Chapter 22: Below the Stage

I said yes on the doorstep, barefoot, in Corbin's shirt.

The owner looked me up and down.

"Wear something better than that," she said, and went back to the truck.

Corbin was strange all week.

He took calls on the dock where I couldn't hear. He jumped when I came into a room.

On Wednesday I found him in the kitchen at two in the morning, staring at the boat model.

"What's wrong with you?" I said.

"Nothing. Work."

"You haven't worked since July. You've been on my porch with a newspaper."

"It's a very demanding newspaper."

He kissed me so I'd stop asking. It worked, for about an hour.

Ivy read my speech drafts at the studio, with Meatball on her lap.

"Too humble," she said about the first one.

"Too angry," about the fourth.

"Did you just thank a bucket of ice?" about the seventh.

"Bad ice. It changed my life."

"Cut it, Neve."

On Labor Day, I stood in the bedroom at the harbor house in a dark green silk dress, holding my hair up off my neck.

I'd bought it in Providence, with my own money, and picked it myself.

"Zip me," I said.

Corbin came up behind me.

He took the zipper at the base of my spine and didn't move it.

He put his mouth on the back of my neck instead, very slowly, and I watched his face in the mirror.

"We're going to be late," I said.

"You're the speaker. They can't start without you."

His hand slid flat across my bare stomach, under the open silk.

My head fell back against his shoulder.

"Corbin."

"I know." He breathed out against my skin. "Hold that thought until tonight. I have a plan."

He zipped me up, one slow inch at a time, and kissed the top of the zipper.

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