“Mel,” he said.
I stared at him.
“What is this?”
“The project.”
I glanced toward Stormy. Cris followed my gaze and suddenly understood.
“Oh,” he whispered. “You thought…”
“Yes.”
His face filled with horror.
“No. Absolutely not.”
I demanded an explanation for the gym visits, secret conversations, and unexplained disappearances.
Stormy stepped forward.
“I was teaching him to dance.”
Cris admitted he had taken lessons every morning in a studio beside the gym. He had written the gym notes because he thought they sounded believable.
“They didn’t,” I told him.
He explained that twenty years earlier, before our wedding, I had begged him to learn a choreographed dance. He had refused, claiming dancing was embarrassing and unnecessary.
At our reception, he stepped on my dress, forgot every turn, and nearly knocked over my aunt.
“I blamed the floor,” he said.
“It was carpet.”
The guests laughed, but Cris became serious.
