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“Okay,” she says, capping and uncapping a pen. “Rules. I’ll go through mine, you flag objections, we negotiate where there’s friction. I want this clean. If we define it properly now, we don’t have to keep relitigating it every time something comes up, which is how these things fall apart.”

“You’ve thought about how these things fall apart?”

“I’ve thought about everything, Sorensen. That’s the entire personality.” She looks down at the list. “Rule one. Duration. This runs until Evan gives up and Bella moves on, or until either of us calls it, whichever’s first. No fixed end date, but a hard exit clause — either party can end it at any time, no questions, no negotiation, no —” she glances up “— guilt.”

“Agreed.”

“You agreed too fast.”

“It’s a good rule.”

“Read it back to me.”

“Either of us can quit whenever, no guilt, no questions.” I lean back on the stool. “Sloane. I was listening. I’m capable of listening.”

She narrows her eyes, like fast agreement is a tactic she hasn’t accounted for, and makes a small mark on the page. “Fine. Rule two. Visibility. We have to actually be seen — that’s the whole mechanism — but I’m not living at the rink. I have a thesis. I have an audition in February. I’m not abandoning my entire life to stand in a freezing arena being decorative.”

“How often?”

“Twice a week, publicly. One of those can be low-effort — coffee, walking somewhere, being seen on Main. The other should be a real thing. A game, a party, something people register.” She taps the pen. “Negotiable up during peak — if Bella’s being loud, if Evan escalates, we dial it up. Negotiable down during finals and the audition stretch.”

“Counter,” I say.

“Already?”

“Home games. I want you at home games when the schedule allows. Not all of them. The big ones.” And before she can object: “Not because you’re decorative. Because that’s the most public room I’m in all week, and it’s the cheapest, most natural place for people to see us being a thing. It’s efficient.” I hold her look. “It’s strategy.”

She considers this with the suspicion of a person who can tell when a true thing is also a self-serving thing. “Home games when the schedule allows,” she allows. “I reserve the right to bring a book.”

“You’re going to read at my hockey game?”

“During intermissions. I’m not an animal.”

“Rule three,” she says. “Physical contact.”

“This is the good part.”

“This is the logistics part.” But the corner of her mouth moves, just barely, and I file it. “We need to agree on what’s pre-approved and what requires —” she searches for the word “— situational judgment. Because at the bar, you put your arm behind me without consultation.”

“The arm was reflexive.”

“The arm was presumptuous. We established this.”

“The arm worked,” I point out. “Cash bought it. The whole booth bought it. If I’d asked permission first — ‘excuse me, Sloane, may I place my arm along the back of this booth in a manner suggesting romantic familiarity’ — that’s the thing that blows it, not the arm.”

She stares at me. “That’s annoyingly correct.”

“I’m full of annoyingly correct.”

“Fine. Tiered system.” She actually writes TIERED SYSTEM at the top of a fresh section, underlines it, and I have to look at the coffee for a second so I don’t smile at her doing it. “Tier one, pre-approved, no consultation: arm around the shoulder, hand on the back, standing close, the —” she gestures vaguely “— the general proximity stuff. Tier two, situational, read the room: hand-holding, anything that lasts. Tier three⁠—”

“Tier three,” I say.

“Tier three is discussed in advance. Every time.”

“What’s in tier three?”

She looks at me flatly. “You know what’s in tier three.”