Love Me Deeply, Then Let Me Love You Deeper

Chapter 2: A Date Without a Script

The next morning, I asked for the boat ride to be canceled.

I'd slept badly and woken to a message from Blake's publicist congratulating me on "my brave new chapter." It was the kind of message that sounded warm until you remembered Blake had never sent one himself.

I wanted an hour without cameras. The show's coordinator, Melissa, said no.

"We have a schedule, Mara. The cast has already been moved to the marina."

"I'm asking to change one date."

"You signed the release."

"I signed up to date people, not to be managed like a prop."

Melissa folded her tablet against her chest. "We're not managing you. We're keeping production on time."

I looked past her at the marina. A white boat rocked against the dock. Noah stood beside it, speaking to a crew member. When I approached, he turned.

"Boat ride?" he asked.

"Apparently."

"Do you want to go?"

The question was simple. It made the morning feel less crowded.

"I wanted to walk."

"Then we can walk."

Melissa stepped in. "The boat is part of the date."

Noah glanced at me. "We could take the boat to the path and walk back."

It wasn't a rebellion. It was a compromise so small it shouldn't have mattered. It did.

The boat carried us along Bellwether Bay's pale cliffs, a camera fixed to the bow. We talked about places we'd lived and the kind of mornings we liked. He told me he grew up outside a factory town called Carden, where his mother had managed a pharmacy and his father repaired boats.

I told him I'd grown up in a rental duplex outside Larkspur, where my mom taught high school English and taught me that rent was paid before dreams.

"You sound like you still take her advice," he said.

"I do. I just wish she'd given me more advice about dating."

"Would you have listened?"

"No."

"Then she saved herself the trouble."

I liked that he didn't turn my childhood into an inspirational anecdote. When the boat reached the path, we climbed off and walked under a row of wind-bent pines.

"How did you end up in investing?" I asked.

"My first employer was a company that made specialty parts for boats. It was about to go under. I found a buyer for the equipment and got a small piece of the deal. It worked out."

"Is that where you got the phrase 'small investments'?"

"More or less. I've been trying to make it sound modest ever since."

"Why?"

He shrugged. "People can be strange when money enters a conversation."

"I've noticed."

We walked on. He didn't ask me for stories about Blake. I didn't ask about the size of his bank account.

At the end of the path, the cameras waited beside a bench. A producer asked us to sit.

"Talk about what you're looking for," she said.

Noah looked at me. "You can go first."

"I want someone who doesn't turn every difficult conversation into a performance," I said.

The producer shifted. "Maybe we can make that a little more specific."

"I think it is specific."

Noah gave a small nod. "I want someone who can tell me when something feels wrong, even if it's inconvenient."

The producer let the silence sit. It was a strange kind of pressure, waiting for one of us to turn the date into a confession. I began to understand how reality television could make a quiet moment look empty until somebody gave it blood.

Back at the house, Noah waited with me while a stylist removed the microphone from my dress.

"You don't have to stay," I said.

"I know."

"Why are you?"

"Because you look like you want someone to wait."

The answer nearly undid me. I looked down, where the stylist's hands were busy with clips and tape.

When the cameras moved away, I asked him about his partnership. He described a handful of companies: a small medical supply firm, a regional shipping business, a family-run hotel. He spoke about all of them with care, but never offered numbers.

"Do you ever regret going into finance?" I asked.

"I regret what people assume it means."

"That it's all numbers?"

"That you can buy any outcome you want."

I thought about the show, my career, and the camera pointed at us from the far end of the hall.

"Can you?"

"Not any outcome."

He said it with enough certainty that I believed him.

That evening, we ate dinner with the rest of the cast. Noah sat beside me. The cameras captured our elbows nearly touching and my laughter when he quietly corrected Tessa's trivia answer. I watched the producer watch us.

Later, as we walked to our rooms, Noah stopped at the foot of the stairs.

"Can I ask you something without turning it into content?" he said.

"I don't know. Can you?"

"Do you actually want to be here?"

The honest answer was complicated. I'd wanted the work, the chance to change the story people told about me. I hadn't wanted to become a story at all.

"I don't know yet," I said.

"Fair."

"And you?"

"I wanted to meet you."

There was no camera in the hallway. I checked anyway.

"Then I'm glad you came," I said.

His smile was small and unguarded. For the first time since arriving, I wondered whether I could want something without first calculating what it would cost me.