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“Aiden,” I say carefully. “You don’t have to do any of this stuff when people aren’t around. This is a performance. We’re doing this to convince my family. When it’s just us, you can just be… you.”

He tilts his head. “I know.”

“Okay. So you don’t need to practice cuddling or holding doors or—”

“I’d like to, though.”

“Like to what?”

“Practice.” He pauses, and there’s something in the pause that’s different from his usual processing delay. This one is slower. More careful. Like he’s choosing words instead of retrieving them. “I want to do these things for you, Ruby. Not because someone might be watching. Because I want to.”

The kitchen is very quiet.

“You don’t have to say that,” I manage.

“I know I don’t have to. I’m saying it because it’s true.”

I stare at him. He stares back. Steady. Warm. Not performing anything. Not executing a protocol or following a list. Just standing in my living room telling me he wants to open doors for me, and meaning it with his whole body, and I don’t have a single defense ready for this because I’ve been preparing for every possible scenario at this wedding and I was not prepared for him.

“Okay,” I say.

“Okay?”

“Okay, you can—” I wave my hand vaguely. “Do the things. The doors and the walking and the—whatever.”

“And the cuddling?”

“We are not practicing cuddling, Aiden.”

“The Reddit thread was very convincing.”

“I’m sure it was.”

“One hundred and seventeen mentions, Ruby.”

“Goodnight, Aiden.”

I head toward my bedroom, and I’m almost to the doorway when he says it.

“Ruby?”

I stop. Don’t turn around. Because if I turn around, he’s going to be standing there looking at me with those eyes and I’m going to do something stupid, and I have a very long weekend ahead of me and I need to be smart.

“The dancing was good tonight,” he says. “The second part. When you stopped teaching and I stopped thinking. That part was—” A pause. The careful kind. “That was my favorite part of any day since I’ve been here.”

I stand in the doorway with my back to him and my hand on the frame and my heart doing something it has no business doing.

“Mine too,” I say. Quietly. Without turning around.

I go into my room. Close the door.

I don’t lock it.

I haven’t locked it in days.

Chapter Nine

Aiden