An Open Relationship? Fine Meet My New Boyfriend novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: House Rules

Trevor hands Eliza a drafted list of open-relationship rules and she adds one of her own: his mother hears it from him. In the night she overhears him telling the woman on the phone that Eliza is basically a roommate.

Trevor came home at ten past one.

I was sitting on the couch in the dark with my coat still on, because I had not been able to decide whether I lived there.

He turned on the lamp and looked at me for a long moment.

Then he set his phone on the kitchen counter, screen up, and took off his shoes.

"You embarrassed me," he said. "In front of two hundred people."

"There were about thirty."

"Thirty people who watch Channel 6." He rubbed his eyes. "Who is he, Eliza?"

"My boyfriend. You said open. That's what open is."

"It's what open is when you've talked about it."

"You didn't talk about it. You read it to me."

He sighed, and the sigh was the same gentle one he uses for hail.

"Fine. You're upset. That's fair. I drafted something, so we can be adults about this."

He picked his phone up again, opened a note and held it out.

It was titled: Our Open Rules, v2.

I read it standing in my coat.

The first rule was honesty "within reason."

The second was no names and no photos.

The third was that nobody stayed overnight in this apartment, "out of respect for our home."

The fourth was that his mother never found out, because it would break her heart.

The fifth was that Sunday dinners at her house went on exactly as before.

The sixth was that we stayed solid in public, because people trusted him.

He had a version two. Which meant there had been a version one.

"How long have you been working on this?" I asked.

"A few weeks. I wanted to get it right."

"A few weeks."

"I didn't want to hurt you."

"You booked Lumière a month ago."

"I wanted a nice place to tell you." He said it as if that were a gift. "Nobody makes a scene at Lumière."

I handed him back the phone.

"I have a rule too."

"Okay." He smiled, relieved that I was playing. "Go ahead."

"Your mother hears about the open part from you. Before the next Sunday dinner after this one."

The smile went out.

"No."

"You wrote that she'd be heartbroken. So you tell her. Gently. You're good at that."

"Eliza, she would never get over it."

"Then you picked the wrong arrangement."

"She loves you," he said. "That's the point. She'd look at me differently."

I noticed that he did not say he would look at himself differently.

"Then that's my rule," I said. "And my boyfriend comes to dinner."

"He will not."

"Rule five. Sunday dinners go on exactly as before. Before, I came."

He stared at me. For a moment, the man on Channel 6 was gone and I saw someone who had run out of lines.

"He'll be gone by Friday," Trevor said. "A guy you picked off a restaurant floor? I give him a week."

"Then you've got nothing to worry about."

His phone lit up on the counter.

The preview was short and cheerful. Tilly: "Home yet? Missing you. Sleep well, sunshine."

I read it upside down before he could turn it over.

He turned it over.

Neither of us said anything.

"I have to be up at four," he said at last. "I'll take the bed. You can have the couch, or the guest room if you want to unpack the air mattress."

"I'll take the couch."

"Good. That's mature."

He kissed the top of my head on his way past.

I let him.

Then I sat in the dark and counted the things I knew.

His mother did not know. His station did not know. A woman named Tilly believed he was hers.

At two, the bathroom fan came on in the hall.

It was the fan he runs when he doesn't want me to hear him.

I got up in my socks and crossed the kitchen without making a sound.

His voice came through the door, low and warm and tender.

"No, babe. Listen. She's fine. She's taking it fine."

A pause.

"She's basically a roommate at this point. I swear. She's moving out soon."

I stood with my hand flat on the cold wall.

"Yes," Trevor said. "The eighteenth. My mom's birthday. You're coming, and you're going to love her."

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