Page 54 of Welcome Home to Ivy Falls

He scrubbed at his hair. ‘Yeah, you’re right. Sorry.’

‘Don’t say sorry because that makes me feel bad.’ I paused until he looked at me. ‘We have a deal. Open communication. If I need you, I swear I’ll call. Stop worrying that any time a problem comes up, I’ll risk my sobriety.’

‘Is that what you think I’m doing?’

‘Yes.’

‘Shit, Pipe. That is not what this is about. It’s only that I loved having you at the house. It was like we were making up for lost time.’

The band ran a couple of scales, tuned their instruments and then greeted the crowd. With a quick strum of his guitar, the lead singer started the first chords of Shania Twain’s ‘Man! I Feel Like A Woman!’, and people made their way to the dance floor.

‘I’m literally four blocks from Huckleberry Lane. Calm down and go ask your fiancée to dance. Think about your own life and stop stressing about mine.’

He gave me an apologetic smile. ‘All right. I’ll leave you in peace.’

‘Promise?’ I teased.

He laughed and made his way back to Torran.

Once they were on the dance floor, Tessa and Manny quickly joined them along with Torran’s dad and his girlfriend, Isabel.

I leaned back against a nearby light pole, loving the scene. The way the air filled with the sound of people’s laughter. The pure joy that emanated from the growing crowd. How a cool breeze blew over the grass near the gazebo. A figure moved up its steps and I walked in that direction.

Dex sat on one of the built-in benches inside the gazebo. With his foot, he tapped out the counts in a song. ‘Step in Time’, the song featuring the chimney sweeps in the show, rang out in that beautiful tenor voice of his. I inched back down a step to give him privacy, but the old wood squeaked under my feet.

Dex jumped up and caught me trying to flee. ‘Miss Piper?’

‘I didn’t mean to interrupt.’

‘You weren’t,’ he said, toeing at a loose board. ‘I’m having problems singing and doing all the complicated choreography at the same time.’

‘Want some help?’

In the square, the band moved into Travis Tritt’s ‘T-R-O-U-B-L-E’. The mood kicked up a notch as couples shuffled and spun around the dance floor.

He toed at the ground again. ‘Don’t you want to be out there with all the adults?’

‘What I want to do is make you more comfortable with this scene. You’re talented, Dex. All you need to do is take a breath and relax.’

‘Maybe you should give Griff or Connor the role. They’re much better dancers than me.’

‘Miss Cheri picked you for the part because she knows you can do it, and I agree.’

‘I keep tripping when I do the choreography. Can’t figure out how to sing and move at the same time. I’m a mess.’ He trudged to one of the benches and sank down.

More than once I’d been exactly where he was. Too afraid to mess up. Worried I’d let the adults down with my performance. All I could think to say was what I’d been told by one of my own drama teachers. ‘Theater is about having fun,’ I said, taking the spot beside him. ‘You shouldn’t be performing for me, or your parents, or your friends. You should be performing for you. If you’re not enjoying it, what’s the point?’

He shrugged, flipping his skateboard over and over with his foot. ‘What if I make a fool out of myself? All my friends will laugh. I’ll never live it down.’

‘You could look at it that way. Or you could think of it as a way to push yourself. Let me ask you this.’ I pointed to his skateboard. ‘How long did you have to practice before you could do a few tricks?’

‘I spent months at the skate park.’

‘Did you practice while your friends were around?’

‘Yes.’

‘And did you fall on your butt more than once?’