Page 16 of My Last Dance

He shrugged. “Laying down for a second.”

I blinked at him. “Are you losing your mind? Is that what this whole nice act is?”

“No.” He chuckled as he stretched out his long body. Folding his arms behind his head, he closed his eyes. “I’m helping you find yours.” He opened one eye to peek at me. “Been wanting to for a couple months now.”

A couple months? Since Grand Prix?“What are you—”

“Stop talking, Piper,” he cut me off, and something in his tone made me pause.Kappy, of all people, was being serious. He wasneverserious.

Rolling my eyes, I laid back down, mumbling, “Fine, whatever. Not like I have anything else to lose.” But after a beat of silence, I groaned. “What in the world are we doing? I’m cold and tired, and I just—”

“Close your eyes and breathe,” he said, ignoring me.

Sulking in the wet grass, I did what he said. “What now?”

“Just keep breathing. Breathe deep,” he said slowly. “In four, out four. Smell the grass, smell the bonfire still stoking in the back.” A minute passed. “Now look up at the stars. Without all the city lights, you can actually see them here.”

While I hated to admit it, he was right. I laid there studying the immense inky night sky dotted with bright little stars, and it felt like I was shrinking into the grass. We were so still that it felt like I could practically feel the earth spinning beneath me.

“Everything you lost today doesn’t really matter,” he started. “All your little pieces of plastic with all your money on it? All that can be fixed. And that phone world? The internet, social media, all thoseonline trolls writing mean comments? Theydon’t exist. They’re not here. Theydon’t matter,” he said in a steel-like voice. “They can’t get to you. They can’t reach you. Because you’rehere. In the real world. With the real grass. The only thing that’s real is you, a living and breathing person, touching and smelling the living and breathing earth. There are no expectations, no standards, nothing to perfect or portray. Drop it all. It’s just you and me, P.”

I covered my eyes with my forearm, and I was glad he was lying flat on his back and couldn’t see me.

Because his words hit me right in the chest. For the first time in two months, it all stopped.

The world stopped spinning out of control.

He was right.

No one could say a word to me.

Not here, where it was just the two of us.

For the first time in years, I felt myself absorb the peaceful silence.

And after this horrible day, after this horrible month, two months, really, I started crying.

It started as silent little tears running down my face but then evolved into full-on sobs that I couldn’t seem to stop. It was the first time I let myself cry since the Grand Prix disaster.

And he definitely heard it, but he thankfully didn’t call attention to it. He just reached out and grasped my hand and kept lying beside me, looking up at the stars.

I’m not sure how long we laid there, but I was frozen by the time we stood up, and I’m sure my eyes were all puffy and lined in red. I reached down for my hat that had fallen off and tugged it back on, hoping to hide how hard I’d been crying.

We quietly walked up to the porch together, but right as I reached the door, his arm snaked around my waist, pulling me into his chest so he could get the door first. “I’m glad you’re back,” he said softly, his voice tickling my ear, making goosebumps snake down my neck. “I missed you.”

My body practically stutter-stepped in shock.

But he took my hesitation as a chance to snatch my hat and throw it over his shoulder behind us.

“Hey!” I gasped.

His face lit up with his usual trouble-maker grin. “Montreal? Really? That’s not allowed in this house. You should know better,P,” he snickered.

I threw my arms down by my side, practically stomping. “I look like shit. I don’t want your mom to—”

His eyebrows slammed down. “What? No, you look like yourself.”

I turned and was way too close to him. Our chests were practically touching. I shoved his chest back, but of course he didn’t budge an inch. “That’s mean.”

---