CHAPTER TWELVE
On Sunday morning, Nat discovered that beginning a real relationship inside a false engagement required more definitions than either of them had anticipated.
The problem appeared at nine twelve, when she and Michael attempted to leave the apartment for the farmers market.
Mrs. Gable was in the front garden trimming spent blooms from the hydrangeas, which meant Nat needed to wear the engagement ring until they reached the end of the block.
She opened the blue velvet box on the dining table and stared at the narrow gold-plated band.
Michael stood beside the door holding two canvas shopping bags. “Is something wrong with it?”
“No.”
“You have been looking at it for thirty seconds.”
“Thank you for timing my uncertainty.”
“I noticed the clock when you opened the box.”
“Of course you did.”
Nat lifted the ring but did not put it on.
Nearly three weeks earlier, it had been a useful prop selected by a stranger with better judgment about costume jewelry than she would have expected.
Now it had been on her hand during dinner with his mother, beneath the awning where they almost kissed, and in the kitchen when they finally did.
The ring was no more real than it had ever been. Everything around it had changed.
“If I wear this downstairs,” she said, “we are pretending to be more serious than we actually are.”
“Mrs. Gable already believes we are engaged.”
“I know.”
“That is the reason you have worn it previously.”
“I know that too.”
Michael set down the shopping bags. “Then what has changed?”
“We’re dating.”
“Yes.”
“Exclusively.”
“Yes.”
“But not engaged.”
“No.”
Nat looked at him. “You enjoy questions with clean answers.”
“I prefer them.”
“This one doesn’t have one.”
“The ring remains part of the rental arrangement. Our relationship is separate.”
“That sounded reasonable when our relationship didn’t exist.”
Michael considered the distinction. “Do you want to stop wearing it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you want to tell Mrs. Gable the truth?”
“I definitely don’t know.”
They stood in the morning light with the ring between them. Outside, Mrs. Gable’s shears made small, decisive sounds beneath the windows.
Michael moved closer. “You said last night belonged to us.”
“It did.”
“This morning does too.”
“Until we reach the stairs.”
“Yes.”
Nat smiled faintly. “You understand why that feels strange?”
“I understand why it feels different.”
The answer was not perfect, but it was honest. Nat slid the ring onto her finger.
“We should establish rules,” Michael said.
“You’re emotionally soothed by rules.”
“They reduce conflicting expectations.”
“They also give you something to revise when reality refuses to cooperate.”
“That is one purpose of written agreements.”
Nat picked up one of the shopping bags. “We are not writing a dating contract.”
“I did not suggest one.”
“Your face opened a new document.”
“My face did nothing.”
“It selected a font.”
Michael opened the door. “Mrs. Gable can hear us in the hallway.”
Nat followed him downstairs.
Mrs. Gable looked up from the hydrangeas as they stepped outside. Her gaze moved immediately to their joined hands, which Nat had not realized Michael had taken halfway down the stairs.
“Off together?” she asked.
“The farmers market,” Nat said.
Mrs. Gable smiled. “Walter used to take Eleanor every Sunday.”
“I still do,” Walter called from an open third-floor window.
“You have not gone in three weeks,” Mrs. Gable called back.
“It rained twice.”
“It is August.”
“That does not make rain impossible.”
Michael’s hand tightened slightly around Nat’s.
Mrs. Gable clipped another flower. “Enjoy your morning.”
They reached the end of the block before Nat removed the ring and slipped it carefully into the inner pocket of her bag.
Michael noticed but said nothing.
The farmers market occupied three closed streets around the old courthouse. White tents stood in long rows beneath the trees, crowded with late-summer tomatoes, corn, peaches, flowers, bread, and jars containing substances described as artisanal whether they needed the distinction or not.
Nat moved through the stalls with the focused enthusiasm Michael normally reserved for reviewing evidence. She inspected tomatoes by weight, smelled peaches before selecting them, and held two bunches of basil beside each other as though waiting for one to demonstrate stronger character.
“They are the same variety,” Michael said.
“They came from different farms.”
“They appear identical.”
“The one on the left is younger.”
“How can you tell?”
“It hasn’t been disappointed yet.”
Michael looked at the basil. “That is not visible.”
“Not to you.”
She selected the younger bunch and handed it to the vendor.
Michael carried the bags, kept track of their purchases, and stopped her before she bought a third basket of peaches.
“I have a two-book offer,” she said. “I need ingredients.”
“The contracts are not signed.”
“The peaches have already committed.”
“They will deteriorate before you can use all of them.”
“I can freeze them.”
“You have three containers of pears in the freezer.”
“The pears are not threatened by peaches.”
“They occupy the same space.”
Nat narrowed her eyes. “You brought me to a bookstore and kissed me under hanging lights. I refuse to believe you have returned entirely to produce management.”
“I am holding twelve pounds of food.”
“That is how romance matures.”
He bought the peaches.
They ate lunch from a bakery stall and sat on the courthouse steps beneath an oak tree. Nat divided a spinach-and-feta pastry between them with her fingers, giving Michael the half that had retained more of the filling. He noticed.
“You gave me the larger portion.”
“It is not measurable.”
“It is visibly larger.”
“Then consider it compensation for carrying vulnerable produce.”
Michael accepted the pastry. “Have you heard from Grace about the written offer?”
“It’s Sunday.”
“You received an email at seven this morning.”
“That was my mother sending a list of cookbook titles.”
“How many?”
“Twenty-eight.”
“Were any suitable?”
“One was Dinner Is Coming Whether You’re Ready or Not.”
“That describes your audience.”
“It also sounds like a threat made by a casserole.”
Michael almost smiled.
Nat leaned her shoulder against his. “Grace expects the formal terms tomorrow. Langford also wants the video meeting at three.”
“Will your agent attend?”
“Yes. She said I should speak naturally, avoid agreeing to anything specific, and let her interrupt if the conversation turns contractual.”
“That is good advice.”
“She also told me not to make jokes when I’m nervous.”
“That may be more difficult.”
“You say that as if humor is a medical condition.”
“It is a predictable response.”
Nat broke off a corner of pastry. “Yesterday you said you use analysis the same way.”
“I do.”
“So what do you analyze when you’re nervous about us?”
Michael looked across the market. Families moved between the stalls.A child carried a sunflower almost as tall as she was. An older coupleargued amiably over the number of ears of corn required for dinner.
“The likelihood that our circumstances will cause decisions neither ofus would otherwise make,” he said.
“Such as?”
“Remaining together because separating would endanger the lease.Avoiding disagreements because they might affect the apartment.Advancing the relationship to make the deception feel less significant.”
Nat had not expected the answer to be so complete.
“Do you think that is what we’re doing?”
“No.”
“You answered quickly.”
“I have considered it.”
“Of course you have.”
Michael turned toward her. “Did you agree to another date because welive together?”
“No.”
“Did you kiss me because of the lease?”
“No.”
“Did you accept an exclusive relationship to make Mrs. Gable’sassumption more accurate?”
“No.”
“Neither did I.”
The clean answers steadied her. Nat looked down at her bare left hand.“Then why am I worried about the ring?”
“Because the lie now resembles part of the truth.”
She met his eyes.
Michael had found the sentence she had been trying to reach all morning.
“Yes,” she said.
“We need to keep distinguishing them.”
“How?”
“We tell the truth to everyone who does not affect the lease. We do notexpand the engagement story. We wear the ring only when necessary, andwe do not allow decisions about the actual relationship to depend onwhat Mrs. Gable expects.”
Nat considered it. “That sounds dangerously close to rules.”
“It is a framework.”
“A rule wearing office clothes.”
“Would you prefer ambiguity?”
“No.”
“Then the framework is useful.”
She leaned over and kissed his cheek. “You may keep the framework.”
Michael finished the larger half of the pastry without pointing out thatshe had accepted every rule he proposed.
Monday began with a photograph.
Nat saw it at eight seventeen when Simone sent her a link accompanied bythree heart-shaped symbols and the words Look at you two.
The photograph had been taken at Linden. Nat and Michael stood beneaththe restaurant’s awning, turned toward each other while rain blurred thestreet behind them. Michael’s body shielded hers from the weather. Nat’sface was tilted toward his, and his gaze rested openly on her mouth.
The photographer had captured the moment before the car arrived.
The image appeared in an online gallery titled Inside Linden’sInvitation-Only Opening. The caption read:
Culinary writer Natalie Tremaine and fiancé Michael Conroy recreate therainy restaurant encounter where their romance began.
Nat stared at the words.
Their invented story had escaped the apartment.
She read the caption again, hoping it might become less impossiblethrough repetition. It did not.
Michael entered the dining room in his work clothes. “What happened?”
“How do you know something happened?”
“You are holding your coffee without drinking it.”
She turned the laptop toward him.
He read the caption once. His expression became still in a way Nat nowrecognized as concern being forced into orderly storage.
“Who published this?”
“The City Table. They cover restaurant openings and local food news.”
“How many people read it?”