And with only Grant, every feeling gets magnified a thousandfold. An accidental brush of hands turns electric. Eye contact stops my breath. Even being in the same room as him feels treacherous.
As he watches Martin go, his eyes catch on me and the troubled look I’m giving him. “What?”
“We’re crashing his bike ride,” I say, disentangling myself from him. “Obviously.”
• • •
NEVER IN MYlife have I encountered someone as maddeningly unflappable as Martin. You’d think having two clingystrangers intrude on his bucolic solitude would rattle a person just a little, but no. He welcomed the company. He whistled as we picked out bikes. Now, he smiles brightly into the sunshine like a squat, mustachioedFräuleinMaria as we pedal through the countryside.
He’s playing the long game, and it’s shortening my fuse by the second.
“Can you slow down just a little?” I beg Grant when we’re out of Martin’s earshot. Our turquoise tandem bike had better be as annoying to look at as it is to ride. “I can’t keep up with your freakish six-foot-seventy legs.”
“You know you don’t actually have to pedal, right?” he says over his shoulder. “You can just sit there and enjoy the view and not criticize me relentlessly.”
“I don’t know if you realize this, Grant, but my view is pretty much your back and shoulders.” Which is a view I’m specifically tryingnotto enjoy.
When Martin catches up to us, we laugh psychotically.
“Oh, you,” I say, batting Grant’s arm.
“Ah, young love,” says Martin as he glides past.
When we get back, Grant unclicks the helmet he insisted on wearing and the one he forced me into, his fingers softly grazing the underside of my chin, and it takes all my strength not to slap his hands away or pull them closer.
Then Martin leaves us to take a nap, wishing us a splendid afternoon with a sincerity that makes me want to shake him by the shoulders and screamKILL US ALREADY!!Panic gathers in my stomach at the prospect of being alone with Grant.
It’s a mercy when the patio make-out couple corners us by the garden. They introduce themselves as Heather and Nicholas Fiorello, or @fiorellosinlove.
“Nearly to 600K on Instagram,” says Nicholas, and both he and his wife cross their immaculately manicured fingers.
Despite the fact that they’re allegedlydyingto make some couple friends, they barely let us get a word in edgewise for a solid half hour, regaling us with the story of their brand—that is, relationship. It’s alllifestyle thisandauthenticity thatuntil Heather pulls me aside for girl talk.
“Now,” she says, as somber as if she were delivering a bleak diagnosis. “I can’t help but notice you’ve got an empty left finger.”
“Ah,” I say, glancing at my perfectly normal hand. “Yeah, but the doctors say it should be just fine.”
“Ha! You’re funny.” She beams an impossibly white-toothed smile at me, nary a laugh line on her face. “Really, though. Just because he hasn’t popped the question yet doesn’t mean he won’t.” She places a sympathetic hand on my arm. “There are loads of ways to nudge him along, you know. I did a series on our Insta.Dropping Engagement Ring Hints,Giving My Boyfriend an Ultimatum, things like that.” She’s tapping through her phone but pauses to throw me a sly look. “Of course, we already had our proposal scheduled, but content is content.”
I glance at Grant, who’s frowning on the receiving end of a monologue. I think Nicholas is trying to convince him to start a podcast.
“I was thinking of framing him for embezzlement and blackmailing him into proposing. Do you think that would work?”
“Uh-huh,” she says, not listening. “I’ll tag you. What’s your handle?”
I tell her it’s @futuremrsnathanbakerhopefully. When she can’t find it, I say it must have gotten flagged again for being too adorable.
“Jealous people love reporting my account,” I say. “You know how it is.”
“Don’t I ever,” she says, shaking her head in solidarity. “Anyway, don’t worrytoomuch about Nathan. A man who looks at you like that has already been caught. You just need to reel him in.”
Involuntarily, I look over at the man being compared to a doomed fish. My eyes meet his with a start, but he doesn’t look away. There’s a fleeting softness in his gaze that makes the ground under my feet feel crooked. But then he widens his eyes in a telepathicHELP MEas Nicholas continues talking at him, and the urge to laugh evens things out again.
Still, even after we manage to cut ourselves loose of the Fiorellos, Heather’s words have their claws in me.A man who looks at you like that.I only caught his gaze for a moment, but it was enough to throw off my center of gravity. Now I’m hopelessly torn between avoiding eye contact and stealing glances at him to chase that feeling.
I insist on filling the rest of the afternoon with the most platonic of the romantic activities Lovers’ Weekend has to offer: badminton, a plein air painting lesson, a perfunctory lap of the pond via paddleboat. All the while, I’m doing my best to keep myself in check.He’s not real. He’s not real, he’s not real, he’s not real.
Except somewhere along the line, that refrain has transformed from a reminder to a lament. I watch him breathing in the fresh air, closing his eyes against the sun, laughing at his truly terrible painting of the gardens—the most at ease I’ve ever seen him, and it’s all a lie. He isn’t real, and he doesn’t even know it. I can’t decide which would be worse: the cruelty of telling him or the betrayal of keeping the secret. I feel guilty, and devastated, andfuriousthat I’ve let myself care so much.
