When the snow finally let up, Detroit looked like a city that had been dipped in frosting.
“Everything’s prettier when it’s trying to kill you,” Tessa muttered, peering out Caleb’s window.
He huffed a laugh. “That’s… dark.”
“Accurate,” she said.
The roads were a mess. The city had declared a snow emergency. Non‑essential travel was discouraged.
“Guess I’m staying,” Tessa said.
“Guess you are,” Caleb replied.
The second night, they didn’t bother with a pillow wall.
“Are we… sure,” she asked, hovering by the bed.
“No,” he said honestly. “But… I trust us. A little more. Than yesterday.”
She snorted. “You’re an optimist now. Gross.”
They lay on their respective sides, a careful but not comically large gap between them. At some point, their feet found each other, a small tangle under the covers.
It felt… less like rule‑breaking and more like… compromise.
On Sunday, with roads still half‑plowed and buses half‑running, they ventured out to a small diner a few blocks away.
Tessa insisted. “I need… eggs. And the illusion of normalcy.”
Caleb bundled her in one of his scarves, wrapping it around her neck three times.
“You look like an overprotective snake,” she said, muffled.
“That’s the goal,” he replied.
The diner was mostly empty. A few older couples. A man in a Lions jersey clutching a coffee like it was life support.
They slid into a booth, ordered pancakes and hash browns and bacon, and pretended, for an hour, that they were a boring couple who’d argued about what show to binge the night before instead of their entire existence.
“We should celebrate,” Caleb said through a mouthful of pancake.
“What,” Tessa asked. “Wet snow?”
“Three months,” he said. “We made it. Past our… original… deadline.”
She toyed with her fork. “We also obliterated our original… terms.”
“Details,” he said. “It’s still… something.”
“A milestone,” she said. “We get a cake.”
He waved his fork. “We have pancakes. Close enough.”
She watched him for a moment. The way his shoulders had relaxed a notch since the article. The way he looked at her like the snow simply… framed her, not swallowed her.
“We should… talk about… what’s next,” she said.
He set his fork down. “Yeah.”
They looked at each other across the sticky table, syrup bottles between them like little glass grenades.
“When we started,” she said, “we said… three months. Then… we’d… fake break up. Or… escalate. Or… something.”
He nodded slowly. “Right.”
“We’re… not… breaking up,” she said, the words tasting both terrifying and obvious.
“No,” he agreed. “We’re not.”
“We’re also… not… getting married,” she said. “Not… now.”
“Not now,” he echoed. “Agreed.”
“So what does… three to six months look like,” she asked. “For… us.”
He leaned back, considering.
“Less… lying,” he said. “We’ve told the big players. My family. Your mom. The internet. No more… pretending this is anything but… real.”
“Except at Radiance,” she said. “I’m not telling Cynthia I started this as a fake engagement. She’d report me to Corporate Moral.”
“That’s… fair,” he said. “Work… is different.”
“You should tell… HR,” she said. “About… us. Officially. No more… mystery fiancé.”
“I did,” he said. “Last week.”
Her eyes widened. “You… what.”
“I had to,” he said. “For… ethics. And… to make sure no one… accused you of favoritism if you got promoted. Which you did. On your own.”
“What did you… say,” she asked.
“That we met at the mall,” he said. “That we… dated. That now we’re engaged. That I intend to recuse myself from any decisions directly involving Radiance’s lease. That I will punch anyone who suggests you got your job because of me.”
Her throat tightened. “You… would.”
“Yes,” he said simply. “Repeatedly.”
She laughed, then sobered.
“And… us,” she pressed. “Emotionally. Physically. Logistically. What… changes.”
“Less… structure,” he said slowly. “More… being. Fewer… rules. Not… none,” he added quickly. “We still have… boundaries. But maybe… we stop trying to… script everything. We see what… comes up. We… treat it like… a relationship. Not a… contract.”
“You keep saying ‘relationship’ like it’s a new software update,” she said.
“It is,” he said. “We’re out of beta. We’re live.”
She snorted.
“I… want…” he said, then hesitated. “More… normal things. With you. Grocery shopping. Getting stuck in traffic. Binge‑watching something terrible. Fighting about laundry. Not just… parties and crises and romantic snowstorms.”
“I leave my socks everywhere,” she warned.
“I’ll pick them up,” he said.
“I forget to replace the toilet paper roll,” she added.
“I’ll buy in bulk,” he said.
“I steal fries,” she said.
“I’ll order extra,” he said.
Her chest warmed.
“And you,” he countered. “What… do you want.”
She poked at her eggs.
“I want…” she began slowly, “to not… feel like I’m living… two lives. Retail‑Tessa and Caleb‑Tessa. I want to… integrate. A little. Bring… parts of you into my… everyday. Without it… swallowing me whole.”
“Specifics,” he encouraged.
“Like…” She searched. “Like… you meeting Leah properly. Outside of the Denby debacle. Or… you coming to my mom’s for dominoes night. Or… me… meeting your… friends. The ones you had… before me. Not just… Abby.”
“You’ve met my CFO,” he protested.
“I want to meet people you don’t… supervise,” she said dryly.
He smiled. “Fair.”
“And I want…” She swallowed. “I want to take a design class. One night a week. Or online. Something. That’s… for me. Not for… this.”
He nodded. “Good.”
“You’re not going to… offer to pay,” she said sharply.
He held up his hands. “I wasn’t.”
“You thought about it,” she accused.
“Briefly,” he admitted. “Force of habit. I won’t. Unless you ask.”
“I won’t,” she said.
“Good,” he said.
They fell silent, digesting pancakes and plans.
“We should… name this,” she said after a while.
“This,” he echoed. “Beyond… fake. Beyond… engaged.”
“If anyone asks,” she said. “What do we say. ‘We’re in a… complicated public semi‑fiancé situation.’”
He laughed. “We could… just say we’re engaged.”
“That’s not… the whole truth,” she said.
“It’s… more true than it was,” he countered. “We *are* engaged. Legally? No. Emotionally? Yes. Socially? Apparently.”
She frowned. “I don’t like… lying by omission. Anymore.”
“Me either,” he said.
“But the full story is… too much,” she said. “For… most people.”
“Most people don’t… deserve it,” he said. “Our families have it. Our closest friends. That might be… enough.”
“So we… let the world… think… whatever,” she said slowly.
“Within reason,” he said. “We correct the worst misconceptions. We ignore the rest.”
“And if someone asks, ‘How did you meet,’ at a party,” she pressed.
“We say, ‘At the mall,’” he said easily. “Which is true. We leave out the part where you were trying to save me from my own employees.”
“And if they ask, ‘How long have you been together,’” she said.
“We say, ‘Long enough to know this isn’t a publicity stunt,’” he replied.
She smiled despite herself. “You’re getting good at this.”
“Years of media training, finally paying off,” he said.
They left a big tip for the waitress, bundled back into coats and scarves, and trudged through slush to his car.
As he drove her back to her apartment—roads still a mess but passable now—Tessa watched the snowbanks slide by and thought about timelines.
Three months ago, she’d been lying to her boss about an imaginary fiancé.
Now she was sharing a bed with the mall owner, planning hypothetical design classes, and considering the idea of marriage without wanting to chew her own arm off.
Progress.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket.
Ana.
> Mom: snow ok? you alive? did he feed you???
Tessa smiled.
> Tessa: yes. alive. fed. warm.
Three dots.
> Mom: tell him I said good. tell him I want to teach him dominoes. he needs humbling.
Tessa laughed out loud.
“What,” Caleb asked.
“My mom wants to humble you,” she said. “With dominoes.”
He grinned. “I accept the challenge.”
She looked at him. At his easy confidence. At the way he’d fit into her life and let her into his.
“Hey,” she said softly.
“Yeah,” he said, glancing over briefly.
“I’m… glad we… broke the three‑month rule,” she said. “Just… saying.”
He smiled, slow and genuine.
“Me too,” he said.
As the car rolled on through the slushy streets, she realized that the question beneath all of this—fake dating, engagements, rules, storms—wasn’t *Can we pull this off* anymore.
It was simpler.
Scarier.
Do we want the same future.
For the first time, she thought the answer might actually, impossibly, be yes.
***
*To be continued…*