Page 41 of The Heartbreaker Next Door

I stepped forward automatically, arms out. “I’ll take him.”

She hesitated, surprised by my actions and didn’t pass Maverick over. Instead, she adjusted her arms, shifting him higher on her shoulder, and turned her full attention on me with that classic Lockhart squint that meant she was about to test you. Maverick’s little face was pressed into her cardigan, and his fist still clenched that decapitated marshmallow like it was all that stood between him and a napless existence.

“I’m going to take him into the main house so he can zonk out properly,” she said, her voice pitched low out of respect for the freshly unconscious. “Could you let Felicity know? And tell her not to rush. She worked really hard this weekend and deserves to unwind. She should take her time. Blake and Tabby made a sleep fort in the front room, and Tabby’s already out. Maverick is more than welcome to have a sleepover, if she wants to take the whole night off. Tell her to enjoy herself.”

The emphasis on enjoy was not lost on me. My mother had been orchestrating Lockhart emotional states for three decades and had an undefeated record; if she wanted Felicity to have a ‘night off,’ it was because she’d judged, in her matriarchal wisdom, that Felicity deserved one. I felt a twinge of—what, responsibility? Annoyance?—as though I was somehow now responsible for making sure she enjoyed herself. No, it was irritation at myself for looking at my mom’s instructions as a loophole to my rules. Since I’d made them, over the past few weeks, I’d done a damn good job at keeping my distance from her. Time alone, at night, was exactly what I’d been actively avoiding.

“Yeah. I’ll tell her,” I agreed reluctantly.

My mom’s eyes lingered on me for a beat, softening, and she did the thing where she cupped my cheek for half a second. “You’re allowed to be unsure,” she said, and then, with a wink added, “just remember there are two hearts on the line.”

Then she pivoted, holding Maverick like a tiny sack of potatoes, and disappeared into the night toward main house’s porch lights.

For a moment I just stood there, watching their forms fade into the darkness beyond the barn doors, and then turned my attention back to the dance floor. The music had shifted—still country, but softer now, a ballad drawing couples together. Grant, still speaking with Felicity, was now joined by a couple of divorced school moms who were making it very obvious they were members of Grant’s fan club.

As I watched, Felicity excused herself from the group. She squeezed Grant’s forearm in a friendly, grateful way, and ducked past the tack display, scanning the edges of the barn. Her eyes found me, and her face brightened that tiny bit, like she was always running her own private wattage meter and had just decided I was worth an extra amp.

I moved toward her, dodging around the hay bales and the couples who’d turned the barn into a makeshift slow-dance showcase. I registered, almost academically, that many of the pairs were new combinations—people who’d come to this event as friends or acquaintances but were willing to risk checking what a little melody and moonshine could do. I wondered, for the thousandth time, if that was even in my programming.

Felicity met me halfway. “Do you know where Mav is?” she asked, looking around the barn. “He was hanging out with your mom.”

“Yeah,” I said. “He’s out cold. My mom’s taking him to the house so he can crash in peace.” A pause, then: “You don’t have to hurry. Mom said take your time. Blake and Tabby made a sleep fort in the front room, and Mav is welcome to stay the night for a sleepover. She said you’ve worked your ass off and wants you to enjoy yourself.”

Her smile flickered, as if she wasn’t sure she was allowed to. Her hair was already coming loose from her ponytail, and a smudge of chocolate on her shirt—leftover s’mores bar evidence. She looked tired, but in the way people look when they’re happy to be tired. “That’s... nice of her to offer, but I should go get⁠—”

I reached out and grabbed her wrist. “Believe me, she is living for this. She’s been campaigning for grandkids for years, now she has Blake and Tabby, and Mav just slots right into the fold.” As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I realized the connotation I’d just made and tried to correct it. “She loves kids, believe me, this is giving her more than a couple hours off would do for you.”

She took in a shaky breath, as she bit her lower lip.

“One dance?” It came out gruffer than I intended, less an invitation than a demand.

She gave me a quick nod, and I guided her toward the corner of the dance floor. It was darkened, secluded, private. She hesitated, looking up at me, her hand light in mine, her pupils huge in the dimness. For a split second, I thought she might bolt. Then she let out a shaky, almost imperceptible “Okay,” and I realized she was bracing herself, not against me, but against the possibility of closing the distance.

If you had told me, as a kid, that the most terrifying thing I’d ever do would be dancing with a woman, I would have laughed you straight into the horse trough. As it turned out, there was nothing more nerve-wracking than standing in the far corner of my own frickin’ barn, hands sweating, mentally rehearsing how not to mess this up. Even with half the lights out and a red-gold haze from the string bulbs overhead blurring the details, I could feel every cell in my body lock up as Felicity waited, just a foot away, for me to do—something.

She was watching me with a look I’d never seen before. It wasn’t the guarded, skeptical gaze she typically reserved for me—or the harried, distracted gaze of a mom trying to raise a four-year-old. It was... open. Tentative. It made me feel dangerous, like I was holding a match in a fireworks factory, and I didn’t trust myself not to light the whole place up.

My hand found her waist. Not the way Damon had grabbed the girl with silver hoops, all flash and spin and twirl, but gently, like I was afraid she would startle. She didn’t. She just smiled—tiny, barely-there, but it hit me like a punch in the sternum.

She stepped into my arms and swayed uncertainly at first, and I realized we were both overthinking it.

After a bar or two, her posture relaxed, and so did mine. Her head dropped a few inches and rested against my shoulder, warm and surprisingly heavy, like she’d finally decided to trust gravity and let herself be held up by someone else for a change. I could feel her exhale, a long, slow breath that settled something deep in my chest.

“For someone who hates to dance, this is the second time you’ve pulled me onto the dance floor.”

“Who said I hate to dance?”

“Your mom,” she replied.

Right. She probably told her that right after the circus clown story. I could deny it, but the truth was, I didn’t like dancing before Felicity.

“As I said, you make me want to do bad things.”

She let out a shaky laugh. “I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or not.”

“It’s not not a compliment.”

The music was slow, a little sad, a little hopeful. The kind of song that made you want to hold someone for a long time, even if your feet never moved. I wasn’t a dancer, but I could sway in place without stepping on her toes, and that seemed to be enough. She molded to my body with a surprising easiness, her hair tickling my cheek, her head tucking just beneath my chin like that’s where it belonged.