The car moved smoothly through the evening, the town slipping past the windows in soft amber intervals of light and shadow. Lisa sat beside Deemata with the particular restlessness of someone who had been holding a question for far longer than was comfortable.
"So," she said, in a tone that was almost casual. Almost. "What do you think of my brother?"
Deemata turned from the window. The question had arrived without warning — which was, she supposed, very much Lisa's way. She had not asked it in the room, surrounded by the pleasant distraction of invitations and mirror checks and the small chaos of getting ready. She had saved it for now, for the quiet of the car, where there was nowhere to go and nothing to do but answer.
'Deemata took a breath.'
"We met for approximately six seconds," she said, with measured calm. "I don't think six seconds is enough time to form any serious opinion about a person."
Lisa gave her a look.
"However," Deemata continued, because the look required a however, "I will say he has a certain charm about him. I'll give him that."
"Okay." Lisa nodded slowly, drawing the word out in a way that suggested she intended to give it considerable thought. "Okay. I'll take that." She turned back to face the road ahead, and then, almost immediately, turned back again. "I just hope tonight has good food. And pastries. And at least a few interesting faces to look at, because my eyes deserve entertainment."
Deemata laughed — the easy, unguarded kind. "I think we'll manage."
-----
The venue announced itself before they were fully out of the car.
It rose before them like something from a different world entirely — a grand hotel, seven stories of polished stone and warm light, the kind of building that understood its own importance and wore it without apology. Lanterns lined the approach. Uniformed staff moved with quiet efficiency. A chauffeur opened their door with a small, precise bow, and the two of them stepped out into the evening air.
For a moment, neither spoke.
"Well," Lisa said at last.
"Yes," Deemata agreed.
They went in.
The ballroom was already alive — voices layered over music, crystal catching candlelight, the whole room carrying the particular warmth of people who are glad to be exactly where they are. Heads turned as the two of them entered, the way heads tend to turn when something worth looking at has just walked through a door.
Across the room, Reginald noticed them the moment they arrived.
He had been mid-conversation, nodding at something a business associate was saying, when his attention shifted — not with urgency, but with the quiet, involuntary certainty of a compass finding north. He saw Lisa first. Then he saw her, and the conversation he had been half-attending dissolved entirely.
He did not move toward her immediately. He simply looked, the way a person looks at something they are not yet ready to name.
The girls made their way to where Mayor Williams stood — greeting, smiling, the brief, warm ceremony of family — before drifting to the edge of the room to collect drinks and catch their breath. They stood together, laughing at something private, entirely unbothered by the attention around them.
Reginald set down his glass.
He came from behind her — not stealthily, but quietly, in the manner of someone who does not feel the need to announce himself. He touched her shoulder lightly.
She turned.
"You look well," he said. A simple thing, plainly delivered. "I won't pretend otherwise."
She received it with a small, composed smile. "Thank you," she said. "You don't look too badly yourself, Mr. Williams."
Lisa, beside her, had gone very still with the focused attention of someone watching something unfold that they had predicted and are now thoroughly enjoying. Then, with the grace of a person who knows exactly when to disappear, she straightened up.
"I think," she said pleasantly, "that I will go and find someone interesting to talk to. Don't mind me." She caught Deemata's eye for half a second — long enough to communicate everything — and left.
The two of them stood in the particular quiet of people who have just been left alone on purpose.
"So," Deemata said, because silence had never been something she needed to fill but she chose to fill it anyway. "Closing business deals this evening as well, I see."
"One never really stops," he said. "But that's not why I came over."
She looked at him.
"You're very direct," she said.
"I find it saves time." The edge of a smile. "You gave a fine speech tonight."
She had — standing at the front of the room with the particular steadiness of someone who has earned the right to speak and knows it, addressing the room about her family's work, her father's legacy, the decades of craft that bore their name. She had not faltered once.
"It comes with the territory," she said. "My father built something worth speaking about."
He looked at her for a moment longer than required. "He did," he said quietly. "And so have you."
Before she could answer, his name was called — his father, the mayor, gesturing from the front of the room with the kind of authority that does not wait. Reginald held up one finger in acknowledgement, then turned back to her.
"I have to go," he said. "But I'll find you again before the night is over." He reached for her hand — unhurried, deliberate — and raised it briefly to his lips. "Duty first. Then the dance you haven't agreed to yet."
"I haven't agreed to any dance," she said.
"Not yet," he said, and went.
He was as good as his word.
The speeches concluded, the room exhaled back into warmth and movement, and Reginald found her again with the ease of someone who had known exactly where she was the entire time.
"Miss Watt," he said. "About that dance."
Lisa, materialising as if from nowhere, pressed a hand briefly to Deemata's arm. "She's all yours," she said, and then, leaning in close enough for only Deemata to hear — "take the opportunity, because trust me, many girls would." She disappeared again before a response could be given.
Deemata turned and looked at him.
"I believe," she said, with careful composure, "that I am not many girls."
Something shifted in his expression — subtle, warm, appreciating. "No," he said. "You're really not."
He led her onto the floor.
They danced the way conversations sometimes go — easily at first, then deeper, the music marking time while they moved through the evening like two people with more to say than one night could hold. They talked about business, about the town, about their families. About what it meant to inherit something — a name, a trade, a responsibility — and carry it forward. He was attentive in a way that felt earned rather than performed, and she found, somewhat against her better calculations, that she did not want the song to end.
It did, eventually. Everything does.
The night wound down the way good nights do — slowly and then all at once. As Deemata and Lisa gathered themselves to leave, Reginald appeared at her side.
"Allow me," he said simply.
Lisa looked at her best friend with an expression of profound encouragement. Deemata looked back at her with an expression that communicated several things at once, none of which she had time to say. Then she turned to Reginald.
"All right," she said.
The car was quiet on the way to her home — not uncomfortably so, but the quiet of two people who have been talking for hours and have arrived at the kind of ease that doesn't require words to fill it. The city moved past the windows. The engine was a low, steady sound beneath everything.
"Thank you," he said at last. "For this evening. The conversation. All of it."
"It was just a dance," she said. "And a car ride."
He turned and looked at her. "It wasn't just a dance," he said, "and it wasn't just a car ride."
She did not have an answer for that. Which was unusual.
The rest of the drive was filled with the kind of easy conversation that moves like water — from family, to ambition, to the small ordinary details of who a person is when they are not performing anything. By the time they reached her house, she felt as though she had known him much longer than the evidence supported.
He opened her door and walked her to the gate.
"May I have your number?" he asked. "I'd like to call you. If that's all right."
"It's not a bad idea," she said, and gave it to him.
"Good night, then." He did not move immediately. "Stay a moment?"
"I can't." She looked down at her feet — heels that had served their purpose admirably and were now making their displeasure known. "I've been in these for five hours. My feet are filing a formal complaint."
He laughed — genuinely, openly, with his whole face. It was, she thought, a very good laugh.
"Good night, then," he said again. "I'll be in touch."
She smiled at the corner of her mouth — just barely — and went inside.
Her mother was in the living room, a lamp on, papers spread across her lap, doing what she always did: the quiet work of keeping everything running.
Deemata came through the door and went straight to her, wrapping both arms around her from behind and pressing a kiss to her cheek.
"Hey, Mum."
Martha Watt looked up at her daughter — at the residual brightness of her face, the particular smile that was trying very hard to be casual and was not quite managing it. She set her papers down.
"How was it?"
"Lovely," Deemata said, and sat beside her, and told her everything — the venue, the speeches, the dancing, the drive home. Her mother listened with the careful attention of a woman who is hearing one story and understanding another entirely. When Deemata finished, Martha was quiet for a moment.
"It sounds," she said, with perfect composure, "like it was a very nice evening."
"It was," Deemata agreed. "Just a nice evening. That's all."
"Of course," said her mother.
They looked at each other. Then they both laughed.
"Go to bed," Martha said, squeezing her daughter's hand. "Your feet are clearly suffering."
"They really are." She kissed her mother again. "Good night, Mum. Love you."
"Love you, baby."
She went upstairs.
The bath was warm and long, and she lay in it thinking about nothing in particular — or so she told herself — while a smile that she had not consciously arranged kept settling on her face. She did her skincare at the desk by the mirror with the careful attention of a woman who takes such things seriously, and was just reaching for her phone to plug it in for the night when the screen lit up.
A message. From a number she had given out less than an hour ago.
*I'm home safely. Since you never asked.*
She stared at it for a moment. Then she typed back: *I gave you my number. I didn't take yours. How exactly was I meant to check?*
Three dots appeared. Then: *Fair point. Regardless — home safe. Thank you for tonight. The conversation especially.* A pause. Then: *Dinner tomorrow? If you're free. No pressure.*
She considered this.
*Maybe,* she wrote. *I'll let you know if something comes up.*
*Take your time,* he replied. *Good night, Deemata.*
She plugged in her phone, pulled back the covers, and lay in the dark with her eyes open for a little while — not restless, just thinking. The ceiling offered nothing useful. The dark was very quiet.
She closed her eyes.
She was smiling when she fell asleep.
Morning arrived the way it always did in that house — quietly, with light coming through the curtains in long pale strips and the faint sound of Martha moving around downstairs, the particular domestic rhythm that had been the backdrop of Deemata's entire life.
She lay still for a moment, blinking at the ceiling.
Then she reached for her phone.
There was a message from Reginald, sent at some point in the early hours while she was still asleep.
Good morning, beautiful.
She read it twice. Then she set the phone face-down on the duvet, looked at the ceiling, and said nothing to no one.
Then she picked it up again and typed: Good morning.
She stared at it. Deleted it. Typed: Morning. Stared at that. Then sent it exactly as it was, put the phone down, and went to brush her teeth.
She was halfway through her skincare when the phone rang.
Lisa.
She picked up on the second ring.
"Good morning," Deemata said.
"Don't good morning me," Lisa said immediately, with the energy of someone who had been awake for some time and had been saving this conversation. "I need everything. From the beginning. The drive, the drop-off, all of it. Go."
Deemata sat down at the edge of her bed. "There is nothing to report."
"Deemata."
"We talked. He drove me home. He walked me to the gate. He asked for my number. I gave it to him. That is the full and complete account of events."
A pause on the other end. A very deliberate pause.
"He asked for your number," Lisa repeated.
"Yes."
"And you gave it to him."
"It seemed like the reasonable thing to do."
"And then?"
Deemata considered how much to say. "He texted when he got home."
The sound Lisa made was not quite a shriek. It was more contained than that, but only just. "He never does that," she said. "He has never — okay. Okay. And this morning?"
Another pause. Shorter this time.
"He sent a good morning," Deemata said.
The sound this time was less contained.
"Lisa."
"I'm fine. I'm completely fine. I just — " A breath. "Deemata, my brother does not send good morning texts. To anyone. I share a house with the man. I have never once in my life received a good morning text from Reginald Williams."
"Perhaps he's just being polite."
"Girl."
"I'm serious. We don't even know each other properly. Let's not build a whole — "
"Did you text back?"
A beat.
"Yes," Deemata said.
"What did you say?"
"Morning."
Another pause. Then Lisa, with the slow, careful delivery of someone choosing their words very intentionally: "You said morning."
"It covers the necessary ground."
"Deemata Watt." There was laughter underneath the exasperation now, warm and fond and entirely unstoppable. "You are going to be the end of me. You know that, right? That poor man sent you good morning beautiful and you said morning."
"It's a response. It communicates that I received the message."
"It communicates that you are emotionally unavailable and possibly raised by accountants."
Deemata laughed despite herself — the full, unguarded kind that she couldn't always contain around Lisa. "Stop it."
"I'm just saying. A little warmth never hurt anyone."
"I'll keep that under advisement."
"Please do." A pause, and then Lisa's voice softened into something more genuine. "But seriously — are you happy? From last night?"
Deemata was quiet for a moment. Outside, the morning was doing its ordinary things. Downstairs, she could smell breakfast beginning — Martha's quiet ritual of coffee and something warm.
"Yeah," she said, and meant it. "I am."
"Good," Lisa said simply. "That's all I needed to know." A beat. "Now. Did he ask to see you again or not, because I need to know whether to be excited or furious on your behalf."
"He mentioned dinner."
"AND YOU'RE ONLY TELLING ME THIS NOW—"
"Lisa—"
"I'm calm. I'm completely calm. Are you going?"
"I said maybe."
"Deemata."
"I'm busy today. I have meetings. The store needs — "
"After the meetings."
She smiled at the wall. "We'll see."
"That means yes," Lisa said, with great satisfaction. "Right. Go eat your breakfast. Text my brother something with more than one syllable. And call me later."
"Goodbye, Lisa."
"Love you. Bye."
The line went quiet. Deemata sat with the phone in her lap for a moment, then set it on the nightstand and went downstairs to where her mother was waiting and the coffee was already made.