On Monday afternoon, Mary took Adam bowling.
She hadn't bowled in years. That was part of why she'd chosen it. He had spent the morning painting a window, and she'd spent it moving a paragraph around a page. She wanted to go somewhere that required neither of those skills.
“I thought we could have lunch,” he said when she told him.
“We can have lunch and this.”
“Are you good?”
“Spectacularly inconsistent.”
He agreed before she had to offer an alternative. At the desk, Mary paid for the game while he went to find somewhere to put their things. She liked having chosen the afternoon and watching him fit into it.
Her first ball went into the gutter. Her second hit one pin. Adam waited until she looked at him before he started laughing.
“It's coming back to me,” she said.
“Slowly.”
He was better, though not nearly as good as he appeared to think he should be. After missing a pin, he stood at the line with his hands on his hips until she reminded him there was another person playing.
“I was deciding what happened.”
“The pin remained upright. I can help with the report.”
By the fourth turn she had remembered how to release the ball without immediately apologising to it. She got a strike and turned round with both hands raised.
Adam stood to meet her. She put her palms against his, then leaned forward and kissed him, pleased enough not to care who saw.
They lost track of whose drink was whose. Mary finished the one with too much ice and gave him the one that had become warm. When she won the second game by a single point, he looked at the screen for a long time, then bowed from his chair.
“A deserved victory,” he said.
“Say it louder.”
“Absolutely not.”
Outside, it was still light and she still didn't want to go home. They bought lunch late enough to count as something else and ate it in a little square behind the shops. Mary had chosen too much food. Adam took what she couldn't finish.
“That's going to be your job,” she said.
“Eating half your lunch?”
“When I order optimistically.”
He nodded gravely. “I accept.”
It was silly. She let it stay silly. The wedding was twelve days away, and nearly every conversation she had now ended in a list of things that still needed doing.
With him here, she could think about something that happened after the lists were finished.
“I'd like a day away,” she said. “Afterwards. Just us.”
“We said no honeymoon.”
“I know. Your jobs are booked. I've got work. I mean one day. Train somewhere, no emails, come back when we're tired.”
“The sea?”
“Maybe. Somewhere we can sit and eat without wondering what the table costs.”
He laughed. “That part would be good.”
They didn't choose a place yet. Mary suggested they look at train times after dinner.
Back at her flat, Adam lay on the sofa while Mary put a wash on. She came back to find his eyes closed. She was about to wake him, then saw how tired he looked.
She put a light blanket over his legs and sat in the chair with a book. After a while he opened his eyes and looked for her.
“I've ruined your afternoon.”
“I arranged it. It was already risky.”
He reached a hand towards her. She took it and moved to sit beside him. There was no need to kiss every time they touched. She liked finding that out.
Later they looked at the invitation she had made. It was simple, on pale card, with the date and time in clear type. He read their names aloud.
“Mary and Adam.”
“Yes. I've checked the spelling.”
He held it carefully between both hands. She watched his face and wanted to ask what he was thinking, but he spoke before she did.
“I want to see you walking in.”
The sentence changed the room for her. She could see it too: the short walk towards him, the people looking, the private thing said publicly.
“Don't cry,” she said.
“Are you going to?”
“Almost certainly. I'd like one of us able to speak.”
He put the invitation on the table and pulled her close. She stayed there, breathing against his neck, remembering the front-garden kiss before the first dinner with her mother. She had wanted Ruth to see what this was. Now there would be a room full of people to see it.
She still wanted the name he'd refused to give her. She could ask again now, but today she wanted to stay against him a little longer.
When he went home, she sent him the photograph of the bowling score. He replied that he had already accepted defeat.
She said she wanted it in writing.
He sent it: A deserved victory.
Mary laughed in her quiet kitchen. Then she folded the invitation she'd kept for herself and put it beside the hotel folder.