An Unscheduled Fiancé
Mel
The man carrying Mel Quinn’s future had labeled it TOILETS.
She watched him set the wooden crate beside the boardwalk, adjust his grip on a second parcel, and consult a notebook. He wore a pale blue shirt with the sleeves folded to his elbows. His shoes were too clean for Pelican Cove, although the gull standing behind him appeared willing to fix that.
“Please tell me that’s a temporary designation,” she said.
He looked up. “Are you responsible for this delivery?”
“Emotionally, since Tuesday. Professionally, since I paid for it.”
He turned the crate until she could see the label. TOILETS, BEACH ACCESS, FIRST AID. Beneath the words, in smaller writing, someone had added SIGN PANELS.
“Instructions,” he said. “Not a review.”
Mel put down her brush tin. “Then I withdraw my complaint. Mostly.”
The sea beyond the railing was a clear, unreasonable blue. She had been back in town for thirty minutes, long enough to smell salt, sunscreen, and hot sugar from the boardwalk shops. At the corner, the bait shop’s hand-painted sign still leaned to the left. Mel had offered to straighten it when she was nineteen. The owner had told her customers already knew which way to tilt their heads.
She had missed that. She had not missed the prospect of everyone knowing she had come home without a fiancé, a permanent job, or a useful answer to the question of what happened.
“Mel Quinn,” she said, holding out a hand.
He shifted the parcel beneath his arm before taking it. “Theo Avery. Event logistics.”
His palm was warm, his handshake brief. He looked at her paint-stained overalls, then at the crate, without visibly revising his expectations of either.
“Celia said the artist would arrive this morning,” he said.
“She didn’t mention an assistant.”
“I’m not one.”
“Excellent. Neither am I, but people keep testing the theory.”
He smiled a little. It made him look less like a man appointed to ensure the ocean stayed inside its boundaries.
Together they carried the crate to Quinn Sign Works, two streets inland. Mel took the lighter end because he had already lifted the heavy one, then made him stop at the corner so they could exchange positions before the slope. He looked surprised, but not offended. That was promising in a person she intended to argue with about sign placement.
The workshop’s front windows were dusty, and the gold lettering on the door had lost the tail of its Q. Her aunt Ruth stood inside, surveying three pots of paint as though one of them had personally disappointed her.
“You’re late,” Ruth said.
“I’m exactly when I said.”
“Yes. I expected better.”
Mel put down her end of the crate and hugged her. Ruth’s purple cardigan smelled of lavender soap and turpentine. Her hands rested lightly on Mel’s back. They had always been strong hands, stained at the nails, capable of making a painted curve look effortless. Now the knuckles had thickened, and she did not close her fingers completely.
Mel held her for another second before stepping back.
“This is Theo. He brought the signs.”
“And a sensible way to stack them,” Ruth said. “Celia’s told me about you.”
“Nothing actionable, I hope.”
Ruth liked him immediately. Mel could tell by the way she pointed him toward the kettle instead of the door.
They opened the crate on the long worktable. Eight blank panels, smooth and primed, with proper edges and fixing holes where Mel had requested them. She ran her fingers along the nearest one. No splinters. The delivery had survived. Something in her chest uncurled.
“The festival’s temporary wayfinding,” Theo said. “Celia wants the first mock-up by tomorrow. Can you work with the route plan I sent?”
“I can improve it.”
“That wasn’t quite my question.”
“It was going to become your answer.”
He set the plan on a clean section of the table. Mel looked at it. The arrows were functional, the routes sensible, the lettering too small for people walking in bright sun. He had clearly thought about how crowds moved. Nobody had thought about whether the crowd could read.
She took a pencil from behind her ear and marked two points.
“These need a decision before the junction,” she said. “If you tell people where to go once they’re standing in the intersection, you’ve made a gathering place.”
Theo moved closer. “The supplier recommended those positions.”
“The supplier doesn’t have to rescue three hundred people looking for a bathroom at once.”
He considered the plan. “Show me.”
Mel drew the approach lines. He asked about sightlines, glare, and the difference between a decorative header and a useful letter height. The questions were good. She had prepared herself to be patronized, and had to set down the argument she had been carrying.
Ruth watched them over the kettle. “I can leave you two to the romantic subject of pedestrian congestion.”
“Aunt Ruth.”
“What? I said romantic. Not profitable.”
Theo looked at his notebook with unusual concentration. Mel hid a smile by bending over the plan.
While he checked the route outside, Ruth brought a thin folder from behind the till. The lease proposal lay inside, along with a list of what she intended to sell and what she could leave in place. Mel had expected something more emotional. Seeing monthly rent beside the price of the compressor made the decision clearer and more frightening.
“You don’t have to take it,” Ruth said.
“I know.”
“Do you? Because your face looks as if you’re being asked to adopt a sick pony.”
Mel laughed, then traced one figure with her finger. “Could I manage this in winter?”
“Not on summer visitors alone. The schools order boards. Shops need windows. Some people still want a sign somebody has actually looked at before sending it.”
“Some people want it for the price of a sticker.”
“Tell them where to buy stickers.”
Ruth flexed her right hand, slowly. Mel pretended not to notice until she realized the pretense was another form of pity.
“How much does it hurt?”
“Enough to stop doing the small lettering all day. Not enough to stop knowing how it should be done.”
“I could hire you to criticize.”
“You couldn’t afford my full hours.”
They smiled at each other. Mel put the folder in her bag without signing anything. Ruth did not ask her to. Outside, Theo stood at the corner, observing a family who had stopped beneath the existing direction board and then chosen three different paths. He wrote something in his notebook. Mel wondered whether he knew how much it meant to be allowed time to decide before someone announced what would make her happy.
By noon she had chosen the base colors, found the missing brushes, and learned that Theo had rented a room above a shop near the station for the next two weeks. He was thirty-five, had lived in enough hotels to become unreasonable about bedside sockets, and had taken the Jubilee planning job because a friend at the regional events office recommended Celia.
Mel told him she was thirty-two and had worked at a design agency in the city until recently. She did not explain how recently, or which part of leaving had been her choice. He did not ask a question merely because a gap existed.
Ruth went out to collect lunch. Mel stood on a stool to reach the upper shelf, where her old brass lettering stencil lay wrapped in a yellowing cloth. Her father had used it before she was born. Ruth had stored it after his death, along with brushes he had trimmed by hand.
“Can I pass that down?” Theo asked.
“I’m tall enough. The stool’s the problem.”
It wobbled beneath her. She stepped down before he could make a warning into a command. He held it while she folded the loose leg back into place, then put a note on it in his square, neat handwriting.
“Nobody else should use it,” he said.
“Ruth will call the wobble character.”
“I’ll label it character with consequences.”
Mel laughed. She had not expected this day to contain anyone who could make her laugh without knowing the history of the joke.
The front door opened, and her brother Owen came in carrying a paper sack. Behind him walked Grant Pell.
For half a second, Mel forgot what her hands were doing. The stencil’s cloth slipped, exposing a line of old paint beneath her fingers. Grant looked exactly as he had on the last afternoon of their engagement: expensive haircut, easy smile, shoes selected to look less expensive than they were.
“Surprise,” Owen said.
Mel wished people would stop using that word for things they knew might go badly.
“I told you I’d bring lunch,” she said.
“You told Ruth. She told me. Grant was at the sponsor office, so I thought—”
“Mel.” Grant stepped forward. “It’s good to see you.”
He reached as if to hug her. She moved the stencil between them. It was not large enough to be a shield, but it gave her hands a job.
“You’re working here?” she asked.
“Consulting on the Jubilee sponsor presentation. Small world.”
“Town,” Mel said. “Small town. World had more room.”
Owen’s face tightened with the affectionate panic she knew too well. He wanted everyone comfortable. Usually that meant asking her to perform the missing comfort herself.
Grant looked around the workshop. “This brings back memories. You always did love the handmade stuff.”
Stuff. Her father’s stencil weighed almost nothing, yet her forearm ached from holding it.
“It’s her commission,” Theo said from the table. “The directional system.”
Grant turned, noticing him properly for the first time. “Sorry. I didn’t realize we were interrupting.”
“You are,” Mel said.
Owen made a little sound. Grant’s smile remained in place.
“We only came to say hello,” her brother said. “And I thought you should know about the family dinner. Sam’s excited you’re home. We can keep it small. No pressure. Just family, and maybe a few people you should meet.”
There it was. The well-meaning machinery. A dinner with an eligible friend. Someone saying she looked wonderful, as if surviving a broken engagement were a condition that showed in the skin. Grant explaining, gently, that they wanted different things. Mel holding the correct expression until her face hurt.
“I’m not available,” she said.
“You haven’t even heard—”
“I’m engaged.”
The words arrived before the thought behind them had put on shoes.
Owen stared. Grant’s smile finally moved. Theo stood very still beside the table.
Mel looked at him. It was a dreadful thing to do to a stranger. She knew it even as she silently asked him to save her from what she had done.
He glanced at the stencil in her hands, then at the way Grant stood between her and the door. He crossed the room and stopped beside her, leaving a careful inch between their sleeves.
“We hadn’t planned an announcement in a workshop,” he said.
His tone was mild enough to be devastating.
Owen looked between them. “You never said.”
“No,” Mel replied. “I didn’t.”
Grant offered his hand. Theo took it. Mel had never wanted to thank and apologize to someone so urgently at the same time.
“Congratulations,” Grant said. “When’s the wedding?”
“We’re keeping things private,” Theo answered.
It was not a wedding date, and it was not an invitation. Mel could have kissed him for the distinction, which was especially inconvenient considering the circumstances.
Owen recovered enough to embrace her. She let him, her cheek pressed awkwardly against his shoulder while he told her he was happy, surprised, very surprised, and that Sam would absolutely insist they come to dinner.
Theo said they would check their schedules. Mel nodded so hard that a curl fell into her eyes.
When the two men finally left, the paper sack remained on the table. Owen had forgotten to tell them what was in it. Mel stared at the door until Theo spoke.
“I think we need to discuss your scheduling system.”
She put the stencil down.
“I’m sorry.”
“That seems a reasonable place to begin.”
He was not smiling now. She deserved that.
“I panicked. Grant is my former fiancé. Owen keeps trying to arrange a recovery, as though I’ve had a boiler replaced. You were there, and I—”
“Used me.”
She took the word without flinching. “Yes. I did.”
He looked at her for a long moment. “Why didn’t you tell them you didn’t want company?”
“I have. Repeatedly. They hear lonely when I say alone.”
“That sounds exhausting. It still wasn’t my decision.”
“I know. I’ll tell them I lied. Today. You don’t have to do anything else.”
The easy exit surprised him. She could see it in the slight shift of his shoulders. He looked at the folded route plan, the damaged stool, the stencil she had put down with both hands.
“How long are you here?” he asked.
“Through the Jubilee. Ten days, including today. Then I decide whether to take the workshop lease.”
“A limited term.”
“I’m not asking you to extend it.”
“I know. I’m thinking.”
He sat at the table and opened Owen’s forgotten sack. Two sandwiches, an apple, and a napkin covered in crumbs. He divided them without asking whose belonged to whom, then slid one plate toward her.
“Eat while I do.”
Mel sat. Her hands had stopped shaking. She could not remember when they had begun.
Theo took a bite, considered the sandwich, and looked as though its pickle content might affect his conclusion.
“I dislike being introduced to people as a useful man,” he said at last. “At every event, somebody has a cousin with an app, a nephew who needs a reference, or a friend who wants free advice. Being attached might save me a few conversations too.”
“That’s a terrible reason to pretend to marry someone.”
“We’re not marrying. We’re attending dinner. Possibly two dinners. And you owe me an exceptionally clear agreement.”
She looked at him. “Are you offering?”
“I’m considering a proposal. This time, I would like to be asked.”
Mel set down the sandwich. “Would you be my fake fiancé until the Jubilee? Socially. No paperwork, no financial benefit, no story about us used to sell anything. Separate lodging. No touching unless we both agree. If either wants out, it’s over.”
He held her gaze. “And afterward?”
“I tell everyone I was an idiot.”
“That’s not a useful conclusion. You tell them the arrangement ended. Truthfully. We decide the exact words together.”
She nodded slowly. He took his pen, tore a page from the notebook, and wrote TERMS across the top. Then he turned it toward her.
“Your handwriting will be nicer.”
“That isn’t the point of this exercise.”
“I’m learning.”
When Ruth returned with another lunch, she found them arguing over whether the phrase public affection included sharing an umbrella. She put the food down, listened for a minute, and went to the drawer beneath the till.
The silver ring she set on the table was plain, worn smooth at the edges.
“Costume stock,” she said. “From the old amateur theater. Fits nearly everybody. Unlike most plans made before lunch.”
Mel looked at her aunt. Ruth raised an eyebrow, waiting for the explanation she would clearly demand later.
Theo waited too. The decision was hers now, properly hers, with a way out and someone else’s consent beside it.
“Ten days,” Mel said. “Then we tell the truth.”
Terms in Chalk
Mel
By the following morning, Mel had learned three things about her new fiancé. He arrived on time, disliked standing in doorways, and considered an unmarked extension cord a personal challenge.
“You can move that,” she said as Theo approached the rehearsal hall’s entrance.
“I can see it. The next person might not.”
He taped the cord down, then held the door while she carried the sample panel inside. The hall smelled of chalk, floor polish, and old curtains. Folding chairs stood in uncertain rows around a platform. At the far end, Celia Moss was trying to persuade a ladder to fit between two stacks of bunting.
“You’re together,” Celia said when she saw them.
Mel’s heart performed an unnecessary little leap.
“We came from the same street,” Theo answered.
“Useful. Carry that table.”
The leap returned to its proper business. Mel put down the panel and helped him. They moved the table to Celia’s taped mark, then moved it again when the mark proved to be left over from last year’s amateur production.
“We’re rehearsing the welcome sequence,” Celia told them. “Nobody receives guests at the door until we know where the queue goes. Last time, people bought raffle tickets because they thought it was the bathroom line.”
“A persuasive business model,” Mel said.
“They asked for refunds.”
Theo opened his plan. Mel propped the sample board against a chair. The hand-painted lettering was a deep blue on cream, with a warm red arrow. She had made the words large enough to read before reaching the decision point. A small wave along the lower edge gave the sign something of the town without making the directions compete with decoration.
Celia studied it, then walked to the far end of the hall.
“I can read that,” she called.
“That’s an encouraging first reaction,” Mel replied.
“Don’t be clever. It’s been a long morning.”
A volunteer stopped beside the board. “It’s lovely. Very quaint.”
Mel smiled automatically. Theo looked up from the map.
“It’s doing a difficult job,” he said. “You can tell where to turn without stopping. That’s the point.”
The volunteer nodded, a little surprised, and went to help Celia. Mel looked at Theo.
“You didn’t have to rescue me from an adjective.”
“I was correcting the assessment.”
“Dangerous habit.”
“You’re setting an example.”
He smiled, and she had to find something urgent to do with the sample panel. She had painted it alone at Ruth’s long table last night, aware of the silver ring in a saucer beside her elbow. She was wearing it now. The metal felt foreign against the familiar movements of her left hand.
Before they began, Theo took a folded page from his notebook. Their agreement had acquired three neat additions after lunch yesterday: no invented childhood memories, no announcement date, and no accepting gifts intended to celebrate an actual wedding.
Mel had added: no calling each other darling unless in immediate danger of discovery.
“We didn’t define immediate,” he said.
“It’s a flexible emergency category.”
“That’s what worries me.”
They stood behind the stage curtain while the volunteers argued about chair numbers. Mel checked the page. His handwriting was compact but legible. In the margin, he had drawn a small umbrella and written shared coverage not automatic permission for waist contact.
“You illustrated it.”
“Some clauses needed interpretation.”
She laughed. “Can we make this less like procuring a photocopier?”
“I was going to ask you the same thing.”
They looked at each other. Behind the curtain, someone dropped a stack of plastic cups. The rattle gave them a moment to stop smiling too obviously.
“We can tell them today,” Theo said. “I meant what I said about an exit.”
“I know. Do you want to?”
He considered before answering. “Not yet. Yesterday was unexpectedly entertaining after the part where I became engaged without knowing.”
“A mixed review.”
“I’m prepared to attend dinner. After that, we reassess.”
It was more room than her impulsive promise deserved. Mel folded the agreement along its original crease and returned it to him.
“Dinner, then reassessment.”
They spent the first hour walking the hall as if they were arriving guests. Theo counted how many people could pass the welcome table without blocking the exit. Mel moved the direction board to a position where a wheelchair user would not have to tilt their head past a flower arrangement to see it. Celia followed with a pencil, crossing out three decorative ideas with visible grief.
“The flowers can have another job,” Mel told her.
“They were donated.”
“Then let’s honor them somewhere they won’t conceal first aid.”
Theo coughed into his hand. Mel caught the smile before he hid it.
At the platform, they disagreed. He wanted a standard printed board listing all activities. She wanted separate panels for the routes people would actually take.
“One board is easier to update,” he said.
“And harder to absorb while someone behind you is asking whether this is the line for the raffle.”
“We have limited space.”
“Then let’s test the space.”
She drew three large labels on scrap card and handed them to volunteers. Theo arranged the chairs to represent stalls, then asked people to find a destination without explaining the plan. One volunteer went straight to the correct aisle. Another stopped at the printed schedule. A third followed the first because she assumed confidence meant knowledge.
They repeated the test with the separate directions. The queue cleared faster, but one panel disappeared behind a taller volunteer. Theo raised it. Mel reduced the wave decoration to make the arrow more visible. Neither got the original design exactly as proposed.
“Better?” he asked.
“Much.”
“Which of us won?”
“The people who need the toilet.”
Celia, passing with the defeated flowers, made a noise that might have been laughter.
The work settled Mel. She could recognize a problem, try something, see it improve. Nobody asked how she was coping or whether she had considered meeting someone with a stable income. Theo listened when she explained a choice and challenged it when he had a reason. She had forgotten how attractive disagreement could be when it did not come wrapped in contempt.
At noon, he placed a sandwich beside her paint tin. She looked at it suspiciously.
“You keep providing food.”
“You keep forgetting to eat when you’re painting.”
“You’ve observed me for one day.”
“A statistically limited but persuasive sample.”
She took a bite, mostly to stop herself smiling. He sat beside her on the platform edge, leaving enough room for a brush pot between them.
“What do you do when you aren’t arranging crowds?” she asked.
“Walk. Read. Ruin ambitious recipes.”
“How ambitious?”
“There was a bread incident.”
“That’s vague.”
“The tin hasn’t forgiven me.”
Mel laughed. He asked about her work when no client was choosing the colors. She told him about painting a window in the city with a single line of lettering that looked different from either side. Grant had said the idea was impractical. Mel had done it anyway, then removed it when the agency changed premises. She still had photographs.
“I’d like to see them,” Theo said.
“Why?”
He looked at her. “Because you looked happy telling me.”
The answer caught somewhere beneath her breastbone. She showed him the photographs. He took the phone only when she passed it over, and tilted the screen against the glare. He noticed a small flourish she had nearly forgotten, a break in the line that made room for the handle without making it look like an interruption.
“You included the inconvenience,” he said.
“Doors do insist on being doors.”
“People too. Less predictably.”
She looked at his profile while he studied the picture. A little line appeared between his brows when he concentrated. She wondered what would make it ease. Then she remembered she was already engaged to him and almost laughed at the sheer inconvenience of herself.
Owen arrived after lunch carrying a garment bag. He had called twice that morning; Mel had answered once, because she had been holding a brush during the other call and was determined not to apologize for working.
“Sam thought you might want this,” he said, setting the bag over a chair.
Inside hung a blue dress Mel had left at his house months before. It was clean, pressed, and exactly the sort of helpful thing that made her feel both loved and managed.
“For dinner?” she asked.
“And the dance, maybe. We weren’t sure what you’d brought.”
“Clothes, Owen. I did bring clothes.”
“I know.”
He looked toward Theo, who had tactfully become interested in a folding table hinge. Owen lowered his voice anyway.
“You could have told me about him. I wouldn’t have made a fuss.”
Mel glanced at the garment bag, then at his face.
“You arrived with my ex and an invitation to meet someone. You might have made a small fuss.”
He winced. “I thought Grant would make things less awkward.”
“For whom?”
It was not a sharp question. That seemed to make it harder for him to answer.
“I didn’t think,” he said.
“I know you want me happy. But I need you to stop treating everything I do as a stage on the way to being recovered. I can come home because I want work here. I can have dinner because I want dinner. Neither requires proof that I’m fine.”
He nodded slowly. “Does Theo know about the engagement? The old one, I mean.”
“He knows what I’ve chosen to tell him.”
Owen’s eyes moved to the ring. He opened his mouth, then closed it.
“Tomorrow at seven,” he said. “Just us. No surprises.”
“Thank you.”
He touched her shoulder, gentle and uncertain, then left the dress with her permission. Mel watched the door swing shut. Setting a boundary had not felt like the triumphant scene she had rehearsed on the train. It felt sad and useful, like throwing away a chair nobody could sit in anymore.
Theo came over after a few minutes. “Want me to take that back to the shop?”
“The dress?”
“Unless you intend to change behind the bunting.”
She smiled. “It’s a very good blue.”
“It is.”
He had looked at her before looking at the dress. She noticed, and wished she had not, and then wished she could make him do it again.
Celia called them to the platform for the welcome rehearsal. Two local teenagers would carry the final route boards during the first procession, supervised by adults. They were absent at school, so Mel and Theo stood in for them. Celia handed each a cardboard panel and positioned them beside the welcome arch.
“Closer,” she said. “You’re blocking the steps.”
They moved closer. Theo’s sleeve brushed Mel’s arm. She could smell clean soap and the faint lemon of the hand wipes they had used after lunch.
“Now turn toward the visitors,” Celia said. “And smile as if you expect them to enjoy themselves.”
“An ambitious instruction,” Theo murmured.
Mel’s smile became real. Celia adjusted the arch, then went to fetch a tape measure. For a moment they were alone beneath it, holding cardboard signs while the hall emptied around them.
“You were good with Owen,” Theo said.
“I didn’t feel good.”
“That wasn’t what I meant.”
She looked up. He was much nearer than he had been at the table. The distance seemed to have changed without either of them moving, as though attention had quietly taken out the unnecessary inches.
“I don’t know how to do a convincing engaged smile,” she said.
“That one worked.”
“Which one?”
“When you forgot to practice.”
He set his panel against the arch and lifted a hand, stopping before he touched her face.
“Paint,” he said. “Here. May I?”
She nodded. His thumb brushed a dry fleck from her cheek. The contact was brief, hardly anything, yet Mel felt it through the rest of her body. She should have stepped back. Instead she watched his mouth.
He noticed. Of course he noticed; he noticed everything inconvenient.
“This would be outside the agreement,” he said quietly.
“The agreement allows negotiation.”
His hand fell to his side. He searched her face, making certain, and she liked him so much in that moment that desire became frighteningly specific. Not an attractive stranger. Theo, who labeled things, listened to an answer, and could admit that a plan needed changing.
She leaned a little closer. He did too.
Across the hall, Celia dropped the tape measure. The metal strip recoiled with a violent snap. Mel jumped, then laughed, and Theo steadied the arch before it could wobble.
They had not kissed. The fact did not make the moment feel like a rehearsal anymore.
Mel picked up her cardboard panel with hands that wanted a different task. On the back, in Celia’s large marker strokes, someone had written WELCOME PRACTICE ONLY.
“We should add another clause,” she said.
Theo looked at the sign, then at her. “I think we’re past the tidy part.”
She had a terrible suspicion he was right.
Celia came back, measured the arch, and told them they were finished for the day. Theo helped fold the spare chairs. Mel cleaned her brush at the little sink behind the stage, working slowly while her mind made unnecessarily detailed plans for what she would say at dinner. She could turn a half-inch gap in lettering into a deliberate design. She could not do the same with the space between nearly touching mouths.
When she returned, the hall was empty except for Theo. He stood beside the door with the blue dress over his arm and both their bags at his feet.
“I can carry my own,” she said.
“I know. I was keeping them away from the wet floor.”
There was no rebuke in it. She looked down at the newly mopped patch, then back at him. “I keep preparing for an argument you haven’t made.”
“You can tell me when I finally make one.”
“I’ll have illustrations.”
He smiled. Mel took her bag and set it on a dry chair. The practical action gave her one more second to choose her words.
“What happened under the arch wasn’t for Owen,” she said. “Or Celia.”
Theo’s smile faded into attention. “I know what it was for me. I didn’t want to decide yours.”
“Then ask.”
He put the dress down carefully. “Would you like me to kiss you? No audience. No explanation required afterward.”
“Yes.”
He stepped close enough for her to change the answer. She did not. His hand touched her cheek, gentler than when he had removed the paint, and his mouth met hers with a warmth that made her forget the room’s floor plan entirely. She caught his shirt lightly at the waist. He drew back just enough to see whether she was still smiling.
She was.
“That’s going to complicate dinner,” she whispered.
“Probably.”
Mel kissed him once more, because the first answer had been theirs and she wanted to give another. Then she took the dress, he picked up the sample board, and they stood beside the door looking absurdly pleased with a day that had begun as a logistics exercise.
She let him open it for her. The sunlight outside felt different against her face, though she knew it was the same sun that had been there all morning.
The first rehearsal kiss was not in the schedule.
