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The next morning, Claire woke up back in her own bed in her Manhattan apartment. For a split second, she expected to hear Maggie making coffee or Ainsley talking. Instead, there was silence. The apartment felt quieter than it had before the trip. The silence had never bothered her before. Now it felt lonely.

No voices drifted down the hallway. No cabinet doors opened in the kitchen. No Ainsley announcing something at full volume before eight in the morning.

Only the hum of the refrigerator and the distant traffic below.

A knock. She knew it was Noah. She opened the door to let him in. He stood there with two coffees. He handed her one.

“Thanks,” she replied, taking it from him.

At work, her coworkers asked her questions about the trip. She didn’t know how to respond. She wasn’t sure if she was supposed to answer as Claire or Fake Girlfriend Claire. She wasn’t even sure where one ended and the other began.

So she told them the stories.

Real stories.

Because they were real.

Maybe the relationship wasn’t, but everything else was.

She told Avery about Ainsley’s family drawing. She told them about the washing machine story and Maggie handing her coffee without even asking.

None of it felt like part of a cover story. She was not inventing romantic details to make their relationship believable.

She was talking about a weekend she already missed.

By the time she got home, the apartment was quiet again. She didn’t have to wonder how long it would stay that way. Noah was knocking a few minutes later.

Now, he was cooking dinner in Claire’s apartment. He was making steak, green beans, and mashed potatoes. Claire’s contribution to the meal was putting Sister Schubert’s rolls in the oven. She almost burned them.

“Claire.” Noah laughed. “Did you seriously almost burn the rolls?”

“No, I did not.”

He grinned at her. “I think the smoke detector disagrees.”

She shrugged. “There’s a reason why you’re the cook in this relationship.”

The word slipped out before she could stop it. Neither of them acknowledged or corrected it.

After they ate, they cleaned up together. He washed the dishes, and she dried them. She didn’t know how they fell into such a routine, but they had. And she couldn’t imagine it being any other way.

Eventually Noah got ready to leave. He made it to the door.

“Noah, wait.”

He turned.

“Do you have to go?”

She didn’t want to be alone anymore. The apartment felt empty. But she couldn’t tell him that.

“Movie?” He seemed to understand. He didn’t ask why. He never made her explain things she wasn’t ready to name.

She nodded.

The movie played quietly in the background, but Claire stopped following the plot somewhere around the halfway point. Noah was beside her, the apartment no longer felt empty, and her eyes gradually drifted closed.

When Claire woke the next morning, she was warm. Warmer than she should have been. Her cheek rested against Noah’s chest, one of his arms wrapped securely around her. Biscuit was curled at their feet, apparently satisfied that his work here was done.