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I huffed a reluctant laugh.

He watched my face.

“We can keep talking. We can have dinner. You can decide tomorrow that half this page needs changing.”

“I won’t.”

“You can.”

I looked at him for a moment, then nodded.

The disappointment remained. So did something steadier beneath it.

He could want me and wait.

The waiting wasn’t punishment. It wasn’t a tactic he expected me to defeat.

It was simply his answer.

“Okay,” I said. “I understand.”

I added two lines for signatures.

The sight of them made my stomach turn over.

I had signed venue contracts while a loading crew waited behind me. Insurance applications. Payment plans. Documents that put my company name beside amounts of money I had no business owing.

Those had made me anxious.

This felt different.

There was no money in it. Nothing a court could deliver. No promise that the next week would go smoothly, or that wanting him would become simple because we had found a way to describe it.

Just two people agreeing to pay attention.

I signed first.

Priya Nair.

My usual signature. Fast, legible enough, a little impatient at the end.

Cash took the pen.

His name looked exactly like his handwriting had led me to expect: loose, slanted, slightly larger than the available space.

He gave the pen back.

We looked at the paper.

“Well,” he said.

“Yes.”

“Should we shake hands?”

I stared at him.

The dimple appeared.