Pole Position: Between Logic and Passion

I was just finishing the last bites of pasta when my phone rang on the table beside me. I glanced at the screen—Kate.

“Hey,” I answered casually, leaning back in my chair.

“ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?!” she screamed into my ear.

I flinched. “Jesus, Kate—what?”

“How could you not tell me you and Charles are getting married?!”

My fork froze mid-air. “What? We’re not getting married.”

“Really? Because the entire internet thinks otherwise!” she shouted. “Amy, you were trying on wedding dresses! And Charles was with you! Hugging you! Dancing with you, for God’s sake!”

“I was trying on bridesmaid dresses,” I said slowly, heart suddenly racing. “Not wedding dresses. And we weren’t dancing—we were—” I looked at Charles, who was still chewing, raising an eyebrow in confusion as he watched me. “—it wasn’t like that.”

Kate didn’t even pause. “Go look at Instagram right now. Type your name. Just do it.”

I unlocked my phone and pulled up the app. And then I saw it.

Paparazzi shots. Dozens of them. Me in a white dress, Charles standing behind me, arms around my waist. One picture showed him spinning me, laughing. Another had him kissing the top of my head. It looked exactly like a wedding shoot.

“Oh my God,” I whispered.

Kate snorted. “You better tell me everything before CNN does.”

Charles leaned closer across the table. “Everything okay?”

I covered the receiver. “We’re trending.”

He blinked. “Again?”

I went back to Kate. “No, we are not getting married. Not today, at least. Now can I finish my lunch?”

“Fine,” she said, “but tell Charles he looked very husband-material in that black button-up. People are obsessed.”

I hung up, tossed my phone on the table, and looked at him.

He was smirking. “So… when is the wedding?”

I rolled my eyes. “Don’t start.”

After a long silence, Charles sighed, dragging a hand through his hair.

“This is getting out of hand,” he muttered, staring at his phone. “It’s not just gossip anymore. The media's making it worse than it is.”

“They don’t care about facts,” I said quietly. “They care about clicks.”

He looked at me then. Really looked.

“Maybe it’s time we do something about it.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Like what? Release a statement?”

He shook his head. “No. Something real. Not just words.”

I blinked. “Okay… I’m going to need you to be a little less Mysterious Brooding Hero right now and tell me what you mean.”

He gave a faint smile at that, then sat down beside me.

“I mean us. We’ve been dancing around this for months. And now the world thinks we’re already something. So… what if we stop pretending we’re not?”

That made me pause. My heart actually skipped, and I hated that it did.

“You’re saying we… what? Go public?”