How to Tame a Silver Fox novel · Chapter 24 of 32

Chapter 24: The Morning

Arlen stood slowly.

Forty faces turned toward him, and my father's was the last to turn.

"I've said everything I have to say about this man to the people it concerns," Arlen said.

"I wish him a long life, and an honest one."

He sat down again.

The director with the worried-horse face lowered himself into his chair as if the sentence had been a weight he was carrying for somebody else.

My father laughed too late, and raised his glass to nobody.

Saturday morning came up clear and cold over the lake.

I woke before the alarm with the dress hanging on the closet door and a text from Junie that said only: CAKE.

The shower was running.

I lay there for a minute and listened to Arlen sing badly, with great confidence, something that might have once been a hymn.

Then I went in.

He turned off the song the moment the bathroom door opened.

Steam hid the mirror, and he stood with his back to me and his palms flat on the tile.

"You're not coming to the wedding," I said, because I could read a back.

"I'm thinking about it."

"You're thinking about the lake. I can see it."

"If I'm there, he uses me."

He did not turn.

"The whole thing is built to hold me in a chair while he's forgiven."

"Tell them I'm sick. Tell them I broke my leg on the dock."

"I'm not going to lie about your leg."

"Then tell them the truth."

"The truth is I want you at my back," I said.

"If you can't, I'll go alone, and I'll be fine, and I'll tell you every word afterward."

The water ran for a long time.

"That's not an order," he said.

"No. It's a request. I've learned the difference from an expert."

He turned his head and looked at me over his shoulder.

His eyes went down my body and up again, and the fog on the glass seemed to thicken.

"You're in a shirt," he said.

"I was going to take it off."

"I wasn't going to stop you."

I stepped over the lip of the tub, and the water struck my collarbone, hot as a hand.

The water hit my collarbone, and then it hit him.

He turned around slowly, with the spray running down his chest, and looked at me.

"You're wearing a shirt," I said.

"You're not."

"I took it off."

"I noticed."

He did not touch me.

He stood with his hands at his sides and water streaming off his jaw, and he waited, the way he always did.

I stepped into him until my breasts pressed against his wet chest.

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