His One Night Obsession

The Sweetest Lie

Florence's POV

I rinsed my plate and set it in the sink, listening to the quiet of the apartment settle back around me like a familiar blanket.

Carter remained at the island, scrolling through his phone with the kind of focus he rarely gave anything else - certainly not our conversations lately. His thumbs moved slow and easy across the screen, jaw loose, shoulders dropped. Unbothered. Comfortable in a way that had nothing to do with me, as if I were simply part of the furniture he'd grown accustomed to seeing each morning.

I dried my hands on the dish towel and watched him for a moment from across the counter, studying the way the morning light caught the edge of his profile.

Four years.

I had been turning that number over in my mind all morning like a stone I kept finding in my pocket, smooth from constant handling. Four years of learning him - the way he took his coffee, the songs that made him smile, the exact pressure of his hand against the small of my back. Four years of building something with him, of deciding every single day that he was worth choosing, even on the days when choosing felt harder than it should. And tonight I was going to remind him of that. Properly. The watch he had been eyeing for months was already wrapped and waiting, tucked away in the back of my closet where he would never think to look. I had the balloons picked out, the flowers ordered, the whole evening mapped in my head down to the last detail - champagne chilling, his favorite takeout on speed dial, candles that would make our living room feel like somewhere we'd fallen in love all over again.

He just couldn't know about it yet.

I grabbed my bag from the living room and looped it over my shoulder, checking my reflection once in the mirror by the door. Boots. Skirt. Sweater. Hair still sitting exactly right, the way he used to tell me he loved it before he stopped noticing these things.

Good.

I walked back toward the kitchen, rounding the island until I was close enough to lean down and press my lips to his cheek. He smelled like sleep and the faint trace of his cologne from yesterday, that woodsy scent I'd bought him last Christmas. I let myself stay there half a second longer than necessary, breathing him in, hoping some part of him registered the tenderness I was trying to convey.

"I'm going to head to work," I said softly, pulling back and searching his face for any flicker of attention. "I'll be home late, so have dinner without me."

The lie came out smooth and clean, wrapped up in a smile he wasn't even looking up to see. My heart gave a small, uncomfortable squeeze at how easily the deception rolled off my tongue.

"Alright," he said flatly to his phone, his eyes never leaving the screen.

That was it. No question about the time. No *what are you working on*, no *be safe*, no *I'll miss you*. Just *alright*, flat and final, like I had told him something as boring as the weather forecast or a reminder to take out the trash. The word landed between us like a stone dropping into still water, creating ripples I chose not to examine too closely.

I straightened up, swallowing against the tightness forming in my throat.

"Bye," I called out on my way to the door, letting a little lift into my voice, the kind that came naturally when I was already moving forward and refusing to look back. When I was choosing optimism over the alternative.

The door clicked shut behind me, sealing away whatever disappointment had tried to creep in.

In the elevator on the way down, I exhaled, long and slow, and let the smile come back. The real one. The one I had been holding in my chest since I woke up and looked at him sleeping - his face peaceful and unguarded in a way it never was anymore during waking hours - and thought *four years* and meant it like a celebration. Like a promise I was determined to keep.

Tonight was going to be everything we needed. Everything *I* needed us to be again.

I was going to make sure of it, even if I had to carry the weight of that certainty alone for now.