, signaling me to look at him. Pulling my eyes away from the sky, I turned toward him to find eyes so soft they seemed liquid. He whispered, “I’ll be right back.”
He disappeared into the truck, and a moment later, the country tunes coming from the semi were louder. When he came back, he stood directly in front of my chair and held out his open hand. “Hollie Lynette, could I have the pleasure of dancing with you?”
THIRTY-THREE
Jesse
Hollie hesitated, her eyes dropping to my hand then back to my face. When she didn’t move, I smiled. “It’s up to you.”
Slowly, she slipped her hand into mine and let me lift her from her chair. I launched us into a slow, swaying two-step, something to get us warmed up. I was no pro by any stretch, but I could do basic stuff, and she followed my lead like we’d danced together a hundred times. My left hand curled around her waist, careful not to pull her closer than I needed to.
