Page 66 of Don't Tell

"Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"Yes, what?"

"Yes, I understand."

"I'll have a clean shirt brought up. The bathroom in this hall has a back door. Use it."

I stand and straighten my cuffs.

I walk back into the reception.

Davies is at the bar with his son. I shake his hand. I tell him the show is striking. My knuckle is stained with blood. I keep the hand at my side, out of sight.

I find Suzanne at the bar station and watch her for one beat.

She’s pouring champagne into the last six flutes on a fresh tray. The small piece of hair that has come loose from the clip is at her temple. She’s bracing her left hand on the counter.

She is the most beautiful thing in this room, and she has, in the last forty minutes, almost cost me a man's livelihood without knowing she did.

I will do anything for her.

I’ve known this for two weeks without saying it to myself in these words, and I’m saying it to myself now in the small private register I save for the things I’m not yet ready to say out loud.

A thought pops into my head. My father will be buried next week.

For days, I've told myself I won't go to that funeral because he doesn't deserve my presence. But I haven't asked whether running from the door is the same as owning it.

The man in the box gets nothing from my presence. He is dead.

I’m going to have to think about that later.

I move and cross to her.

"Suzanne."

"Cade?"

"Come with me."

"I’m working." She gestures at the tray in her hands.

"Set it down."

She looks at my face for one second and sets the tray down.

She follows me.

I take her through a door at the side of the ballroom — a small private terrace the hotel keeps for senior guests on slow nights. It is empty. The lights from the ballroom fall through the glass doors at an angle, laying a square of warm yellow on the slate floor. The music from inside comes through the wall, muffled, slow with strings.

I close the door behind us and turn to her.

I hold out my hand, and she looks at it.

"Dance with me."

"You can’t be serious.”