Part 3
“Is the popcorn here actually worth twelve dollars?” she asked.
Blake laughed with relief because she had given him an opening and because she sounded too young to hear the cracks in him. “Only if you call it artisanal.”
She smiled, and the smile did what Claire’s no longer did. It admired him before asking him to earn anything.
Her name was Alyssa Lane. She was nineteen, recently arrived from Muncie, Indiana, and enrolled in an aviation hospitality program that promised a path toward becoming a flight attendant. She lived with three other girls in a student apartment near Midway, where the bathroom sink was always full of someone else’s makeup and the fridge contained more iced coffee than food.
After the movie, Blake suggested coffee at a place tucked beneath a boutique hotel. Alyssa hesitated just long enough to seem careful, then said yes. She kept glancing through the windows at the city sidewalks and the cars pulling up to valet stands, and Blake understood that look because he had worn it in rooms he wanted to belong to.
“I don’t want to spend my life in the same five streets where everybody knows what your parents do and how much money you don’t have,” she said, stirring foam into her latte. “I want airports. Real hotels. New cities. I want to walk into places and not feel like I have to apologize for being there.”
Blake leaned back and let her see his profile in the low café light. “That’s ambition. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“What about you?” she asked. “What do you do?”
The question had ruined other evenings. This time, he handled it with ease because Alyssa’s eyes were still generous.
“Business development,” he said. “Mostly independent consulting. I’m between bigger ventures right now, but I’m careful about what I attach my name to.”
“That sounds important.”
“It can be.”
“Do you live downtown?”
“Lincoln Park,” he said. “My family has a place there. I’m using it while I structure the next move.”
Alyssa nodded as if structure and next move were proof of a life she wanted near hers. Blake did not mention the spare room, his mother’s grocery money, the unpaid credit card balance, Claire, or Noah. He told himself those subjects were too heavy for a first date. By the third, he told himself timing mattered. By the fifth, he decided the truth would only confuse something beautiful.
Alyssa made lying feel like curation.
She loved restaurants with tall windows and small portions. She loved walking through department stores and touching handbags she said she would never ask anyone to buy, though she always paused long enough for Blake to understand the test. She loved flowers arriving at her student apartment because her roommates watched. She loved being seen with a man who looked established, and Blake loved being mistaken for established.
Helen noticed the money first.
“Blake,” she said one morning, standing at the kitchen counter with her tablet open to their bank app. “There are a lot of charges from restaurants.”
“I’m dating.”
“You’re unemployed.”
“I’m networking.”
Paul, who had come in for coffee, looked at him over the rim of his mug. “With a nineteen-year-old?”
Blake froze. “How do you know her age?”
“Your mother has eyes. So do I.”
Helen’s concern arrived softly, which somehow made Blake more defensive. She asked whether Alyssa knew about Noah. She asked whether Alyssa understood his situation. She asked whether Blake was rushing because he felt embarrassed by the divorce. Each question touched something true, so he treated them all as insults.
“You didn’t even give her a chance,” he said.
Paul set his mug down. “A chance at what? Your mother’s guest room?”
The fights with his parents made Alyssa feel more precious. She listened while he described them as controlling, judgmental, unable to accept that he had found someone who appreciated him. Alyssa touched his arm and told him older people were afraid of big love because they had settled for small lives.
Blake proposed three months after meeting her.
He used a credit card for the ring, money Helen thought was going toward professional coaching, and a small amount Paul had given him for car repairs that did not exist. The proposal happened in a restaurant thirty floors above the river, just as the server brought dessert beneath a glass dome. Alyssa covered her mouth, the ring flashing under the pendant lights, and said yes loudly enough for nearby tables to smile.
The next morning, they went to the Cook County clerk’s office to apply for a marriage license.
Reality entered through paperwork.
The clerk slid forms across the counter and pointed out the sections for prior marriages, children, dates of birth, and current address. Blake picked up the pen with the careful expression of a man who had found a small inconvenience in an otherwise elegant plan. Alyssa leaned against his arm, still glowing from the proposal, until her eyes moved across his form.
First, she saw his birthdate.
“You’re thirty-one?” she whispered.
He gave a small laugh. “I told you I was older.”
“You said almost thirty.”
“Thirty-one is not exactly ancient.”
She did not smile. Her gaze dropped lower and found the rest.
Previous marriage. One minor child.
Her face changed so quickly that Blake felt the clerk looking away out of professional mercy. Alyssa’s hand slipped from his arm.
“You were married?” she said. “And you have a son?”
Blake opened his mouth, but no useful sentence came. The office around them kept moving: printers humming, couples murmuring, someone laughing near the door. He understood, with perfect clarity, that the truth would make him ordinary in the worst possible way.
So he reached for sadness.
He guided Alyssa away from the counter to a wall lined with brochures about certified copies and courthouse ceremonies. She stared at him with wet eyes, not yet angry, still young enough to hope pain explained what deceit had done.
“Please,” he said quietly. “This is more complicated than it looks.”
Alyssa wrapped her arms around herself. “Then explain it.”
Blake looked at the form in his hand, then at the girl who had mistaken him for a generous man. The real story stood right there waiting to ruin him.
He chose another one.