The courtship
1149 Words
Elena had read somewhere that attraction was like yeast: give it the right conditions and it would rise before you even realised it was working. She thought about that a lot in the weeks after she met Adrian Vale.
The morning after their rainy walk, she’d found herself staring at that note in the paper bag far longer than she should have. She told herself it was just a nice gesture, a little urban flirtation, nothing more. And yet she’d carried it in her tote for the next three days, folded so neatly it looked like it belonged there.
The first time he called, it was early evening, just as she was wiping down the bakery counter.
“Tell me you’re not too exhausted for dinner,” he said without introduction.
“I might be,” she replied cautiously.
“Good. Then I’ll bring dinner to you. I make a decent pasta.”
She almost laughed. “You cook?”
“I can survive in a kitchen without injury. Give me your address.”
She hesitated she didn’t normally hand out her home address to men she barely knew but something about his tone, that mix of confidence and calm, made refusal feel unnecessarily awkward.
He arrived an hour later, a paper bag in one hand, a bottle of wine in the other. The pasta was simple penne with tomatoes, garlic, and basil but it tasted like someone had cared about the making of it.
“You could sell this,” she said between bites.
He grinned. “Don’t tell your bakery customers I’m competition.”
They talked until the wine was gone, the conversation slipping easily between playful and personal. He asked about her parents, her dreams for the bakery, and the worst customer she’d ever served. She learned he’d grown up in the suburbs, the only child of a father who was “more ambition than affection” and a mother who loved him but was often “too tired to show it.”
When he left, he kissed her cheek not her lips and told her, “You’re going to see a lot more of me, Elena Marlowe.”
The “lot more” part proved true.
Over the next few weeks, Adrian’s presence in her life became as steady as the morning deliveries of flour and sugar to the bakery. He dropped by before her shift with her favourite coffee (“Two sugars, one cream, because you can’t start the day with bitterness”). He walked her home on nights she worked late, even when it meant detouring from his route.
And he listened. That was the thing that made him different from other men she’d dated he remembered the things she said.
Once, she mentioned how much she loved the smell of old books. Three days later, he appeared with a first-edition baking manual from 1964, saying, “It’s out of date, but I thought you’d like it.”
Another time, she joked about always burning her first batch of cookies. The next morning, he showed up with a kitchen timer shaped like a tiny copper pot.
It was charming. Thoughtful. A little intense, maybe but in a way that made her feel seen.
The first red flag came wrapped in silk.
They were walking through a small market one Saturday when he stopped in front of a clothing stall. Before she could react, he plucked a pale blue scarf from the rack and draped it around her neck.
“This,” he said, tilting his head as if he were a painter studying his canvas. “It makes your eyes brighter.”
She smiled, adjusting it. “It’s beautiful.”
“Then it’s yours.” He paid before she could protest.
It was only when they were walking away that he added, “The red one you usually wear is… a little loud for you. This is softer. Better.”
She laughed it off at the time, but a tiny voice in her head noted the way his compliment came with an edit.
The second was quieter, almost invisible.
They were out to dinner with a couple of his friends, one of whom asked Elena how she and Adrian had met. She launched into the story about Maya’s birthday, the rain, and the walk home. But halfway through, Adrian interrupted to correct the details:
“It wasn’t that heavy of a rain. More like a drizzle at first.”
She blinked at him, confused, but let it slide. Later, when she teased him about it, he shrugged. “I just like telling it the right way.”
It was small. Trivial. Not worth dwelling on.
One evening, after a particularly long day at the bakery, she came home to find Adrian waiting on her stoop with takeout and that easy smile. They ate on her couch, his arm draped over the backrest.
“You should let me take care of you more,” he said suddenly.
She frowned. “You already do a lot.”
“I mean take care of you. You work too hard. I could cover your bills for a while give you space to focus on opening your bakery without stress.”
The offer was generous. Unbelievably so. And yet something in his voice made her pause, like the gift came with strings she couldn’t quite see yet.
“That’s sweet,” she said slowly, “but I need to do this on my own.”
He didn’t argue, but his smile thinned just enough for her to notice.
By late September, they were nearly inseparable. Maya teased her about it over coffee one morning.
“You’re glowing, Lena. What’s his secret?”
Elena shrugged, trying not to smile too widely. “He makes me feel like I matter.”
And she believed that most of the time.
The night before her birthday, he appeared at the bakery just as she was locking up.
“I have a surprise,” he said.
“What kind of surprise?”
“The kind where you don’t ask questions, you just follow me.”
He led her to a rooftop garden she’d never seen before part of a building his company owned. Lanterns hung from wires overhead, casting warm light across a table set for two.
The dinner was perfect. The view is even more so. And when he leaned in to kiss her, it felt less like a beginning and more like the next inevitable step.
“You’re mine now, Elena Marlowe,” he murmured against her hair.
It was meant to be romantic. She let herself believe it was.
The next morning, she woke to find another note beside her coffee cup on the kitchen counter:
I’m not going anywhere. Ever.
It made her heart swell and, somewhere deep inside, just the faintest shiver she couldn’t quite name.
- Writer
