“They weren’t right,” I say.
He watches me, still settled in my lap, not moving away, not letting it go that easily.
“None of them?” he asks. “In… what, twenty years?”
“Something like that.”
He tilts his head slightly. “That seems statistically unlikely.”
I huff out a quiet breath. “Probably.”
“So there wasn’t even one,” he presses, softer now, less teasing, “that came close?”
I hold his gaze for a second.
“There were people I liked,” I say. “People I got on with. People that could’ve worked, maybe.”
“But,” he says.
“But,” I agree.
He waits.
Doesn’t interrupt. Doesn’t try to fill it.
I shift slightly under him, my hands still resting at his waist, feeling the steady weight of him there.
“I grew up with a very specific version of how this is supposed to go,” I say.
“How?”
“My parents,” I explain. “They met once, and that was it. My dad always says he knew straight away. That she was it for him.”
Philip’s expression shifts, just slightly. Something quieter settling in.
“Love at first sight,” he says.
“Yeah.”
“And you believe that.”
I shrug a little. “I don’t know if I believe it like that. But I grew up watching it. Hearing about it. It sticks.”
He studies me, closer now than before, but not pushing.
“And that’s what you’re waiting for,” he says.
“Something like that.”
“That’s a high bar.”
“Yeah.”
There’s a beat.
“Maybe an unrealistic one,” he adds.
“Probably.”
