LOVE WAS NOT IN THE CONTRACT のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 61 - チャプター 70

I pack two jumpers.I also pack three different dresses because I have no idea what “family estate weekend” means in terms of dress code and I am not about to find out the hard way, a blazer in case the answer is formal, my good boots, my comfortable boots, and a small notebook because I always bring a notebook, and by the time I zip the bag I am fairly certain I have overpacked for every possible version of this weekend except the one where it goes well.I am not entirely confident that version exists.Adrian picks me up Saturday morning at nine. He looks at my bag, which is medium-sized and sensible and contains what I consider a reasonable amount of preparation for a two-day trip to a place Eleanor describes as drafty.“One bag,” he observes.“I packed light,” I say.He puts it in the car without comment, which means he knows better than to push this particular point, which is something I file away appreciatively.-----The Knight family estate is two hours north of the city and it

I find the library at eleven forty-three.This is not difficult, exactly, because the manor has the kind of layout that makes sense once you stop trying to navigate it logically and just follow the light, and the library has a light on under the door when everything else on this floor is dark, which means either someone is already in it or this house has a reading lamp with opinions.I knock softly.“It’s open,” Adrian says.-----The library is exactly what a library in a place like this should be. Floor to ceiling shelves. A fireplace that still works. Two chairs angled toward it and a low table between them and the smell of old paper and wood smoke that makes you feel, immediately and involuntarily, like time moves differently in here.Adrian is in one of the chairs. Jacket off, sleeves rolled up, a book open on his knee that he is not reading. He looks at me in the doorway with an expression that is not surprised, like he knows I come eventually, which I find both reassuring and s

Tuesday arrives and I spend the morning pretending I am not thinking about it.I redesign a client’s kitchen twice. I reorganize my sample cabinet by color, then by material, then by color again, then give up and put everything back where it starts. I make three coffees and drink one of them. I rearrange the pencils on my desk into a perfect line and then immediately knock them over and decide this is not a sign of anything. By eleven o’clock my studio looks like a person who is absolutely fine and definitely not waiting for two of the most stubborn people she knows to finish a coffee meeting and decide her fate.Mia texts at eleven forty-two.Still here. He ordered a second round. This is going well.I stare at that for a long time.Going well for who, I want to ask. But I already know the answer and I do not want to hear it confirmed over text.-----They show up at my studio at one.Together.I hear them before I see them, Mia’s voice and Leo’s lower one in the stairwell, already m

The restaurant has no sign outside.Just a number on a black door in the West Village and a small window with warm light behind it and the kind of entrance that says: if you know, you know, and if you don’t, this probably isn’t for you. I stand on the pavement for a moment and double-check the address on my phone and then check it again because I am apparently someone who does that now.Adrian is already inside.He stands when he sees me come through the door, which is a thing he always does and which I never quite get used to, and he looks at me the way he looks at me when there is no one around to perform for, which is to say openly, which is to say like I am something he is glad to see.“You found it,” he says.“Eventually,” I say. “It doesn’t have a sign.”“That’s intentional,” he says. “Sit down.”I sit.-----The restaurant is small in the way that feels deliberate rather than accidental. Maybe twelve tables, low lighting, a menu that is handwritten on a small card and which I l

I text Mia immediately.Three words: Ryan is dating Cara.Her response comes in eleven seconds, which is fast even for Mia.CARA SIMMONS???Then, four seconds later: He is absolutely doing this on purpose.Then, two seconds after that: Do NOT respond to her text.I look at Cara’s message still open on my screen. Hey Zara! No weirdness intended!I close it. Put the phone down. Pick it back up.“Don’t respond,” I say to myself out loud, which is apparently where I am now, talking to myself in my Sunday afternoon apartment about my ex-boyfriend’s calculated social maneuvering.I do not respond.-----I call Mia on Monday.“Walk me through it,” I say, before she even finishes saying hello.“Okay,” she says. I can hear her sitting up, which means she has been thinking about this. “Ryan knows your world. He knows who you are friends with, who you are friendly with, who sits in the overlapping circles of your life. Cara is not your close friend, but she is not a stranger either. She is exact