I grinned. "You do find it charming."
"Debatable."
The waiter arrived with our appetizers, and I reached across the table to take her hand, very aware of the cameras outside. But when her fingers laced through mine, and her smile crinkled the corners of her eyes, I forgot about the photographers entirely.
"You know what's weird?" she said, leaning in conspiratorially. "This is actually kind of fun. In a surreal, we 're-performing-our-relationship-for-strangers kind of way."
"It's the absurdity," I said. "Makes everything feel less real."
Her smile faltered slightly. "Yeah. Less real."
We ate and talked, and on the surface, everything looked perfect. We laughed at the right moments, held hands across the table, and played our parts beautifully. At one point, Anna told a story about Uncle Charlie's latest crawfish contraption that had me genuinely cracking up, and the photographer outside got his shot of me laughing, her beaming, both of us looking like the perfect couple.
But as dessert arrived—bananas foster that Anna insisted we share—she set down her spoon and looked at me.
"Can I be honest about something?" she asked quietly.
"Always."
"I hate this." She gestured vaguely at the window, the cameras, the performance of it all. "Not being here with you. That part's great. But... all of this? Having to prove our relationship to strangers? I want our love to be ours. Just for us. Is that selfish?"
Relief flooded through me. "Not even a bit. I was thinking the same thing."
"Really?"
"Anna, I don't want to share you with the world. I don't want our relationship to be a headline or a photo op or some narrative Bob and Mabel are managing." I squeezed her hand. "I just want you. The real you. The one who makes terrible coffee and hums off-."
She laughed, her eyes getting shiny. "Again, I do not hum off-key."
"You absolutely do. It's adorable."
“Well, you eat your sandwiches with the turkey on top of the cheese. Like some kind of monster. And you're completely unapologetic about it."
“There's a right way and a wrong way to eat a turkey sandwich, and I will die on this hill."
"You're ridiculous."
"And yet you're going to miss me."
"I will," she said softly, her laughter fading into something more tender. "I'm going to miss you so much."
"I'm going to miss you every single day." I brought her hand to my lips, kissing her knuckles. "But we'll make it work. I'll call you so much you'll get sick of me."
"Impossible."
"Anna." I looked at her thoughtfully. "I love you. That doesn't change just because I'm in LA. You're it for me. You know that, right?"
Her eyes were definitely shiny now. "I love you too. So much it scares me sometimes."
"Scares you?"
"That this is too good. That something's going to take it away from me." She swiped at her eyes, laughing self-consciously. "Gosh, I'm being ridiculous."
"You're not." I stood up, pulling her to her feet and into my arms right there in the middle of the restaurant. Let the photographers get this shot. "You're not being ridiculous. And nothing's taking me away from you. Distance is just... distance. It doesn't change how I feel."
She buried her face in my chest, and I held her tight, breathing in the scent of her hair, memorizing the feeling of her in my arms.
When we finally pulled apart, she was smiling through her tears. "We should probably leave before I completely ruin my makeup."
