My stomach dropped. A freefall sensation thatanswered the question before my brain could construct a defense.
"Yes," I said. "And I resent how certain I am about it."
"Why do you hate it?"
"Mika, have you met me? My track record with men is a highlight reel of disasters. I chose Devon, who thought my career was a punch line. I chose the guy before Devon, who forgot my birthday twice and once called me by his ex's name during sex. My picker is broken. It's been broken. And now it's pointing at a forty-year-old architect who was supposed to be a business arrangement and every cell in my body is screaming 'this one, this one, this one' and I can't tell if that's growth or just my next spectacular failure with better packaging."
"Or," Mika said, "your picker is working for once and you just can't accept it."
I wanted to argue. Wanted to present a case, lay out evidence, build an irrefutable counterargument.
Instead I just stood there, in the back hallway of a coffee shop that was falling apart, and let the truth settle.
I was falling for Callum Hayes. Not despite the gap between us—the years, the experience, the tax brackets—but in full awareness of it. He was forty and divorced and emotionally fortified and still learninghow to be a decent father, and none of that diminished what I felt. If anything, it deepened it. He'd been broken before. He knew what failure looked and tasted and felt, and he was choosing to try again anyway.
That kind of courage from a man who hid behind blueprints and pressed suits and a punishing work schedule—that was the part that got me. Not the silver in his hair or the way he filled out a tuxedo or the fact that he kissed as if he were trying to memorize me.
Okay. Those parts got me too. I wasn't made of stone.
"The gallery is tomorrow," I said. "Our next appearance as a couple."
"And?"
"And the previous times, I could fake it. I could hold his hand and lean into him and play the adoring girlfriend and tell myself it was all performance." I picked at the hem of my sweater. "I can't fake it anymore, Mika. Not after last night. Everyone's going to see it on my face."
"Good."
"How is that good?"
"You've been faking your whole life, Willow. Faking confidence for your parents. Faking contentment for Devon. Faking that you've got it all figured out when you're terrified underneath."She put both hands on my shoulders. "The most radical thing you could do is stop pretending. With him. With everyone."
The cooler chose that moment to make a sound that could only be described as mechanical anguish. We both looked toward the back, winced.
"Go deal with your dying appliance," Mika said. "But think about what I said."
"I'm going to think about nothing else. Which is exactly my problem."
She grinned. "Callum Hayes doesn't stand a chance."
God, I hoped she was right. And God, I hoped she was wrong. And the fact that both of those prayers existed in my head at the same time pretty much summed up my entire emotional state.
I left Brew & Bean at four-thirty, which was a full hour before my shift ended, but Mika insisted and I was too wrung out to argue. I drove the distance to Callum’s apartment, purposefully taking the long way, because I needed to get my head on straight before seeing Callum again.
The doorman nodded at me. I nodded back. We'd developed a rhythm over the past few days—wary acknowledgment on his part, determined normalcy onmine. I'd stopped feeling the need to apologize for existing in a building that cost more per square foot than my annual salary.
Progress, I guess.
The apartment was empty when I walked in. A note on the kitchen island, in Callum's handwriting—precise and architectural, each letter deliberate:
Working late. Leftovers in the fridge. Don't wait up.
Don't wait up. As if we were an actual couple with actual routines and actual lives braided together instead of two people operating under a contractual arrangement that had caught fire.
I ate the leftovers—criminally good pasta even a day later—standing at the counter, thumbing through my phone without absorbing anything. Changed into his sweatpants and t-shirt—so much for my morning resolution about territorial claims—and curled onto the couch.
The gray throw pillow was where I'd left it. The copy of Pride and Prejudice sat on the coffee table where Callum must’ve placed it after I'd gone to bed. He'd smoothed the bent pages. I could tell from the creases—he'd taken care with it, the way he took care with everything he valued.
I opened it. Tried to read. Failed.
