CHAPTER NINE #2
“I don’t know. Jobs. Family. Relationships.”
Michael’s gaze moved briefly to the ring on her hand. “The agreement addresses romantic relationships.”
“It excludes one between us. It doesn’t say either of us cannot have one with someone else.”
“No.”
The word came out harder than necessary.
Nat looked at him. “No, it doesn’t say that, or no, we can’t?”
“It would complicate the arrangement.”
“So would a new job.”
“That is not comparable.”
“Why?”
“Because Mrs. Gable believes we are engaged.”
“She also believes we’ll eventually marry. We aren’t going to organize the rest of our lives around keeping every part of her story intact.”
Michael became quiet.
Elaine placed her cup on its saucer. “Perhaps the question is not what the agreement permits.”
They both turned toward her.
“It may be what you are protecting,” she said. “The apartment, the arrangement, or yourselves.”
Nat felt exposed in a way she had not when Elaine asked about her work or family.
Michael’s face revealed nothing. “Those interests currently align.”
“Do they?” his mother asked gently.
No one answered.
Elaine did not pursue it. She helped carry dishes to the kitchen, praised the tart again, and packed the remaining chicken into containers for them. At the door, she hugged Nat a second time.
“I’m glad to meet you,” Elaine said.
“I’m glad you came.”
“Michael does not often choose uncertainty.”
Nat glanced toward him. “He thinks he chose an apartment.”
“He may continue thinking that for a while.”
Michael stood close enough to hear. “I am here.”
“I know,” Elaine said, kissing his cheek. “That has never stopped either of us.”
Michael walked her downstairs. When he returned, Nat was washing plates in the kitchen.
“She likes you,” he said.
Nat kept her attention on the sink. “Did she tell you that?”
“Yes.”
“Or did she say my qualities were significant?”
“She said she likes you.”
“Direct. I respect that.”
Michael picked up a towel and began drying. For several minutes, they worked in silence. The earlier question remained between them, strengthened rather than erased by everything they did not say.
Nat handed him a plate. “Your mother is kind.”
“Yes.”
“She was uncomfortable downstairs.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t want her hurt by this.”
“She knows the truth.”
“But she had to protect the lie anyway.”
“That will not happen often.”
“You can’t guarantee that.”
“No.”
Michael placed the dry plate in the cabinet. “Do you regret the arrangement?”
Nat turned off the water. “Why do you keep asking me that?”
“Because you keep describing ways it might end.”
“I’m trying to remember that it does end.”
His expression changed.
Nat gripped the edge of the counter. “This apartment already feels more permanent than it is. We eat together. We work together. Your family sends me pie and comes to dinner. None of that was supposed to happen.”
“Do you want it to stop?”
“No.”
The answer was immediate and frightening.
Michael set down the towel. “Neither do I.”
They stood on opposite sides of the narrow space between the counter and the island. Nat could hear the refrigerator hum and the muffled sound of Mrs. Gable’s radio below. The ordinary noises made the moment feel more intimate, not less.
“What did you tell your mother about me?” Nat asked.
“I told you.”
“No. You gave me the inventory. What did you tell her that made her want to meet me?”
Michael’s gaze held hers. “I told her you had nowhere to go, and I stayed.”
“That was about you.”
“I told her you work harder than people realize. That you make the apartment feel occupied. That you are not careless simply because your methods are different from mine.”
Nat’s throat tightened. “That last part sounds difficult for you.”
“It was new information.”
She smiled, but it did not protect her. “Still growth.”
Michael took one step closer.
Nat did not move.
He lifted his hand, touching the side of her face where flour had marked it days earlier. This time there was nothing to brush away. His fingers settled against her cheek with deliberate gentleness.
“Michael.”
He kissed her.
There was no audience, no rain, and no landlord waiting to be convinced. The kiss began carefully, as though he were giving her time to refuse. Nat caught the front of his shirt and pulled him closer.
Caution disappeared.
Michael’s other hand moved to her waist. Nat felt the controlled strength of him and the restraint he was trying to maintain even as the kiss deepened.
She tasted coffee and chocolate. Every unfinished moment beneath the awning returned at once, transformed from possibility into something warm and undeniable.
When they separated, Michael kept his forehead against hers. His breathing was unsteady.
“That was not in the agreement,” Nat whispered.
“No.”
“We never established a kissing policy.”
“I remember.”
Her hands remained against his chest. Beneath them, his heart beat far faster than she had imagined it could.
Michael stepped back first.
“That was a mistake,” he said.
The warmth inside Nat collapsed.
Then he looked at her, and the control in his face was not rejection. It was fear.
“Not because I didn’t want it,” he continued. “Because I did.”
Nat lowered her hands. “That doesn’t make it a mistake.”
“It makes the arrangement more complicated.”
“The arrangement was already complicated.”
“We need to think.”
“You need to think.”
“Yes.”
“And what am I supposed to do?”
His gaze dropped to the ring on her hand. “Decide what you want.”
Nat looked at the man who had just kissed her as though the agreement between them had never existed, then retreated behind it the moment the kiss ended.
“I thought I had,” she said.
She went to her bedroom and closed the door, leaving Michael alone in the kitchen with the agreement still attached to the refrigerator.