Chapter Nine
We’ve been dating. Like, an actual couple. And it’s been fantastic until today. Silas has made me feel loved, sheltered, and protected. Behind closed doors, more often than not, he’s my daddy dom and I’m his little girl. But today is the first time I’m afraid that even he might be out of his depth.
It was my idea to confront my past. We are serious about each other. When Silas talks of the future, it’s always ‘we,’ and not ‘I.’ He tells me he loves me daily, that he wants to be with me. But he’s important in the community, and I won’t subject him to the shame of having the woman he’s publicly linked with arrested for writing bad checks.
He’s given me access to his lawyer. I was ready to take out a high interest loan to pay for it, but he insisted. He said the kind of trouble I may be in requires a lawyer way above my pay grade, so we head back to my former town to face the music.
Predictably, I am arrested and booked. It’s the worst feeling of my life, and when I’m taken into the room alone for my mug shot, a panic sets in. What if Silas decides he doesn’t want a woman with a criminal record? What if he decides to bail?
But he’s waiting when I get out, and posts bond. His lawyer is already down at the district attorney’s office, working a deal for restitution. By the end of the day, the business owner—a friend of the DA—has not only dropped the charges, but agreed to have my record expunged. Silas won’t give me details of how he made it all go away, but I suspect that he paid the business owner many times the value of the bad checks I wrote.
“You’re a free woman in all regards,” Silas says later that evening. “I have nothing to hold you to me.”
“You didn’t need it in the first place,” I say. “You just didn’t know it.”
He asks me to move in with him. I tell him we need to wait just a little longer. I’m grateful, but I don’t want him to think he’s bought a permanent spot in my life. I tell him I want to pay him back, even if we are together, and I plan to be in that position.
By spring, I have quit my job to become a fulltime student majoring in economics. We’re out as a couple now, and Silas doesn’t think it looks good for the owner of the Lindel’s to be dating an employee.
“You are so much more confident,” Mina tells me one afternoon when we’re having lunch together. I’ve expanded my friend circle beyond Kimberly and my former coworkers to some fellow students and my boyfriend’s maid.
“I feel more confident,” I say. “Silas has been good for me.”
“And you’ve been good for him.”
“Can I ask you a question?” We’re sitting at an outdoor café down the street from the university. “I feel awkward even raising the subject, but it’s been vexing me for a long time.”
“Let me guess,” she laughs. “Was I ever interested in Silas?”
“Sorry,” I say. “But you’re so pretty. And you know each other so well.”
“I’m also so gay,” she says. “And you’ve inspired me to hold out for the woman of my dreams.”
I feel a little embarrassed that this wouldn’t occur to me. We spend the afternoon talking about life and relationships and how things unfold. She’s happy, she says, to see us happy. The lunch is so much fun that I nearly forget the time, but then remember that Silas is picking me up for a drive after school.
I make it home in time to change. I’m excited when he picks me up. He’s bought a restored Brookville roadster, and we’re taking a drive to the coast. The forecast is calling for clear skies, and Silas wants me to see a meteor shower that’s supposed to take place.
He drives me up to a bluff overlooking the ocean. The sky is amazing once darkness falls. The only light is the far-off golden glow of a lighthouse.
He spreads a blanket on the ground and opens a bottle of wine and we put it between us as we lie on our backs and watch the sky.
“Make a wish,” he says when the first meteor blazes across the sky.
“That’s a superstition.”
“No, it’s not,” he says. “Make a wish.”
“Fine,” I say. “I wish to ace my test on Wednesday.”
“Good one,” he says, and we wait. Another meteor, a small one, shoots straight down. “This one’s mine,” he says. “I wish the new line of raincoats we’re launching next month will be a success, and that it rains the whole month.”
I punch him in the arm. “That’s not very nice.” I look back to the sky. Another meteor. “I wish Mina would find a girlfriend.”
“Good one,” he says. “She deserves it.”
We fall silent, and then the biggest meteor I’ve ever seen flies over, growing brilliant green for a split second before flaming out in spectacular fashion.
“Wow,” I say.
“Copper,” Silas says. “The ones that burn green are made of copper.”
“Well, it was beautiful,” I say. “So it must be powerful, wish-wise.”
“Yes,” he agrees. “And it’s mine. I’d better use it for something important.” He shifts to the side and when he turns back, he’s holding a small box. He opens it, and inside is the most dazzling diamond ring I have ever seen. Its shine is brilliant, even in the dark.
“I wish the love of my life would marry me and be my baby girl wife forever.”
I sit up slowly. “Silas,” I begin. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Say yes.” He pulls the ring out of the box, takes my hand, and slips it on my ring finger. I do not pull away. I already know the answer, which comes out with a sob.
“Oh, yes. Oh, god, yes…” I throw my arms around his neck, and I think we both know this is how it was meant to be. Terribly old-fashioned, he said he was, and he has courted me like a gentleman while treating me like a treasured little girl.
And now all that remains is for us to live happily ever after.