I glance at George.
He's watching the wine in his glass do nothing.
***
My phone buzzes in my lap. It's Callie, asking how the double date withMr. Billionaireis going. I type backsurvivingbecause it's the only honest word I have.
"I'm really glad George found someone like you," Eleanor says then, and her face is so open and unguarded that flinching would be criminal.
Found.The word hooks on something inside me and won't let go. Like I was something stumbled upon. Like I was accidental.
"She was impossible to miss," George says.
The table laughs, and I take a sip of water and make a firm decision not to examine that sentence too closely.
Under the table, his knee shifts briefly against mine (probably accidental, probably nothing) and I go completely still.
He doesn't move away.
Eleanor asks if we've talked about moving in together, and the question detonates quietly in the center of the table, producing no smoke, no visible damage, nothing you could point to.
"We're taking things at our own pace," George says. Light and easy, a line so practiced it lands without a ripple.
Daniel raises his glass. "The correct answer."
The moment dissolves.
I watch George's hand around his wine glass. The line of his knuckle, the particular way he holds things, like he's made a small decision about each one. Then I look away.
***
George suggests wrapping up early, citing Eleanor's to-do list, and his voice is kind and logical and completely impenetrable. Eleanor accepts this without suspicion because Eleanor is mentally rearranging table assignments, and I have never been more grateful for Eleanor's seating charts.
Outside, the night air is cool and smells like rain that hasn't arrived yet. Eleanor hugs me so hard my shoulder bag slides off, whisperingI don't know what I'd do without you twointo my hair.
Daniel claps George on the shoulder and sayssame time next crisis,and George laughs.
The engaged couple rounds the corner first, Eleanor already typing, Daniel two steps behind with his hand at the small of her back, easy as breathing.
George and I walk toward the parking structure, and the silence between us has edges.
***
He asks about work. I answer correctly. We are two professionals discussing logistics at nine o'clock on a Friday night, and the competence of it is somehow the loneliest thing I've felt all evening. Baxter comes up (something small about a grooming appointment) and I am genuinely, pathetically grateful to the dog.
I notice we are walking further apart than usual. A few extra inches of sidewalk between us. I wonder if he notices too.
We reach my car first.
I pull out my keys and he stops walking, the way you stop when you're not certain a conversation is finished. The silence stretches for a beat too long.
"Tessa," he says.
And then nothing. Just my name, hanging in the cool night air, going nowhere.
"Goodnight, George," I say, because it's easier than waiting to find out what comes after it.
He nods once. I get in the car.
***
I sit for a moment before starting the engine, watching him in the rearview mirror. His hands are in his pockets, and he is growing smaller as he moves toward his own car.
Of course,I think.
The thought is quiet and certain in a way that frightens me a little. This was always a temporary arrangement. George Maddox exists in a world with better options, and the longer this goes on, the more clearly he seems to be remembering that.
I had almost believed, for a few months, that I belonged in his life.
Tonight reminded me that some stories were never mine to keep.
