Page 70 of Not Our First Rodeo
Beau: Are you nervous about tonight?
I’m proud of myself for not even considering lying or brushing off the truth. I text him back immediately.
Elsie: Terrified.
A knock on the bathroom door comes before his reply, and I stand up straight, quickly examining my reflection in the mirror before opening the door. It’s Beau, dressed in dark slacks and a crisp white button-down. He even managed to wrangle hishair back into submission, and he shaved off the stubble that’s perpetually covering his cheeks.
He looks good, and I’m stunned to find him here.
“How did you know I was here?” I ask, staring up at him. In the dim light of the basement, his eyes are almost black.
He lifts one solid shoulder in a shrug, causing his shirt to stretch to accommodate it. “Tonya told me I could probably find you here.”
I’m not even a little surprised that Tonya knows about my secret spot, and I’m even less surprised that she never intruded on it. It makes my heart swell impossibly larger for her.
I motion at the tiny bathroom behind me. “This,” I say with a flourish, “is my sanctuary.”
A smile tugs up one side of his lips. “I can see why you like the place. It’s so rare to find a toilet such a lovely shade of yellow.”
I glance back at the toilet that was probably white sometime around Nixon’s presidency. “I have good taste.”
When I look back at him, his grin is even wider. He points at himself. “I know.”
I can’t help the smile that curls my lips. He looks so handsome like this, and there’s a lightness about him that I didn’t realize had darkened in the months we were separated. He looks like Beau again, and there’s nothing in this world that makes me happier than Beau.
“So why’d you come looking for me?” I ask, leaning on the doorframe that’s covered in a layer of chipping white paint.
His eyes soften, and he lifts a hand to push a stray lock of my hair over my shoulder. The feeling of his skin on mine is like dawn brightening in my chest, warmth filling me up from the inside out.
“I thought you might be nervous.”
I hold his stare, meaning the words I say next. “A little less so now.”
He brightens a little. “Yeah?”
My chin dips in a nod, and I stare into the eyes that are more familiar to me than my own. I’ve seen them light up as I walked down the aisle toward him on our wedding day. Seen them fill with tears that I refused to shed when we realized I had miscarried. Seen them burn with fire as his body moved against mine, as he whispered for me to let go. Seen them dim and shutter the day I asked him to leave.
Right now they’re impossibly tender, full of a love that never wavered, even when I was hurting him. It’s the kind of tenderness I canfeeldeep in my chest, that makes me ache with a matching longing.
“Yeah,” I tell him, voice soft. “You make me feel brave.”
The recital goes off without a hitch. I’ve never been prouder of sixty young girls in my entire life. I’ve never been prouder of myself than when I stand on the stage in front of my town and accept the flowers Tonya offers me.
I’ve stood on stages all over the country and even a few across the world. I’ve danced on blistered feet and on one occasion, a dislocated hip. I’ve broken myself down time and time again for this sport, but tonight, when I stood backstage and hugged a twelve-year-old girl who was on the verge of a breakdown because she was scared she was going to mess up in front of the entire town, I finally felt like I’d accomplished the thing I’d been working toward my entire life. The blisters and the sprained ankles and the fad diets and the hours and years I spent devoting myself to dance feltworth it.
And when I heard the wolf whistle that Beau has tried and failed to teach me more times than I can count over the noise of the applause, my throat was too thick to breathe. There, in the front row, were the Jenningses. Each and every one of them.
Now, when I appear from backstage, they’re all there, smiles on their faces. Beau is holding a bouquet of wildflowers. And beside him are my parents.
The sight of them hits me straight in the chest.
Dad hugs me first, whispering in my ear. “You did great, kiddo. We’re proud of you.”
I pull back from him, too stunned for words, needing to feel Beau at my side, his steady, unwavering presence.
But before I can go to him, my mom catches my eye. I can’t read the expression on her face. “You put on a wonderful performance, Elsie.”
Her praise glows in my chest, because I take it for what it is. I know she still wishes I would go back to dancing professionally, but she’shere, and she’s acknowledging my choice. It’s a step in the right direction.
