Page 9 of Wild Heart
And that was the day that I’d lost the little respect I had left for my parents. They knew how important dance was to me, and I’d nearly missed my recital. Fortunately, I had Ivy—and Tate.
Tate took us out for ice cream after we ate, insisting I deserved a special treat. I wondered if he knew what it meant to me. He had to know what he was doing.
I’d always loved Ivy and her family, but that day was when everything changed for me.
I was in love.
And I’d felt that way for nine years now.
Unfortunately, despite many years and relentless efforts on my part, nothing had gone like I planned. For a while, particularly at the start, I’d kept it tame. As attracted as I was to Tate, there was still something about him I found intimidating.
He was two years older than me, so that was likely part of it.
God, I could remember the time when I felt so shy around him. Tate had caught me staring at him several times over the next year or so. I’d immediately look away, and the first two or three times it happened, I couldn’t bring myself to look back.
But eventually, I did.
And Tate had rewarded me with a smile. He’d even winked at me on two separate occasions. As a senior in high school then, those winks made me giddy.
The older I got, the timidness went away. I became far more confident, something that could have easily been the result of the continued years in dance. With that confidence, I took the flirting up a notch.
But every attempt had failed.
Maybe that was for the better. On some level, as much as it hurt to face that rejection time and time again—something Tate was never cruel about—the Westwoods were the only family I had.
Tate’s family was the family I never had. His sisters were like my own. His brothers—Wyatt, Cooper, and Liam—treated me the same as they treated Ivy and Jules. And his parents—Malcolm and Evelyn—were the perfect representation of what a loving and healthy marriage was, what parents were supposed to be to their children.
I’d wanted to believe I could have it all. Why couldn’t I have Tate the way I wanted himandhave his family, too? Why couldn’t they all be mine?
Unless he explicitly told me to stop, I’d continue to try. I’d continue to push the boundaries and do anything I could to find something that’d make him crack under the pressure.
Because it was there.
Sometimes, I saw it.
As much as he might have caught me staring at him in the beginning, he was the one getting caught in recent years.
So, I still had hope that there could be something special between us.
And today would likely be the last day I had for at least the next year to make something happen. It was the 4thof July, and like they did on every special occasion, the Westwood family was celebrating.
We were all at Larry and Wendy’s lake house. They were Malcolm’s parents. I’d been attending these types of celebrations with this family for as long as I could remember. Those two had welcomed me with open arms just like the rest of the family had.
I was happy to be here. In two days, I’d be leaving. I was a professional dancer, and I was heading out on tour with one of the world’s biggest pop stars.
I could think of no better way than to spend one of my last few days in Landing with the Westwoods.
While the boys in the family were busy playing a game of Ultimate Frisbee, I was happily enjoying the company of Tate’s sisters, Wyatt’s girlfriend, Rhea, and the woman we all knew was going to become Cooper’s new lady, Skye. She was still unsure things were going to lead there.
Referring to Cooper, Ivy mumbled, “I’ve never seen him like this.”
“Pardon?” Skye said.
“Don’t get me wrong. Cooper is generally pleasant in situations not involving work, but he’s different,” Ivy explained.
She wasn’t wrong. Cooper had sort of been dubbed the grump of the group, and I wasn’t sure I’d seen him wipe the smile off his face the last two times I’d seen him with Skye. That’s why I didn’t hesitate to chime in. “Yeah, I agree. This is another level, if you ask me.”
“I… Is it a bad thing?” Skye asked. Her worry was painfully obvious.