Brunch at the Wards, Tessa had learned, followed a predictable structure: food, light chatter, veiled jabs, and then, like a weather front rolling in, The Topic.
Today, The Topic arrived via Julia, who set down a platter of roasted potatoes and said, with faux-casual brightness, “So! Have you two thought any more about dates?”
Caleb made a small strangled sound. Tessa nearly inhaled an asparagus spear.
“For… the wedding?” Julia clarified when neither of them answered.
Abby muttered, “Here we go,” under her breath and took a large gulp of orange juice.
“We’ve… talked,” Caleb said carefully. “About… timing.”
“And?” Thomas prompted.
“And we’re… not ready to set anything in stone,” Tessa said, surprising herself with how steady she sounded. “We want to… do this right. Not… rush. Or… react.”
Julia looked slightly deflated. “Of course,” she said. “I just… keep seeing venues online that would be perfect. And they book out so far—”
“Julia,” Elise said mildly. “Restrain your Pinterest.”
Julia sighed. “You’re all conspiring against me.”
“You have two other married children,” Elise pointed out. “You’ve had your weddings. Let the boy breathe.”
Thomas dabbed at his mouth with a napkin. “We just… want you to be happy.”
“I am,” Caleb said. His eyes flicked to Tessa. “We are.”
Her heart thudded. She forced herself not to look at him like he’d just handed her a puppy.
“You know that’s not what your mother means,” Thomas said. “We want… to see you settled. Secure.”
“Married,” Julia said bluntly. “To Tessa. Who, for the record, I like very much.” She smiled apologetically at Tessa. “I know it’s weird to be… talked about like you’re not here.”
“I sell engagement rings for a living,” Tessa said. “I’m used to weird.”
Julia laughed. Some tension bled out of the room.
Elise, watching the exchange, clinked her spoon lightly against her cup.
“Children,” she said, tone cutting through the murmurs. “Let’s stop dancing around the maypole.”
Abby snickered. “Here it comes.”
“Caleb and Tessa have something to tell us,” Elise announced.
Every set of eyes swung to them.
Tessa’s stomach flipped. Caleb’s fingers found hers under the table and squeezed once.
“Grandma,” he said warningly.
“What?” Elise said. “You came here to tell us. I’m just… expediting.”
“I hate that she’s right,” Abby muttered.
Tessa swallowed. Her heart pounded so loudly she was sure everyone could hear it.
“Okay,” she said, surprising herself by speaking first. “Um. Right. So.”
She glanced at Caleb. His gaze was steady, open. They’d agreed, after Elise’s library session, that she’d lead. That he’d follow her cues.
“We… haven’t been… entirely… forthcoming,” she said slowly. “About… how this started.”
Julia’s brows knit. Thomas set his fork down.
“About the timing?” Julia asked. “We did think it was… sudden, but—”
“About… everything,” Caleb said quietly.
His father’s jaw tightened. “Explain.”
Caleb took a breath. “When I… first introduced Tessa as my fiancée, it was… not entirely… accurate.”
Silence crashed.
“You mean you were only… dating?” Julia asked, confusion warring with relief. “That you’d proposed privately and we just… weren’t in on it?”
“No,” Caleb said. “I mean… we weren’t… engaged. At all.”
Tessa’s cheeks burned. “We’d… just met.”
Julia’s hand flew to her chest. Thomas’s mouth opened and closed soundlessly. Abby let out a low whistle. Elise sipped her tea as if watching a favorite show.
“You… lied,” Thomas said slowly.
“Yes,” Caleb said. “We did. To all of you. And I’m… sorry.”
“Why?” Julia demanded. “Why would you… invent an engagement?”
“Because we’re idiots,” Abby muttered. “That’s why.”
“Because,” Tessa said, forcing herself to meet their eyes, “we both had… problems. That an engagement—fake or otherwise—would… solve. Short-term. His family. My boss. We thought… if we pretended, it would… buy us time.”
“It was supposed to be… a three-month arrangement,” Caleb added. “Just long enough to get everyone off our backs. Then we’d… quietly ‘break up.’”
Julia stared, stricken. Thomas’s expression hardened.
“So you used us,” Thomas said, voice flat. “Your family. For cover.”
“Yes,” Caleb said. “We did. And you have every right to be angry.”
Abby opened her mouth, but Elise shot her a look that said *Do not make this worse.*
Thomas’s jaw worked. “You could have… told us,” he said to Caleb. “Talked to us. Asked for time.”
“With respect,” Caleb said, “the last time I asked for time, Aunt Lillian sent me a spreadsheet of eligible daughters of her friends.”
Julia winced. “She… did do that.”
“And you,” Thomas said, turning to Tessa. “You… went along with this.”
“Yes,” Tessa said, throat tight. “I did. I… needed my job. My mom’s… bills. My boss was… threatening me. Him showing up as my ‘fiancé’… it stopped that. Gave me… breathing room.”
Julia’s eyes filled. “Oh, honey.”
“I’m not… proud of lying,” Tessa said. “To you. To my mom. To… everyone. We never meant it to be… mean. Or… malicious. We were just… desperate.”
Elise set her cup down with a soft click.
“And now?” she asked. “Are you still… desperate?”
Tessa swallowed. “Yes,” she said. “But for… different things.”
Caleb’s thumb traced a small circle on the back of her hand under the table.
“We didn’t expect…” he began, then trailed off.
“We didn’t expect to… actually… like each other,” Tessa finished, because if they were doing honesty, they might as well do it thoroughly. “To… care. To… start… falling.”
Abby made a choked noise that might have been a suppressed *finally.*
Julia’s gaze bounced between them, confusion, hurt, and something like hope warring on her face.
“You’re saying…” she said slowly, “that you… started as a… transaction. And now it’s… real.”
“Yes,” Caleb said. “Messy. Complicated. But… real.”
Thomas shook his head. “How can we… trust that? How do we know you’re not just… saying this because you got caught?”
“I told you,” Elise said. “This is the wrong question.”
Thomas glared. “Mother—”
“The right question,” Elise went on, “is: Do you believe they *could* be telling the truth? Not… are they perfect. They are not.”
“Thanks,” Abby muttered.
“But are they… trying?” Elise continued. “Or are they… using us.”
Julia’s eyes glistened. “I don’t feel… used,” she said slowly. “I feel… hurt. That they lied. But I also… saw how he looked at her at the lake. How she… held his hand at my mother’s grave. That wasn’t… fake.”
Thomas’s shoulders slumped a fraction. “I… saw it too.”
Abby piped up. “And I’ve been in their group chat,” she said. “You can’t fake that many memes.”
“Abigail,” Elise warned.
“What?” Abby said. “You want data; I’m giving you data.”
Tessa half-laughed through her nerves. “Our meme history is… deeply incriminating.”
Caleb squeezed her hand. “It is.”
Thomas sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. “So. What now?” he asked. “You’ve told us. You’ve… come clean. You say this is… real. Do you… intend to actually… get married? Or are we going to have to sit through another… ‘we realized we’re better as friends’ speech in three months?”
“Honestly?” Caleb said. “We… don’t know yet.”
“We want to… try,” Tessa added quietly. “For real. Without… scripts. Or… deadlines. We’re just… asking for… time. To figure out what that looks like. Without… lies.”
Julia’s gaze softened. “Time we… denied you before,” she said. “Because we were… excited. And… scared.”
“We still are,” Thomas admitted. “Excited. Scared.”
“We understand if you need… space,” Caleb said. “If you’re… angry. If you… question. We just… couldn’t keep… doing this. To you. To us.”
Elise looked between them. Then at Julia and Thomas.
“Well?” she said. “What say the committee?”
“Mother,” Thomas groaned.
“What?” Elise said. “Let’s not pretend this isn’t a family board meeting with better food.”
Abby snorted.
Julia’s eyes brimmed. She reached across the table, placed her hand over Tessa’s.
“I’m… hurt you didn’t feel you could… trust us,” she said. “That you had to… perform. That breaks my heart. But I also… understand being… cornered. I was your age once too, you know.”
Tessa’s throat tightened. “You had… fake engagements too?”
Julia laughed, wet. “No. But I married your father in part because my own parents thought I should. There was… pressure. Expectations. I didn’t know how to… stand up to them. Not at first.”
Thomas’s hand covered hers. “We grew into it,” he said.
“You did,” Elise said grudgingly.
Julia squeezed Tessa’s hand. “I’m… willing to give you… time,” she said. “To… see where this goes. On your timeline. Not ours.”
Thomas sighed. “If you hurt each other…” he began.
“We will,” Tessa said softly. “At some point. That’s… relationships. But we’re… trying not to. On purpose.”
Thomas huffed a small, reluctant laugh. “You’re very… blunt.”
“Occupational hazard,” she said. “I sell forever in tiny boxes. I know how… fragile it is.”
His expression shifted. “I… respect that.”
Elise sniffed. “Good. That’s settled.”
“Is it?” Abby whispered to Tessa, wide-eyed.
“For now,” Elise said. “We reserve the right to revisit at holidays.”
“We’re going to be the main event at Thanksgiving,” Abby told Tessa. “Brace yourself.”
Tessa laughed shakily. “I’ll bring pie.”
“Bring two,” Elise said. “One as tribute.”
They ate. Talk moved, gingerly at first, then more easily, to other topics—Abby’s latest protest at city hall, Thomas’s fantasy football league, Julia’s war with the HOA.
Under the table, Caleb’s hand remained in hers, a quiet anchor.
At one point, when the others were arguing about whether or not to get a second boat, he leaned over.
“Hey,” he whispered. “You okay?”
She looked at him. Really looked. At the worry in his eyes. The hope. The exhaustion. The stubborn thread of determination.
“Yeah,” she said, surprising herself with how true it felt. “Actually… yeah.”
He smiled. The kind that made his entire face soften.
“Thank you,” he said.
“For what?” she asked.
“For… doing that,” he said. “For… telling them. For not… running.”
“I considered it,” she admitted. “Briefly. Thought about jumping out Elise’s window.”
He glanced at the neatly manicured hedge below. “You’d have broken an ankle.”
“Worth it to avoid Aunt Lillian,” she muttered.
He laughed under his breath.
Later, as they stood in the foyer waiting for her rideshare, Elise pulled Tessa aside again.
“You did well,” she said.
“I almost threw up in your frittata,” Tessa said.
“I would have pretended not to notice,” Elise said. “To spare your dignity.”
Tessa smiled. “Thanks.”
Elise’s gaze softened. “You’re stronger than you know,” she said. “Try not to forget that. Especially when it… gets harder.”
“Harder than… this?” Tessa asked weakly.
“Elopements. Media. Expectations. Fights,” Elise said. “It’s coming. But… so is joy. Don’t… pre-mourn everything before it happens.”
“That’s my whole personality,” Tessa said.
“Change it,” Elise ordered.
Tessa laughed.
Caleb joined them, coat in hand.
“Ready?” he asked.
“More or less,” she said.
Elise patted his cheek. “Don’t be an idiot,” she told him.
“I’ll try,” he said.
“No,” she said. “Do.”
They stepped out into the crisp air.
As the car pulled up, Tessa slipped her hand into his.
“So,” he said quietly. “Was that… as awful as you thought?”
“Worse in some ways,” she said. “Better in others.”
“They didn’t… exile you,” he said. “That’s… a start.”
“They like you more than they like being lied to,” she said. “That’s… something.”
He looked at her. “And you? How do you feel… about us… lying.”
“We already went over this,” she said. “We were… stupid. We did what we thought we had to. Now we’re… trying not to anymore.”
“And you think we can do that?” he asked. “No more… lies?”
She exhaled. “I think we can… try. And when we screw up, we… say so. Like this. Like… grown-ups. Or whatever the hell we are.”
He smiled faintly. “Good. Because there’s one more person we have to tell.”
Her stomach dropped. “My mom.”
He winced. “Yeah.”
“God,” she groaned. “She is going to *kill* me.”
“I’ll… stand in front of you,” he offered.
“She likes you,” Tessa said. “She won’t aim *for* you. She’ll just… guilt you.”
“I’ve survived Elise,” he said. “I can handle Ana.”
She wasn’t so sure.
But as she climbed into the car and he closed the door gently behind her, she realized something had shifted.
They weren’t hiding in plain sight anymore.
They were… standing. In the open.
Together.
It was scarier.
It was also… a relief.
***