📖 The Story Continues
The story doesn't end here.Continue reading the full story adaptation below and discover what happens next.
How to Tame a Silver Fox – Episode 03
Harper wiped the rain from Chris’s arm, trying to treat the contact as nothing more than a practical response to an absurd command. His skin was warm beneath her fingers, and the contrast made her painfully aware of how cold she was. She withdrew her hand as soon as she could do so without looking flustered.
Chris glanced toward the roof of the vehicle. “There’s no rain up there,” he observed, exposing the excuse she had used to keep touching him. His dry tone made humiliation flare across her face.
“Right. Sorry.” Harper turned toward the window, watching the city blur behind trails of rain. Silence might have saved her dignity, but silence had never come naturally when she was uncomfortable.
“So why did my dad send you, anyway?” she asked. Chris kept his eyes on the road, his expression closing before she had even finished the question.
She filled his refusal to answer with words of her own. “I thought you’d be busy running your nightclub or beating up sleazebags, not picking up some guy’s daughter.” Calling herself some guy’s daughter made the distance between her and Mark sound almost ordinary.
It was not ordinary. The thought surfaced before she could stop it, carrying months of disappointment. “Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve seen my dad in months.”
Chris’s jaw tightened, but he offered no defense of his friend. Harper could not decide whether that made the abandonment feel better or worse. At least Mark had apparently found time to recruit someone else to worry about her.
“I don’t do small talk,” Chris said at last. The rejection was clean, impersonal, and final.
“Okay, then.” Harper folded her arms and tried to look equally uninterested. The quiet that followed felt less peaceful than punitive, leaving her alone with the knowledge that she had revealed more than she intended.
They passed a store she recognized, and Harper spotted the glowing sign just before the vehicle moved beyond the entrance. She straightened abruptly. “Oh, wait, wait—stop!”
Chris’s gaze sharpened, alert for another emergency. Harper pointed back toward the store. “I need to pick something up.”
Understanding replaced concern, followed immediately by refusal. “No. I’m not taking a little kid to buy alcohol.” He continued driving as though the matter had been settled.
“I am twenty-two years old,” Harper snapped. Every time he called her a child, her attraction to him became more irritating, because no grown woman wanted to be dismissed by the man she had just caught herself admiring.
“Exactly,” Chris replied. “Kiddo.” The faint satisfaction in his voice made her want to throw something at him.
“Shut up. You’re not that much older than me.” It was not a convincing argument, but she refused to let the silver at his temples become evidence in his favor.
She hurried to explain the party at her apartment, calling it a little kickback even though the invitations had traveled farther than she planned. Without alcohol, she insisted, no one would stay, and if no one stayed, she might not make friends during her final year.
Once started, the fear poured out beneath her frantic logic. She had transferred too late, knew almost no one, and could already imagine walking across the graduation stage alone. Chris endured the flood of words for several seconds before cutting in.
“If I take you, will you shut up?” he asked. Harper agreed instantly. Chris changed direction, and when they reached the store she was already reaching for the door. “I’ll be quick,” she promised, unaware that Chris was watching her with the look of a man who knew this favor was becoming far more complicated than a simple ride home.
