Practice Makes Perfect

The fluorescent lights of the office hummed a monotonous, irritating tune that seemed to sync perfectly with the throbbing in Sara’s temples. She stared at the spreadsheet on her monitor, but the numbers swam together, a meaningless jumble of black and white. It was impossible to focus. Her phone, lying face down on the desk, had been the source of her current misery. One thirty-minute call with her mother was all it took to derail her entire afternoon.

“He just sounds so lovely, honey,” her mother’s voice echoed in her memory, dripping with saccharine hope. “Your cousin Jenna’s new boyfriend? An architect! Can you imagine? They met on that app, you know, the one I sent you?”

Sara had gritted her teeth, picturing her Aunt Carol preening at the upcoming family reunion, parading Jenna and her perfect, architect boyfriend around like a prize-winning poodle. Meanwhile, Sara would be relegated to the kids' table of single cousins, fending off a barrage of pitying looks and unsolicited advice.

“I’m happy for her, Mom,” Sara had said, her voice tight.

“Of course, dear. We’re all happy for her. It just gets me thinking… this reunion would be the perfect time to introduce someone. Everyone will be there. Grandma Alice is so looking forward to seeing you.” The unspoken addendum hung heavy in the air: and meeting the man who will finally validate your existence.

It wasn't that Sara didn't want to find someone. She did. But her life—a demanding job at a competitive marketing firm, a tiny apartment that cost a fortune, and the general chaos of city living—didn't leave much room for swiping through endless profiles of men holding up fish. Her last serious relationship had ended over a year ago, a slow, painful fizzle that left her more exhausted than heartbroken. She hadn't had the energy to dive back into the dating pool, and now, that lack of energy was about to be put on trial in front of her entire extended family.

She squeezed the bridge of her nose, trying to ward off the headache. The reunion was in three weeks. Three weeks to either magically produce a charming, successful, family-approved partner from thin air, or face the Spanish Inquisition, armed with casseroles and thinly veiled insults about her biological clock.

“You’re just so picky, Sara,” her mother had sighed, a familiar refrain. “You can’t expect Prince Charming to just knock on your door.”

Sara had wanted to scream that she wasn’t waiting for Prince Charming. She was waiting for someone who didn’t chew with his mouth open and could hold a conversation that didn’t revolve around his crypto portfolio. The bar was, frankly, on the floor.

The call had ended with a promise from Sara to “put herself out there more,” a vague commitment she had no intention of keeping. What was she supposed to do? Go to a bar and announce she was looking for a fake boyfriend to appease her nosy relatives? The absurdity of it all made a hysterical laugh bubble in her chest.

She took a deep breath, pushing her personal drama aside. She had a deadline. The Sterling account proposal was due by five, and it was her one chance to prove she could lead a major project. She forced her eyes back to the screen, willing the numbers to make sense. If she couldn't control her family, she could at least control her career. She just needed to focus, to block out the noise and the pressure and the image of Aunt Carol’s smug face.

“Trying to win the Sterling account with feelings, Miller?”

The voice, smooth as single-malt scotch and twice as irritating, cut through her concentration. Sara didn’t even have to look up. She could smell his cologne—a subtle, expensive scent of sandalwood and citrus that always announced his presence before he did. Taylor Hayes.

She slowly lifted her head, meeting his gaze. He was leaning against the partition of her cubicle, one hand casually tucked into the pocket of his perfectly tailored trousers. A lock of dark, wavy hair had fallen across his forehead, and he wore the kind of effortless, confident smile that made their clients swoon and Sara’s jaw clench. He was, objectively, handsome. But his charm was a weapon, and he wielded it with surgical precision.

“I’m using a brand-focused narrative strategy, Hayes,” she said, her tone clipped. “It’s a concept you might want to look up. It involves connecting with consumers on an emotional level, not just bludgeoning them with analytics.”

His smile widened, a flash of white teeth. “Bludgeoning? So dramatic. I just saw the preliminary draft you sent to Henderson. It’s… nice. A lot of beautiful language. But Sterling is a legacy brand fighting off aggressive new startups. They don’t need a poem; they need a battering ram.”

Every word was a carefully aimed dart. He wasn’t just critiquing her work; he was dismissing it as frivolous. “My ‘poem’ is based on extensive market research that shows their target demographic is tired of aggressive, data-driven ads. They want authenticity. They want a story.”

“And you think you’re the only one who can tell it?” He pushed off the partition and sauntered closer, leaning over her desk to look at her monitor. His proximity was a tactical maneuver, designed to put her on the defensive. She could feel the warmth radiating from his body, and she instinctively leaned back in her chair. “Look,” he said, pointing a manicured finger at one of her charts. “Your projected engagement is optimistic at best. If we pivot to a more dynamic, A/B tested campaign focusing on conversion rates, we could guarantee them a fifteen percent ROI in the first quarter.”

He was so close she could see the faint lines around his eyes, the ones that appeared when he was genuinely focused on a problem. That was the most infuriating part. He wasn't just a charming face; he was brilliant. His logic was sound, his numbers were solid, and a traitorous little voice in her head admitted he might be right. But the condescending way he presented it, as if he were a patient teacher correcting a particularly slow student, made her want to throw her stapler at his head.

“This isn’t your project, Taylor,” she said, her voice dangerously low. “Henderson assigned it to me.”

“And I’m just a concerned colleague who doesn’t want to see us lose a seven-figure account because your ‘brand-focused narrative’ puts the board to sleep,” he retorted, his voice still infuriatingly calm. He straightened up, the intensity in his eyes softening back into that easygoing smirk. “Just a thought. We’re a team, after all. It’s in my best interest for you not to crash and burn.”

He gave her a little wink before turning and walking away, his stride as confident as his arguments. Sara watched him go, her hands curled into fists on her desk. He hadn't just derailed her train of thought; he'd set the whole damn train on fire. Her headache was now a raging inferno, and the Sterling proposal, which had been her one refuge from her personal life, now felt like another battlefield. She was fighting a war on two fronts, and she was losing. Badly. She dropped her head into her hands, the scent of his cologne still lingering in the air like a taunt.

The day bled into evening, the office emptying out until only the most dedicated or desperate remained. Sara was firmly in the latter category. She’d managed to salvage the Sterling proposal, incorporating some of Taylor’s infuriatingly logical suggestions while retaining the core of her narrative strategy. It was a compromise that left a sour taste in her mouth, a testament to his uncanny ability to get under her skin and into her work. Just as she was attaching the final file to an email, her phone buzzed again. Mom.

Sara’s heart sank. She couldn’t take another round of well-meaning interrogation. Declining the call would only result in a flurry of worried texts. With a sigh of resignation, she grabbed her phone and purse, seeking refuge in the deserted hallway by the emergency exit. The air here was cooler, the hum of the building fainter.

“Hi, Mom,” she said, leaning her head against the cool metal of the door.

“Sara, honey, I’m sorry to bother you again, but I was just talking to your Aunt Carol…”

Sara squeezed her eyes shut. Of course she was.

“…and she was asking if your plus-one would need the vegetarian meal option. I didn’t know what to say! I just said I’d check with you. So, does he?”

The question was so absurd, so based on a foundation of pure fantasy, that a hysterical laugh threatened to bubble up. Her plus-one. Her imaginary, non-vegetarian boyfriend.

“Mom, there is no plus-one,” Sara said, her voice cracking with exhaustion. “There is no ‘he.’ I told you.”

“Oh, Sara, don’t be like that. There’s still time. You just need to try! What am I supposed to tell Carol?”

That was it. The final snap in a day of a thousand tiny fractures. The professionalism she clung to all day crumbled, replaced by raw, unfiltered desperation. “I don’t know, Mom! Tell her he’s an astronaut and his mission was extended! Tell her he’s a spy and he was called away to avert an international crisis! Tell her whatever you want, because he doesn’t exist! What do you want from me? You want me to stand in the middle of the street and hire the first man who doesn’t look like a serial killer to be my boyfriend for a weekend? Is that what it takes to get everyone off my back?” Her voice had risen to a near-shout, echoing slightly in the empty corridor. Tears of pure frustration pricked at her eyes. “I can’t just conjure a man out of thin air!”

She hung up abruptly, her chest heaving. She pressed her forehead against the cold door, mortified by her own outburst. She felt pathetic, childish, and utterly defeated.

“I might have a solution for that.”

Sara froze. The voice was unmistakable. She spun around, her heart hammering against her ribs. Taylor was standing at the other end of the hall, near the entrance to the main office, his briefcase in one hand. He wasn’t smirking. In fact, his expression was uncharacteristically neutral, almost thoughtful.

“How much of that did you hear?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper, humiliation washing over her in a hot wave.

“Enough to understand the core problem,” he said, walking toward her slowly, his footsteps unnervingly quiet on the linoleum. “You need a fake boyfriend for a family event to appease the matriarchy. Correct?”

She just stared at him, unable to form a response. This was a new level of nightmare.

He stopped a few feet away, his gaze direct. “It’s a funny coincidence. My own mother has given me an ultimatum. I either bring a ‘nice, serious girlfriend’ to my cousin’s wedding next month, or she’s setting me up with her dentist’s daughter, who I believe is still convinced essential oils can cure gluten intolerance.”

Sara blinked. Of all the things she’d expected him to say, this was not one of them.

“You’re facing familial pressure,” he continued, his tone as pragmatic as if he were discussing quarterly earnings. “As am I. You have an upcoming event. As do I. Both require a plausible romantic partner.”

He paused, letting the pieces click into place in her mind. Sara’s brain was struggling to keep up, trying to reconcile the image of the unflappable Taylor Hayes being henpecked by his mother.

“What are you suggesting?” she asked, though a wild, impossible idea was already taking root.

“A mutually beneficial arrangement,” he said, a flicker of his usual confidence returning to his eyes. “A strategic partnership. You accompany me to my cousin’s wedding. I accompany you to your family reunion. We craft a believable backstory, establish clear parameters for public displays of affection, and execute our roles convincingly. Afterward, we stage an amicable, no-fault breakup. Everyone is satisfied, and we go back to our lives. And, for the record,” he added with the ghost of a smile, “I am not a serial killer, and I am willing to be a vegetarian for a day if the role requires it.”

Sara’s mind went completely blank. The hum of the building’s HVAC system seemed to roar in her ears. Of all the possible outcomes of her hallway meltdown, this was the one scenario her brain was utterly unequipped to compute. Taylor Hayes, her professional nemesis, was offering to be her fake boyfriend.

“You’re joking,” she breathed, the words laced with disbelief. “This is some kind of sick, elaborate joke.”

“I assure you, my mother’s matchmaking efforts are no laughing matter,” he said, his expression devoid of its usual smirk. “I’m being entirely pragmatic. This isn’t a joke; it’s a business proposal.”

“A business proposal?” She almost laughed. “We’re not negotiating a merger, Taylor. You’re suggesting we lie to our families. That we pretend to be… a couple.” She said the word ‘couple’ as if it were something foul she’d found on the bottom of her shoe. “We can’t stand each other.”

“An irrelevant detail,” he countered smoothly. “Animosity and passion can look remarkably similar from a distance. We’re both competitive, driven people. It’s a believable dynamic.” He took another step closer, lowering his voice. “Listen, we can’t hash this out here. Let’s go to The Daily Grind. I’ll buy you a coffee, and you can list all your objections. I’m confident I can address every one of them.”

Against every shred of her better judgment, a part of her was intrigued. The sheer audacity of it was captivating. Before she could talk herself out of it, she gave a stiff nod.

Fifteen minutes later, they were seated in a secluded corner booth at the coffee shop, the rich aroma of espresso a stark contrast to the sterile air of the office. A steaming latte sat untouched in front of her, a peace offering she hadn’t yet accepted. The small table felt intimate, forcing a proximity that was deeply unsettling. She could see the faint stubble along his jaw, the way a stray lock of dark hair fell across his forehead.

“Okay,” she began, crossing her arms over her chest as a protective barrier. “Let’s hear it. Why should I, for one second, agree to this insane plan?”

“Reason one,” he said, ticking a finger in the air. “It solves your immediate problem. No more frantic calls from your mom, no more pitying looks from Aunt Carol. You show up with a partner who is, if I may say so, presentable, articulate, and willing to discuss the merits of both cloth versus paper napkins to appease your great-uncle.”

She narrowed her eyes. “And reason two?”

“It solves my immediate problem,” he continued, his tone matter-of-fact. “I avoid the dreaded setup, and my mother can spend the wedding bragging about my ‘lovely girlfriend’ instead of interrogating my cousins about their fertility plans. It’s mutual preservation.”

“This will never work,” Sara insisted, shaking her head. “We don’t know anything about each other. What’s your favorite color? What’s my middle name? My family will ask questions. They’re like a pack of investigative journalists.”

“My favorite color is navy blue. Your middle name is Louise,” he answered without a moment’s hesitation. Sara’s mouth fell slightly open. “It was on your file for the Henderson project onboarding,” he explained with a shrug. “I pay attention to details. It’s what makes me good at my job. We’ll create a dossier on each other. Study it. It’s no different from prepping for a client meeting.”

He leaned forward, his forearms resting on the table, his gaze intense. The playful rival was gone, replaced by the sharp, strategic mind she clashed with at work. “Think of it, Sara. A few days of performance. That’s all it is. We establish a backstory—we met through a mutual friend, a whirlwind romance, whatever. We set clear boundaries. A hand-hold here, a chaste kiss on the cheek there. We attend the events, we play our parts, and then we stage a quiet, amicable breakup a few weeks later. No drama, no mess. We go back to being rivals. It’s a clean, efficient solution.”

She stared at him, her mind racing. Every logical part of her screamed that this was a terrible, catastrophic idea. It was deceptive and destined for failure. But the exhausted, desperate part of her, the part that was sick of feeling inadequate and alone, was listening. She imagined walking into that reunion, Taylor at her side—confident, charming, and undeniably real. She imagined the look on her mother’s face, the relief. She imagined a whole weekend without having to defend her life choices. The temptation was a sweet, potent poison.

“This is a deal with the devil,” she murmured, more to herself than to him.

A slow smile spread across his lips, the first genuine one she’d seen all night. It reached his eyes, crinkling the corners. “I’m not the devil, Sara. I’m just a guy who really, really doesn’t want to date a woman who sells healing crystals on Etsy.”

A choked laugh escaped her. It was a single, sharp sound of surrender. She looked from his expectant face to her cold latte. The weight on her shoulders felt immense, but for the first time, she saw a way to set it down, if only for a little while.

“Fine,” she said, the word barely a whisper. She cleared her throat and said it again, louder, firmer. “Fine. I’ll do it.”

Relief washed over Taylor’s face, so pure and unguarded it was startling. He extended his hand across the table.

“Partners?”

She stared at his outstretched hand for a long moment. It was strong and steady, the same hand that had pointed out the flaws in her proposal just hours ago. Taking it felt like crossing a line she could never uncross. With a deep, steadying breath, Sara reached out and shook it. His grip was warm and firm. It wasn’t a deal with the devil. It was a contract. And it was already signed.

Two nights later, Taylor stood on her doormat, looking as out of place in the hallway of her modest apartment building as a hawk in a canary cage. He held a leather-bound notebook and a pen, his expression radiating the same crisp efficiency he brought to their quarterly budget meetings.

“Ready for Operation Enduring Family?” he asked, forgoing a hello.

Sara grimaced, stepping back to let him in. “Don’t call it that.”

His presence immediately seemed to shrink her living room. It was one thing to see him across a boardroom table; it was another entirely to have him here, standing on her favorite rug, his gaze sweeping over her collection of mismatched throw pillows and the teetering stack of novels on her coffee table. He smelled faintly of expensive soap and something crisp, like cedar and ambition. It was an unsettlingly pleasant scent to have mingling with the lavender-vanilla of her diffuser.

“Right,” he said, all business. He sat on the edge of her sofa, placing the notebook on the coffee table with a decisive thud. “Let’s establish the foundational narrative. How did we meet?”

Sara perched on the armchair opposite him, hugging a cushion to her chest. “Okay. I was thinking… we met at the dog park. It’s cute, it’s wholesome. My mom would love it.”

Taylor scribbled a note, then paused, his pen hovering. “Neither of us owns a dog.”

“It’s a hypothetical dog park, Taylor. I was there with a friend’s dog. You were… jogging past and you stopped to pet him.”

He looked up, his brow furrowed in deep, analytical thought. “What breed of dog?”

“What?”

“The dog. What breed? Your father will ask. He’ll want to know if it’s a working breed or a lap dog. It’s a character detail. It matters.”

Sara stared at him. “It’s a golden retriever. His name is Max. He’s very friendly. Can we move on?”

“Fine. Max the golden retriever,” he muttered, writing it down. “I find this scenario weak. It relies on too many external variables. A friend, a dog, my hypothetical jogging schedule. I propose a cleaner origin: we met at the annual tech-sector charity gala six months ago. We were seated at the same table. It’s plausible, professional, and easily verifiable.”

“It’s boring,” she shot back. “It sounds like a networking event, not a romance. ‘He complimented my Q3 projections and I was instantly smitten’? No. We need something with a spark.”

“A spark is not a quantifiable metric, Sara. Believability is.” He tapped his pen on the notebook. “Let’s move on to the first date. Per my timeline, this would have occurred three days after the gala.”

“Your timeline?” She leaned forward, the cushion falling to the floor. “You made a timeline of our fake relationship?”

“Of course,” he said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. He turned the notebook toward her. It was a flowchart, complete with branching possibilities and color-coded phases. Phase One: Initial Contact. Phase Two: Courtship Initiation.

“Oh my god,” she breathed, a horrified laugh bubbling in her throat. “You’ve turned our fake love story into a project plan.”

“How else would we do it?” he asked, genuinely confused. “Okay, first date. I suggested dinner at that new Italian place, Aloro. You countered with the little tapas bar in the North End because you find tasting menus pretentious.”

A flicker of surprise went through her. He was right; she did find them pretentious. “How did you know that?”

“I overheard you complaining about it to marketing after the Henderson dinner,” he said dismissively. “Pay attention, remember? So, we went for tapas. We argued playfully about whether calamari is better grilled or fried.”

“It’s better grilled,” she said automatically.

“It’s better fried,” he countered, a glint in his eye. “And that’s our first ‘charming disagreement.’ We bonded over a shared love for patatas bravas and a mutual disdain for people who clap when the plane lands.”

She found herself smiling despite the absurdity of it all. “Okay, that’s… not bad. What about our first kiss?”

The air in the room shifted. The business-like facade faltered for a second. Taylor cleared his throat, his gaze dropping back to his flowchart. “End of the first date. I walked you to your door. It was… tasteful. A brief, closed-mouth press of the lips. A promise of things to come.”

“No,” Sara said, shaking her head. The idea was so sterile, so clinical. “That’s not how it happened.” She didn’t know why it suddenly mattered so much, but it did. “It was raining. We were huddled under that tiny awning at the tapas place, waiting for my Uber. We were laughing about the calamari debate, and you just… you leaned in and kissed me. It wasn’t planned. It was impulsive. And it wasn’t brief.”

She hadn’t realized she’d been staring at his mouth as she said it. When her eyes flicked back up to his, his expression was unreadable. The pen was still in his hand, but he wasn’t writing. The space between them felt charged, filled with the ghost of a kiss that had never happened but suddenly felt intensely real. He swallowed, the sound loud in the quiet room.

“That’s… more cinematic,” he said, his voice a fraction lower than before. “But it leaves more room for error. What if it wasn’t raining that night?”

“Who’s going to check the historical weather data for our first kiss, Taylor?” she asked, exasperated. “My family wants a love story, not an audited report. They want to believe I’m happy.”

He looked from her flushed face back down to his rigid, useless flowchart. He let out a slow breath, running a hand through his hair in a rare gesture of frustration. The meticulous plan was failing. Their clashing instincts—her need for believable emotion, his for verifiable fact—had brought them to a complete standstill.

“Fine,” he conceded, snapping the notebook shut. “Your version has more… narrative appeal. But it’s going to require more data. I need to understand the audience. I’ll do some research on your family. Figure out their pressure points, their expectations. We’ll reconvene when I have a more robust profile.”

He left soon after, leaving behind a faint scent of cedar and a living room that felt both emptier and more chaotic than before. Sara sank back into her armchair, picking up the cushion he’d dislodged. The idea of Taylor, with his flowcharts and data points, trying to "research" her family was laughable. Her family wasn't a data set; they were a swirling vortex of inside jokes, unspoken grudges, and fiercely loyal, chaotic love. He wouldn't find them on the internet.

But Taylor, true to his word, approached the task with the same relentless focus he applied to a hostile takeover. Two nights later, in his starkly modern apartment where every surface was either glass, steel, or a shade of grey, he sat hunched over his laptop. The only light came from the screen, illuminating a web of open tabs that would have given Sara a panic attack. He had found her mother’s cheerfully public Facebook page, her younger brother’s Instagram, and a handful of articles from the local newspaper’s digital archive. He was building his dossier.

Subject: Mark (Father). Taylor typed, his fingers flying across the keyboard. Profession: High School History Teacher. Notable Achievement: Winner, 2014 Twin Rivers County Chili Cook-Off (Category: Spiciest). Key Interest: Horticulture. He clicked through a photo album on Sara’s mom’s page titled “Mark’s Garden.” It was mostly pictures of slightly wilted tomato plants and a lopsided zucchini. But one photo caught his eye. It was of Sara’s dad, a stoic, broad-shouldered man, standing proudly next to a truly hideous, pot-bellied ceramic pig with a chipped ear. The caption read: “Mark and his prize-winning pig! Another blue ribbon for Bartholomew!”

Taylor zoomed in. He cross-referenced the name "Bartholomew" with swine-breeding registries. Nothing. He concluded it must be a local, informal competition. Note, he typed, Engage father on the topic of competitive pig husbandry. Show interest in Bartholomew’s diet and lineage. Potential bonding opportunity.

Subject: Karen (Mother). He tabbed over to her profile. It was a sea of inspirational quotes, photos of sunsets, and shared recipes. It seemed straightforward enough. Then he found an album from a family vacation two years ago. The photos showed the family huddled on a rocky beach, battered by wind, rain plastering their hair to their faces. They all looked profoundly miserable. Sara’s brother was giving the camera a furious glare. The caption, however, read: “Another perfect family vacation! Nothing beats the bracing sea air!”

Taylor nodded, analyzing. He knew from corporate retreats that sometimes the most challenging experiences were the most formative. Note, he added. Family enjoys rugged, windswept coastal excursions. Mention a shared love for challenging weather and character-building holidays.

Subject: Liam (Brother). The Instagram profile was a goldmine of cryptic inside jokes. Taylor scrolled through years of posts, looking for patterns. He found a recurring theme. On Sara’s birthday every year, Liam posted an old, unflattering photo of her with the caption, “Never forget the Great Muffin Incident.” In one, a teenage Sara was covered in what looked like blueberry batter. In another, she was holding a smoking baking tray.

Taylor’s brow furrowed. This was clearly a point of significant past trauma for Sara. A failure so profound her brother still used it to mock her years later. He felt a strange, protective surge. He would be her champion. Note, he typed decisively. Liam uses ‘The Great Muffin Incident’ as a tool for psychological dominance. Defend Sara’s honor if the topic arises. Frame it as a learning experience that demonstrates her resilience. Do not treat it as a joke.

He leaned back, cracking his knuckles. He had profiles, data points, conversation starters. He had identified potential threats and opportunities for connection. The messy, unpredictable chaos of a family reunion had been distilled into a manageable series of variables. He closed the laptop, a rare, confident smile on his face. He was prepared. He had the blueprint. The weekend was no longer a vague threat, but a project plan, and if there was one thing Taylor knew how to do, it was execute a plan flawlessly.

The Friday they were due to leave, Sara was a bundle of frayed nerves, triple-checking her overnight bag while Taylor stood by her front door, car keys in hand, looking as placid as if he were waiting for a routine quarterly review.

“Okay, I have my bag, my purse, my phone… Shoot.” Sara’s head snapped up, her eyes wide with panic. “We don’t have a gift.”

“A gift?” Taylor checked his watch. “We’re already running ten minutes behind my projected departure time.”

“We can’t show up to my parents’ house for a weekend empty-handed, Taylor. That’s rule number one of not being a sociopath.” She grabbed her coat. “There’s a home goods store a few blocks from here. We have to stop.”

He let out an audible, put-upon sigh, but followed her out the door. The store was an assault of tastefully arranged clutter—artisan cheeses, imported olive oils, and ridiculously expensive scented candles. Sara made a beeline for the wine section, her eyes scanning for the specific brand of Oregon Pinot Noir her mother loved.

“This is perfect,” she said, grabbing a bottle. “My mom loves this winery. And we can get one of those nice orchid plants for the kitchen counter.”

Taylor came up behind her, plucking the bottle from her hand as if it were a contaminated specimen. He examined the label with a frown. “This is a thirty-dollar bottle of wine, Sara.”

“Yes. It’s a good one.”

“It’s not an impressive one,” he countered, placing it back on the shelf with dismissive finality. “Your father is a high school history teacher, your mother is a part-time librarian. They appreciate substance, value. A single, mid-range bottle of wine says ‘I stopped at a gas station on the way here.’”

Sara bristled. “It says ‘I know what your wife likes to drink because your daughter, my loving girlfriend, told me.’ It’s thoughtful.”

“Thoughtfulness is an intangible. It can’t be quantified,” he said, already striding toward the front of the store where the high-ticket items were displayed. He stopped in front of a gleaming, chrome-and-steel espresso machine. “This, however, is a tangible asset. It communicates stability. Generosity. It says, ‘I am a man who can provide.’”

Sara stared at the machine, then at him, aghast. The price tag was nearly a thousand dollars. “It says, ‘Hello, people I’ve never met, I am trying to buy your approval with a kitchen appliance that is worth more than your couch.’ My dad would take one look at that and assume you’re a drug dealer.”

“That’s a statistically unlikely conclusion,” Taylor said, deadpan. “He’d be more likely to conclude I’m successful in my field, which is the entire point.”

“The point is for them to like you, not to be intimidated by you!” Her voice was rising, and a nearby woman pretending to examine a cheese board shot them a curious look. Sara lowered her voice to a furious whisper. “You can’t just walk in there and throw money at them, Taylor. These are my parents. They’re real people, not potential shareholders you’re trying to woo.”

“The principles are the same,” he insisted, his jaw tight. “You build rapport by demonstrating value. A gift is an opening statement. Yours is a weak thesis. Mine is a confident declaration.”

“Oh my god, you’re unbelievable.” She threw her hands up in exasperation, the argument about the gift melting away to reveal the true, underlying issue. “This isn’t a business deal! It’s not a project plan with color-coded phases! You can’t research my family on the internet and think you have them figured out. You don’t know them. You don’t know that my dad would be mortified by a gift like that, or that my mom would spend the whole weekend worrying you spent too much money.”

His confident facade cracked. For the first time, he looked uncertain. “My research was thorough.”

“Your research was data without context!” she hissed. “You can’t hack a family, Taylor. You just have to show up and be a decent human being.”

She didn’t wait for his response. Turning on her heel, she marched back to the wine section, grabbed the Pinot Noir, and then snatched a potted gardenia from a display. She slammed them down on the checkout counter, her hands trembling with anger. Taylor appeared at her side a moment later, his expression unreadable. He took out his wallet and paid without a word, the silence between them thick and cold. He carried the plant and she carried the wine as they walked back to the car, the gap between them feeling wider than ever.

The drive began in a silence so thick it felt like a third passenger wedged between them. Taylor focused on the road, his knuckles white on the steering wheel, his posture ramrod straight. Beside him, Sara stared out the window, watching the city blur into suburbs, the potted gardenia on the back seat perfuming the tense air with its cloyingly sweet scent. The bottle of Pinot Noir rolled gently against it with every turn, a constant, liquid reminder of their argument.

They were nearly an hour outside the city when Sara finally broke. The dread had been coiling in her stomach, and she couldn’t stand it anymore.

“Okay,” she said, her voice tight. “We have to get our story straight.”

Taylor didn’t look at her. “I assumed you’d want to improvise. Be a ‘decent human being’ and let the authenticity of the moment guide you.” The words were clipped, laced with the lingering sting of their fight.

“Don’t be an ass,” she snapped, turning to face him. “This is not the time. My mother will ask questions. Specific ones. How did we meet?”

“At the quarterly strategy meeting,” he answered instantly, as if reading from a script. “I was impressed by your data analysis on the Q3 projections. I asked you for coffee to discuss your methodology.”

Sara groaned, dropping her head back against the headrest. “That is the most unromantic story I have ever heard. It sounds like you were recruiting me for a new department, not asking me out.”

“It’s plausible. It’s professional. It establishes a foundation of mutual respect.”

“It establishes a foundation of mutual boredom. No. We met at the coffee shop near the office. We kept running into each other, we started talking, you asked me out. It’s simple. It’s believable.”

He considered this for a second, then gave a curt nod. “Fine. The coffee shop. How long have we been dating?”

“About six months,” she said.

“Six months, two weeks, and five days,” he corrected. “Precision is memorable.”

“It’s creepy, Taylor. ‘About six months’ is what a normal person says.” She took a deep breath, trying to quell the rising panic. “Okay, quickfire round. What’s my favorite movie?”

He hesitated. “Based on your demographic and stated preference for ‘thoughtful’ gifts, I’d surmise it’s a critically acclaimed independent film. Something French.”

“It’s Die Hard,” she said flatly. “It’s a perfect film.”

He shot her a look of genuine disbelief before his eyes snapped back to the road. “Noted. My favorite movie is The Godfather: Part II.”

“Of course it is,” she muttered. “My middle name?”

“Marie.”

“How did you—?”

“It was on the roster for the charity 5K you ran last year. I cross-referenced it with public records.”

Sara felt a chill run down her spine that had nothing to do with the car’s air conditioning. “Okay. We need to stop this. You’re not an intelligence agent, and I’m not a target. This whole weekend is going to be a disaster because you think you can study my family like they’re a stock portfolio.”

“My research is an asset,” he insisted, his jaw tight. “For instance, I know your brother Liam constantly brings up ‘The Great Muffin Incident’ to belittle you. I’m prepared to defend you.”

Sara stared at him, her anger momentarily replaced by bafflement. “Defend me? Taylor, the Great Muffin Incident was when I was eight and tried to bake my dog a birthday cake using a box of muffin mix and a cup of dirt. The oven started smoking and my dad had to use the fire extinguisher. It’s a funny story.”

The confidence in Taylor’s expression faltered, replaced by a flicker of confusion. “The captions on your brother’s posts suggested…”

“My brother is a sarcastic jerk, but we love each other. It’s not a psychological weapon, it’s just… what families do.” She sighed, the fight draining out of her. The highway signs were now listing the exit for her hometown. Ten miles. Five.

Taylor turned off the main road and onto the familiar tree-lined street that led to her parents’ house. The frantic energy in the car evaporated, replaced by a cold, heavy dread. The cramming session had only served to highlight how little they knew each other and how ill-equipped they were for this charade.

He pulled into the driveway behind her dad’s sensible sedan. He killed the engine. For a long moment, neither of them moved. They just sat there, staring at the welcoming, two-story colonial that suddenly looked like a gallows.

Taylor finally turned to her, his own carefully constructed composure gone. In his eyes, she saw a mirror of her own panic. “Ready to make a confident declaration?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper.

He just swallowed, his gaze fixed on the front door. “Maybe we should have gone with the espresso machine.”

Before Sara could respond, the front door swung open. A woman with a kind face and Sara’s same brown eyes, framed by a soft, graying bob, beamed at them.

“You’re here!” Her mother, Carol, enveloped Sara in a hug that smelled of cinnamon and laundry detergent. Her gaze immediately shifted to Taylor, warm and appraising. “And you must be Taylor. It is so wonderful to finally meet you. Sara’s told us so much.”

It was a lie, of course. Sara had told them next to nothing, which was the entire reason he was standing on their porch.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you too, Mrs. Peterson,” Taylor said, his voice smooth and practiced. He offered the potted gardenia. “This is for you.”

“Oh, it’s lovely! And call me Carol, please.” She took the plant, her delight genuine. Behind her, a man emerged from the shadows of the hallway. He was tall and lean, with a quiet intensity that seemed to suck the air out of the immediate vicinity. He wasn’t overtly intimidating, but his stillness was unnerving. This was her father, Robert.

“Dad, this is Taylor,” Sara said, her voice a little too bright.

Robert’s eyes, a paler, sharper version of Sara’s, scanned Taylor from head to toe. It wasn’t a glance; it was an assessment. He extended a hand. “Taylor.”

“Sir.” Taylor met his grip. Sara watched her father’s thumb press against the back of Taylor’s hand, a classic power move to test a man’s handshake. Taylor, to his credit, didn’t flinch. He just held the grip, firm and steady.

“Brought some wine,” Taylor said, holding up the bottle.

Robert’s eyes flickered to the label. He gave a single, noncommittal nod. “Come on in. Your mother’s been fussing all morning.”

He turned and led the way inside. The entryway was narrow, the walls covered in framed family photos spanning decades. A worn runner lay on the hardwood floor, and a dark wood console table was pushed against the wall, its surface cluttered with keys, mail, and a single, prominent object.

It was a ceramic sea captain. A foot tall, lumpy, and painted in colors that warred with each other—a garish yellow raincoat, a chipped blue hat, and a face the color of a pale, undercooked hot dog. One of its googly eyes was slightly askew, giving it a permanently bewildered expression. It was, without question, the ugliest thing Sara had ever seen. It was also the last thing her grandfather had made in his pottery class before he passed away. Her father cherished it.

“Here, let me take that from you,” Carol said, reaching for the wine bottle.

“I can get it,” Taylor insisted, ever the helpful guest. He juggled the bottle for a second, shifting his briefcase to his other hand to free one up. In the process, his elbow bumped the console table. It was a slight nudge, but it was enough.

Time seemed to stretch. The garish sea captain wobbled on its base, teetering precariously for a long, agonizing moment. Taylor’s eyes widened in horror. He lunged for it, his fingers brushing against the ceramic, but his movement only hastened its demise.

The captain tipped over the edge.

It hit the hardwood floor with a sickeningly loud crack that echoed through the quiet house. The sound was definitive, absolute. The sculpture shattered into a dozen large pieces and a spray of smaller ceramic shards. The googly eye that had been askew rolled under the console table.

A profound silence descended. No one breathed.

Sara squeezed her eyes shut, a silent prayer for the floor to swallow her whole escaping her lips. When she opened them, the scene was frozen in a tableau of pure disaster. Carol stood with both hands clapped over her mouth, her eyes wide with shock. Taylor was pale, his own carefully constructed composure shattered as completely as the statue. He stared at the ceramic carnage at his feet as if it were a body.

But it was her father’s reaction that made the blood drain from Sara’s face. Robert hadn’t moved. He hadn’t gasped or shouted. He simply looked down at the remains of his father’s last gift, then slowly lifted his gaze to Taylor. His expression was utterly blank, but his eyes were like chips of ice. The suspicion he’d worn upon meeting Taylor had now hardened into cold, solid certainty. This man was a menace.

“I… I am so sorry,” Taylor finally managed to say, his voice strained. He bent down, his hands hovering uselessly over the ceramic wreckage. “I’ll replace it. I’ll pay for it. I’ll find a restoration expert.”

“You can’t replace it,” Robert said. His voice was quiet, devoid of anger, which was somehow much worse. It was a simple statement of fact. He walked past them and into the kitchen, returning with a dustpan and a small brush. He didn’t look at Taylor again.

“Robert, it was an accident,” Carol said, her voice trembling slightly as she tried to smooth over the chasm that had just opened in her entryway. “It’s just a thing.”

But Sara knew it wasn’t just a thing. As she watched her father meticulously sweep the last glittering fragments of his own father’s memory into the pan, she felt the weekend collapse before it had even begun. Taylor’s apology had been correct and his offer to fix it was appropriate, but the damage was done. The first impression wasn’t just bad; it was catastrophic.

Dinner was a masterclass in silent hostility. Carol tried to maintain a cheerful monologue about her garden club and a neighbor’s recent kitchen renovation, but her words were swallowed by the oppressive quiet emanating from the head of the table. Sara picked at her mother’s pot roast, her stomach a tight knot of anxiety. She sat between Taylor and her father, a human buffer in a war zone.

Taylor, for his part, was trying to recover. He sat straight-backed, his napkin perfectly arranged in his lap, attempting to project an aura of calm competence that was completely undermined by the faint sheen of sweat on his forehead.

Finally, Robert placed his fork down with quiet precision. He dabbed his mouth with his napkin, his cold eyes landing on Taylor. The interrogation began.

“So, Taylor,” he started, his tone conversational, yet carrying the weight of a formal deposition. “Sara tells us you’re in finance.”

“Yes, sir. I’m an analyst at Blackwood Capital,” Taylor replied, his voice steady. He’d rehearsed this.

“Blackwood,” Robert mused, taking a slow sip of water. “Good firm. Aggressive. You work in mergers and acquisitions?”

“Portfolio management, mostly,” Taylor said. “Equity strategies.”

“Ah.” Robert nodded slowly. “So you’re one of the boys who tells people like me where to put their retirement money.” There was no humor in his voice. “Must be a lot of pressure, handling other people’s futures.”

“I take the responsibility very seriously,” Taylor said.

Sara felt a desperate need to intervene. “Dad, Taylor is one of the top analysts at his firm. He’s incredibly smart.”

Robert’s gaze slid to her, unimpressed. “I’m sure he is.” He turned back to Taylor. “Sara said you met at a coffee shop. You must have made quite an impression. She doesn’t usually talk to strangers.”

The question hung in the air, layered with accusation. What did you do to get her attention?

“We kept running into each other,” Taylor explained, sticking to the script. “It felt less like we were strangers and more like we were just… missing our chance to speak. I finally just asked her if she wanted to sit down.”

“And you bonded over your mutual love of coffee?” Robert pressed.

“Something like that,” Taylor said with a tight smile.

“Funny,” Robert said, leaning back in his chair. The movement was slight, but it felt predatory. “I’ve been trying to get Sara to drink coffee with me on Sunday mornings for twenty years. She always said she hated the taste.”

Sara’s heart hammered against her ribs. It was a perfect, inescapable trap. She’d forgotten that detail, that lifelong aversion she’d only recently overcome because the coffee at the shop near her office was genuinely good.

Taylor didn’t miss a beat. He gave her father a disarming smile, the kind he probably used to placate furious clients. “She did,” he agreed smoothly. “Hated it. I consider her conversion to a weekend latte one of my greatest achievements. It took months of convincing.” He glanced at Sara, his eyes silently pleading with her to play along.

Forcing a small laugh, Sara added, “He’s very persuasive. And it turns out I just hated the instant coffee you used to make, Dad.”

The jab at her father’s coffee was a weak deflection, and she knew it. Robert’s expression didn’t change. He just held her gaze for a moment before turning his attention back to his pot roast, the subject dropped but not forgotten. The silence returned, heavier this time.

Taylor, however, seemed to take the lack of a follow-up question as a victory. A flicker of confidence returned to his eyes. He clearly felt he’d navigated the minefield and was ready to move the conversation to safer, more neutral territory. He wanted to connect with Robert, man-to-man. Sara saw the shift in his posture, the way he squared his shoulders, and a fresh wave of dread washed over her. This was the part of the plan where he was supposed to use his research to find common ground.

“Sara mentioned you’re a big college football fan,” Taylor began, his tone casual. “Follow the Michigan Wolverines pretty closely, right?”

Robert looked up from his plate, his expression guarded. “I watch the games.”

“Right,” Taylor said, warming to his subject. He was so sure of himself, so confident in the information he’d gleaned from some outdated alumni newsletter or a misread social media post. “That was some game against Ohio State last season. I was watching. A real nail-biter down to the final quarter. Incredible win for you guys. Must have been a great way to end the season.”

The air in the room didn’t just get quiet; it became a vacuum. The gentle clinking of Carol’s fork against her plate stopped. Sara’s breath caught in her throat. She could feel the blood draining from her face. It wasn’t a nail-biter. It wasn’t an incredible win. It had been a bloodbath, a humiliating, soul-crushing defeat that her father had spent the following week mourning in near-total silence. He hadn’t just watched the game; he’d lived and died with it. And Taylor had just cheerfully celebrated the team’s biggest, most painful loss in years.

Robert slowly placed his knife and fork parallel to each other on his plate. He took a deliberate sip of his iced tea, his gaze never leaving Taylor’s face. The silence stretched, becoming excruciating. Sara wanted to kick Taylor under the table, to scream, to do anything to stop the slow-motion train wreck, but she was paralyzed.

Finally, Robert spoke. His voice was unnervingly soft, stripped of all emotion. “We lost,” he said. “By twenty-four points. It wasn’t close.”

The three simple sentences landed with the force of a physical blow. There was no room for argument, no space for a retraction. It was a statement of fact delivered as an indictment.

Taylor’s confident smile faltered, then collapsed entirely. The color drained from his face as the magnitude of his error dawned on him. He opened his mouth, then closed it. “Oh,” he finally managed, the word small and pathetic. “Right. I must have… misremembered.”

“You must have,” Robert agreed, his voice flat and cold. He picked up his glass again, his knuckles white. The brief flicker of suspicion from the entryway had now ignited into a steady, burning fire of contempt. Taylor wasn’t just a clumsy oaf who broke priceless heirlooms; he was a phony, a sycophant so lazy he couldn’t even get the basic facts right.

“Who wants dessert?” Carol chirped, her voice painfully bright as she jumped to her feet. “I made apple crumble!” Her attempt to shatter the tension only served to amplify it, a cheerful sound in a morgue.

The apple crumble did little to help. It was delicious, a warm, cinnamon-spiced comfort that felt entirely out of place in the arctic atmosphere of the dining room. Taylor ate his in three large, nervous bites while Sara pushed hers around her bowl. The moment her mother declared the meal over, Taylor shot to his feet.

“Let me help with these,” he said, reaching for Robert’s plate. It was a premature move; her father was still nursing the last of his iced tea. Robert’s eyes flicked from Taylor’s hand to his face, a silent warning that made Taylor snatch his hand back as if burned.

“I can manage,” Robert said, his voice still low and flat.

“No, no, I insist,” Taylor pressed, turning his attention to Carol and Sara, who were already stacking their own bowls. “Please. It’s the least I can do.”

Sara wanted to scream at him. The least he could do was sit down, shut up, and try not to break or insult anything else for the next forty-eight hours. “Taylor, it’s fine. We’ve got it.”

“It’s very sweet of you, dear,” Carol said, giving Sara a look that said let the poor boy try. She handed him two plates. “You can rinse, I’ll load the dishwasher.”

Defeated, Sara followed them into the kitchen, a sense of impending doom settling deeper into her bones. The kitchen, usually the warm heart of the house, felt like a cage. Taylor stood stiffly at the sink, rinsing a plate with far more concentration than was necessary. He was clearly scrambling, trying to find some way, any way, to claw his way back into her family’s good graces.

He was trying to make conversation, asking Carol about the brand of her dishwasher with the feigned interest of a man on a sales call. Sara busied herself putting the leftover crumble away, her back to him, hoping her silence would signal him to stop talking.

It didn't work. His eyes were scanning the room, searching for a lifeline, and they landed on the cluttered side of the refrigerator. It was a collage of their lives—school photos, faded postcards, and a particularly unflattering picture of Sara in the third grade, wearing what was supposed to be a squirrel costume but looked more like a brown potato sack with ears.

Taylor chuckled. It was a soft, uncertain sound at first, then it grew in confidence. “Oh, wow. Sara, you never told me you were such a method actor.”

Sara froze, her hand hovering over the plastic wrap. “Don’t,” she said, her voice a low hiss.

But he thought she was being coy. He thought this was charming. He turned to Carol, a broad, winning smile on his face, the kind he probably thought made him irresistible. “She told me the most incredible story about her role as Squeaky the Squirrel in the school pageant.”

“Oh, Lord,” Carol said, a smile already playing on her lips as she slid the silverware basket into the dishwasher.

“Taylor, stop,” Sara warned, turning around to face him. The look in her eyes was pleading, a desperate, final appeal.

He didn't see it. He only saw an opportunity. “She said she practiced her lines for weeks, had them down cold. But the moment the spotlight hit her, she completely blanked.” He was gesturing with a soapy hand now, fully invested in his performance. “Total brain freeze. So, what does she do? She improvises.”

Robert had appeared in the doorway, drawn by the change in tone. He leaned against the frame, his arms crossed, his expression unreadable.

Taylor beamed at his small audience. “Instead of her line about gathering nuts for winter, she just stood there, center stage, and started belting out ‘Happy Birthday’.”

Carol let out a snort of laughter. “It wasn’t ‘Happy Birthday’,” she corrected, wiping a tear of mirth from her eye. “Her teacher’s birthday had been the week before. She sang it to Mr. Gable.”

Robert’s mouth twitched. A small, almost imperceptible upward curl at the corner of his lips. “I remember that. We have it on tape somewhere. The way she curtsied at the end, like she’d just finished a Broadway run.”

The dam of their amusement broke. Carol’s snorts turned into full-throated laughter. Even Robert let out a short, gruff sound that was unmistakably a chuckle. They weren’t laughing with him; they were laughing at her. A deep, burning heat crept up Sara’s neck, flooding her face. The mortification was absolute, a physical weight pressing down on her. This wasn’t some cute anecdote; it was the core of a childhood trauma she had shared with Taylor in a moment of forced, artificial intimacy. And he had just served it up to her parents as an after-dinner mint.

Taylor looked from her laughing mother to her smirking father, then back to Sara’s crimson face. He was smiling, proud of himself. He thought he had done it. He thought he had finally broken through, using a shared secret to build a bridge. He had no idea he’d just used it to burn one down.

The following day dawned bright and hot, the kind of summer Saturday that demanded a barbecue. The smell of charcoal and sizzling burgers filled the backyard, a deceptively cheerful backdrop for Sara’s simmering rage. She had spent the morning avoiding Taylor, offering monosyllabic answers to his attempts at conversation and focusing her attention on setting out paper plates with a furious precision. Her parents, however, were treating him with a newfound, tentative warmth. The squirrel story, as humiliating as it was, had humanized him in their eyes. He wasn’t just Sara’s polished boyfriend; he was the boy who had found her childhood mortification as funny as they did. It was infuriating.

After lunch, as the adults settled into lawn chairs with beers and iced tea, her father rose to his feet. A glint of challenge was in his eye. He walked over to the weathered wooden box near the oak tree and pulled out two heavy iron horseshoes.

“Alright,” Robert announced to the yard at large, though his eyes were fixed on Taylor. “Time for a game. Taylor, you play?”

A fresh spike of adrenaline shot through Sara. “Oh, Dad, he’s not really…” she started, trying to wave it off. This was a landmine. A big one. In one of their frantic planning sessions, she had insisted on adding a layer of vulnerability to Taylor’s character profile. She’d painted him as brilliant but hopelessly uncoordinated, a man more comfortable with a spreadsheet than a softball. It was a detail she’d invented out of whole cloth, a small act of narrative sabotage against the man who was effortlessly good at everything.

“I’d love to,” Taylor said, already getting up from his chair. He shot Sara a quick, questioning glance at her protest, but the opportunity to finally score a legitimate point with her father was too tempting to pass up. He was a moth drawn to Robert’s judgmental flame.

“Sara says you’re not much of an athlete,” Robert noted, his voice deceptively casual as he handed a pair of horseshoes to Taylor. It wasn’t a question; it was a test. He was repeating her lie back to the group.

Taylor laughed it off, clearly thinking Robert was just making a friendly jab. “Well, I can hold my own.”

Sara felt her stomach clench. No, you can’t, she screamed internally. Your backstory explicitly states you have the physical grace of a newborn giraffe. Stick to the script!

Her Uncle Mike and a cousin joined them, making it a proper game. Robert went first, tossing his horseshoe with practiced ease. It landed with a solid thud, a few inches from the stake. A respectable throw. Then, all eyes turned to Taylor.

Sara held her breath, bracing for impact. She pictured the heavy iron shoe flying sideways, maybe taking out her mother’s prize-winning petunias or sailing precariously close to the grill.

But that’s not what happened. Taylor stepped up to the line, weighing the horseshoe in his hand for a moment. He wasn’t stiff or awkward. His stance was relaxed, balanced. He swung his arm back in a smooth, fluid arc and released. The horseshoe sailed through the air, turning over and over in a perfect, lazy spiral before landing with a resonant clang as it looped directly around the stake. A ringer.

A stunned silence fell over the small audience, broken only by a low whistle from her uncle.

“Well, I’ll be,” Mike said, grinning. “Looks like Sara was sandbagging for you.”

Taylor looked immensely pleased with himself, a wide, genuine smile spreading across his face. “Beginner’s luck,” he said, but there was a confidence in his posture that suggested otherwise.

Robert stared at the stake, then at Taylor, his expression unreadable. He picked up his second horseshoe and threw. It was a good shot, leaning against the stake. But Taylor’s next throw was just as good as his first, landing right next to his ringer, close enough to count for another point.

It wasn’t a fluke. Throughout the game, Taylor played with an easy, infuriating skill. He wasn’t just competent; he was good. He joked with her uncle, complimented her father’s good throws, and proceeded to methodically wipe the floor with them.

Sara stood frozen by the patio table, a half-empty plastic cup in her hand. Each perfect throw, each celebratory clang of iron against iron, was another nail in her coffin. She could feel her father’s eyes on her from across the lawn. He wasn’t looking at Taylor anymore. He was looking at her. The confusion in his gaze was slowly hardening back into suspicion, but this time it was directed squarely at his own daughter. Taylor hadn’t lied. She had. And Robert knew it. The game ended with a decisive victory for Taylor and her cousin. As the men shook hands, Robert’s gaze found Sara’s again, and he held it for a long, silent moment. The message was clear: We need to talk.

The game ended with a decisive victory for Taylor and her cousin. As the men shook hands, Robert’s gaze found Sara’s again, and he held it for a long, silent moment. The message was clear: We need to talk. The cold dread that had been pooling in her stomach all afternoon began to creep up her spine.

Before she could formulate an escape plan, Taylor was jogging over to her, flushed with victory and utterly oblivious to the new layer of disaster he had just created. “See?” He grinned, wiping a sheen of sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. “I told you I could hold my own.”

“You…” Sara started, but her voice was cut off by the arrival of her Aunt Patty, a woman who moved through family gatherings like a shark sensing blood in the water. Her specialty was intrusive questions delivered with a disarmingly sweet smile.

“Taylor, dear! That was quite the show,” she chirped, patting his arm with a familiarity that made Sara’s skin crawl. “It’s about time someone took Robert down a peg in horseshoes. He gets so smug.”

Taylor’s chest puffed out just a little. He was preening, soaking in the praise. “He’s a tough competitor. I think I just had a lucky day.”

“Oh, nonsense,” Patty said, waving a bejeweled hand. “Talent is talent. Now, Sara mentioned you work over at OmniCorp. My goodness, such a big company. What is it you do over there, exactly?”

This was it. The moment Sara had been dreading. They had rehearsed this. His real title: Senior Data Analyst. It was respectable. It was solid. Most importantly, it was true. She sent a desperate, pleading look in his direction, trying to telegraph the words stick to the script with the sheer force of her will.

Taylor met her gaze for a half-second. She saw the calculation in his eyes. He was still riding the high from the game, still trying to repair the damage from the squirrel story, still trying to be the impressive boyfriend her family would approve of. He thought he knew better.

“I’m the Director of Strategic Acquisitions,” he said. The lie was so smooth, so confident, it sounded more real than the truth.

Sara felt the blood drain from her face.

Aunt Patty’s eyes widened, her interest sharpening. “Oh, my! A Director! Well, that sounds incredibly important. Acquisitions of what, dear?”

Taylor was in his element now, the lie growing with a life of its own. “Primarily smaller tech startups. We’re aggressively expanding our portfolio in the AI integration space. It’s a new initiative my team is spearheading. Very high-pressure, but incredibly exciting work.”

He was inventing an entire corporate division. Sara wanted to scream. She wanted to grab the nearest burger and shove it in his mouth to make him stop talking. This wasn’t a small fib; it was a massive, intricate fabrication. Her father was a man who prided himself on his connections. He probably had the CEO of OmniCorp on speed dial.

“How fascinating!” Patty cooed. “You must be terribly busy. And so young to be a Director! Sara, you certainly snagged a good one.” She turned back to Taylor. “You know, my nephew, David? He works in tech. Maybe you know him?”

“It’s a big world,” Taylor said with an easy smile, not missing a beat. “But I’m sure he’s a great guy.”

Sara couldn’t take it anymore. She stepped forward, forcing a smile so tight her cheeks ached. “Aunt Patty, could I possibly steal Taylor for a minute? Mom was asking for help bringing out the cake.”

“Of course, dear,” Patty said, her eyes still fixed on Taylor with a new level of respect. “It was so lovely to chat with you, Taylor. We’ll have to hear more about this AI business later.”

Sara grabbed Taylor’s arm, her fingers digging into his bicep, and pulled him toward the relative safety of the back porch. The moment the sliding glass door whispered shut behind them, she spun on him.

“What the hell was that?” she hissed, her voice shaking with a potent combination of fury and panic.

“What? I was making a good impression,” he said, looking genuinely bewildered. The fact that he didn’t immediately understand the magnitude of his mistake made her want to throttle him.

“‘Director of Strategic Acquisitions’?” she whisper-shouted, her hands gesturing wildly. “Are you out of your mind? Your title is Senior Analyst!”

“It sounds better,” he argued, his voice dropping to match hers. “It’s a promotion. I’m trying to help, Sara. Your dad thinks I’m a clumsy idiot. I just won his favorite game and charmed his sister. I’m building credibility.”

“You’re building a pyre and we’re both tied to the stake!” she shot back, her heart hammering against her ribs. “That’s not a white lie, you moron. That’s a specific, verifiable, career-ending lie! What do you think is going to happen when my father decides to make a casual call to one of his thousand friends to ask about his daughter’s impressive boyfriend, the ‘Director’?”

The confidence in Taylor’s face finally began to waver. A flicker of doubt, of understanding, finally dawned in his eyes. “He wouldn’t do that. That’s… paranoid.”

But as he said it, they both knew it wasn’t. It was exactly the kind of thing Robert would do. The lie was out there now, shimmering and unstable in the hot afternoon air. And Sara had the sickening feeling that her father was already reaching for his phone.

Before Taylor could formulate a defense, the sliding glass door slid open with a soft sigh. Sara’s father stood there, silhouetted against the bright light of the kitchen. They both froze, caught in the middle of their frantic, whispered fight.

“Everything alright out here?” Robert asked, his voice deceptively mild. He stepped onto the porch, letting the door close behind him. He held two sweating bottles of beer. “You two looked a little intense.”

Sara’s mind raced, searching for a plausible excuse. “Oh! We were just… debating,” she said, the lie feeling flimsy on her tongue. “About who had to do the next dishes run. A very serious topic.”

Taylor, to his credit, recovered instantly. He forced a relaxed smile. “I lost. So, I’ll be on kitchen duty later.”

“Good man,” Robert said, his eyes not quite smiling. He handed a beer to Taylor, then one to Sara. Her hand was shaking so slightly she was sure he noticed. He took a slow sip from his own bottle, his gaze fixed on Taylor. “Speaking of duty. Funny thing. I was just on the phone with my old golf buddy, Jim Gable. You know him? Over at OmniCorp?”

The world went quiet. The buzz of the cicadas, the distant laughter from the yard, the clink of glasses from inside—it all faded into a dull roar in Sara’s ears. She felt the blood leave her face, a cold, prickling sensation that started in her scalp and washed all the way down to her toes. This was it. The bomb she knew was coming had just been dropped, and they were standing at ground zero. She risked a glance at Taylor. The easy confidence had vanished from his face, replaced by a rigid stillness. The muscles in his jaw were clenched tight.

He cleared his throat. “Jim Gable,” he repeated, testing the name. He was stalling, buying time. “The name is familiar. Which division is he with again?”

“Finance,” Robert said, his eyes never leaving Taylor’s face. “Senior VP. Been there twenty years.”

Twenty years. A man who would know every corner of the company, every project, every single person who held a title as lofty as ‘Director’. They were caught. It was over. Sara’s mind was a blank slate of pure, unadulterated panic.

But Taylor, the architect of this disaster, was already starting to build their escape route. “Ah, right, Finance. Of course. I haven’t had any direct dealings with his team yet. My project is… well, it’s pretty heavily siloed at the moment.” He took a casual sip of his beer, an act of such audacious calm that it momentarily stunned Sara.

Robert’s eyebrow lifted a fraction of an inch. “Siloed?”

“It’s a new initiative,” Taylor pressed on, his voice gaining a note of conspiratorial confidence. “The one I mentioned to Patty. It’s a skunkworks project, essentially. Completely off the official books until we’re ready for the public launch. The ‘Director’ title is an internal designation for the project team. Strictly need-to-know, for now.”

The lie was so intricate, so layered with corporate jargon, that it almost sounded plausible. Galvanized by his nerve, Sara found her voice. “That’s what he was telling me, Dad,” she said, stepping closer to Taylor and placing a hand on his forearm. The muscle beneath her fingers was rigid as steel. “It’s why he’s been so stressed. He’s not even really supposed to be talking about it. Right, honey?” The endearment felt foreign and sharp in her mouth.

“I really shouldn’t have said anything to your aunt,” Taylor added, looking chagrined. He managed a look of genuine regret. “It just slipped out. You know how it is when you’re proud of your work.”

Robert was silent for a long moment. He looked from Taylor’s earnest face to Sara’s hand on his arm, then back again. He took another slow drink of his beer, his throat working. Sara held her breath, waiting for the verdict. She could feel her own pulse hammering in her wrist, right where her fingers pressed into Taylor’s skin.

“Need-to-know,” Robert finally said, his tone unreadable. “Right. Sounds important.” He looked past them, toward the yard. “Well, I’ll leave you to your secrets. But your mother really does want some help bringing out the cake.”

He gave them a final, lingering look before turning and sliding the door open, disappearing back into the noise and light of the party.

For a full ten seconds, neither of them moved. They stood frozen on the porch, the condensation from their beer bottles dripping onto their hands. The immediate threat had passed, but the adrenaline left them shaking in its wake. The air between them was thick with the ghost of the lie, a massive, unstable thing they now had to protect at all costs.

Sara finally let out the breath she’d been holding, her entire body trembling with the release of tension. She slammed her beer bottle down on the porch railing with a sharp clack.

“Are you insane?” she whispered, the words a low, vicious hiss. She turned on him, her eyes blazing. “A skunkworks project? Are you listening to yourself? You sound like a villain from a bad action movie.”

Taylor ran a hand through his hair, his own composure finally cracking. “What was I supposed to do, Sara? He had me cornered. I had to say something.”

“You didn’t have to do anything! You created this mess!” She poked a finger into his chest, hard. “You and your ego. ‘Director of Strategic Acquisitions.’ You just had to make yourself sound important. You couldn’t just be a Senior Analyst. You couldn’t just be the guy I’m supposedly dating. You had to be some corporate rockstar.”

“I was trying to impress your father!” he shot back, his voice equally low and furious. “The man looks at me like I’m something he scraped off his shoe. I beat him at his own game, and he still looked down on me. I was trying to give him something to respect.”

“He respects honesty! He respects competence, not some puffed-up lie you invented on the spot!” She was pacing now, a frantic, two-step pattern on the small porch. “This whole day has been one disaster after another. You can’t throw a horseshoe, so I have to lie and say you’re uncoordinated. Then you suddenly become a ringer. Then you invent a whole new career! We’re patching holes in a sinking boat, and you just keep drilling new ones.”

“Maybe if you hadn’t set the bar so low by telling everyone I was clumsy, I wouldn’t have had to work so hard to recover,” he countered, his jaw tight. “I’m flying blind here, Sara. I’m trying to play a part with a script you keep changing.”

“I’m changing the script because you keep setting the stage on fire!” She stopped pacing and got right in his face, their noses almost touching. The smell of beer and his cologne filled her senses, infuriating her even more. “This was supposed to be simple. We were supposed to be boring. A nice, normal couple. But you can’t do that, can you? You have to compete. You have to win. You had to one-up my father.”

“He challenged me!”

“And you could have lost gracefully! That’s what a normal boyfriend would do!”

The frustration and exhaustion of the day crested into a wave of pure fury. All the little tensions, the forced smiles, the constant vigilance—it all came pouring out in that confined space. They were glaring at each other, two enemies locked in a battle of whispered recriminations. The air between them was electric with it, so thick with anger she could almost taste it.

Just as Sara opened her mouth to deliver another verbal blow, the sliding door opened again. This time it was her mother, Carol, a plate of sliced cake in her hands and a warm, oblivious smile on her face.

“There you two are,” she chirped. “Hiding away from the crowd?”

The shift was instantaneous and dizzying. In the fraction of a second it took for her mother to step onto the porch, the entire dynamic between them inverted. The fury vanished from Taylor’s face, replaced by a look of soft adoration. He reached out and wrapped his arm around Sara’s waist, pulling her flush against his side. His body was warm and solid, a stark contrast to the cold war they’d been waging moments before.

Sara’s own transformation was just as swift. The anger drained from her face, her tense shoulders relaxed, and she leaned into his embrace as if it were the most natural thing in the world. She rested her head against his shoulder, her hand coming up to rest on his chest, right over his heart. She could feel it beating, a strong, steady rhythm that didn't match the frantic pulse in her own throat.

“Just stealing a quiet moment,” Taylor said, his voice a low, intimate murmur that sent an unwanted shiver down her spine. He bent his head and pressed a soft, lingering kiss to her temple. The touch was gentle, proprietary. A perfect performance.

“Oh, you two are just the sweetest,” Carol cooed, her eyes misting over. “It’s so lovely to see you so happy, honey.” She looked at Sara, her expression full of genuine warmth. “He’s a good one. Don’t let him get away.”

“I won’t,” Sara said, her voice sounding thick to her own ears. She tilted her head up to look at Taylor, forcing a loving smile. His eyes met hers, and for a split second, she saw the ghost of their argument still flickering there before it was extinguished by the mask of affection. “I’m not letting him go anywhere.”

His thumb stroked her side, a slow, possessive circle that felt both like a comfort and a trap. “Come on,” Carol said, gesturing with the plate. “Let’s get some of this cake before your cousins devour it all.”

Trapped in Taylor’s embrace, Sara let him lead her back toward the sliding glass door, back into the bright, noisy house. His arm was a steel band around her, a public display of a love that was a lie, built on a foundation of fury that was terrifyingly real.