“What’s wrong with ordinary?”
I looked at him.
“Nothing, apparently.”
“Exactly.”
We talked until after midnight.
Then one.
Then almost two.
Eventually Julian stood.
He put on his jacket.
I walked him to the door.
For the first time all evening, neither of us had anything funny to say.
“Thank you,” I said.
“For destroying a wedding?”
“For making tonight easier.”
Julian smiled.
“You were doing pretty well on your own.”
I looked at him for a moment.
“You know, you’re nothing like Mason.”
His expression softened.
“I hope not.”
He opened the door.
Then turned back.
“Claire?”
“Yeah?”
“We could have dinner sometime.”
I smiled.
“Professionally?”
“No.”
There was something wonderfully terrifying about that answer.
“Okay.”
He nodded.
“Okay.”
Then he left.
Julian texted me the next morning.
Still emotionally recovering from the world’s most uncomfortable wedding reception?
I replied:
Mostly recovering from the champagne.
That became another conversation.
Then another.
A week later, we had dinner.
No scripted backstory.
No fake careers.
No instructions about where to place his hand.
I learned Julian loved terrible action movies.
He learned I secretly read celebrity gossip when I couldn’t sleep.
He cooked.
Badly.
I made fun of him.
He took me to a small theater where he was rehearsing a play.
I watched him become someone completely different under the stage lights.
There was no grand moment when our fake relationship became real.
It happened slowly.
One dinner became four.
Four became weekends together.
Then one night, three months after Mason’s wedding, Julian reached for my hand while we were walking home.
There was nobody watching.
No ex-husband.
No bride.
No audience.
