“We got a new place,” Jake says. “That was what she wanted. Fresh start, place of our own. We split the rent.”

“And you can just stay there once you get married,” Mallory says.

Every year, there comes a moment when he wonders if Mallory is going to kick him out. This year, that moment is now.

“I guess that’s the idea,” he says. He swigs some of his beer. He doesn’t like talking about Ursula, though he understands why it’s necessary for Mallory. She likes to do it on Friday night, get it out of the way, get caught up on Jake’s romantic life at home so that it isn’t looming over her head like a thundercloud.

Better to know than to wonder, she says.

Jake isn’t sure he agrees.

“Where does she think you are?” Mallory asks.

“Nantucket,” he says.

“With Coop?”

“I’m not sure I specifically said ‘with Coop.’ I just told her I was coming up to Nantucket for the weekend because I barely got away this summer at all, and also, she thinks it’s a tradition now.”

“It is a tradition now,” Mallory says. And they both sit for a second, Jake fending off guilt because it’s obviously not the kind of tradition that Ursula is imagining. “Does she know it’s my cottage?”

“She’s never asked. I would guess if she was pressed, she would say it was your family’s cottage.”

“But she knows I exist, right?” Mallory says. “She remembers me from the wedding?”

“She might,” Jake says. “I mean, yes, she noticed us dancing at the wedding and she asked about you but she hasn’t mentioned you since then. She hasn’t mentioned you in connection with the cottage.”

Mallory takes a bite of her burger, then butters an ear of corn. She seems put out by this statement, but why?

“It seems so unfair,” Mallory says. “I spend so much time being jealous of her and she doesn’t even know enough to be jealous of me.”

“Well,” Jake says, “if she knew how I felt about you, she’d be very jealous indeed. Does that make you feel better?”

“Yes,” Mallory says, and she blows him a kiss across the dark table.

Jake wakes up alone in the low, wide platform bed. The crisp white sheets have light blue piping; Mallory admitted that she splurged on them at the Lion’s Paw in honor of his visit. There’s a stripe of sunshine peeking through the wooden blinds (also new) that lands directly across Jake’s eyes. He inhales Mallory’s scent from her pillow and stretches.

Jake makes coffee in Mallory’s French press and takes a mug out onto the front porch. He watches the waves fold over themselves again and again and again. It’s hypnotic. There isn’t a soul on the beach in either direction. What’s to stop Jake from running into the ocean naked for the first swim of the day?

Nothing, he supposes. He does it.

As he’s bobbing around in the water, he sees Mallory, home from her run. No braids; her hair is in a ponytail. She pries off each sneaker with the toe of her other foot, peels off her socks, stops to drink some ice water, and bends over to touch her toes. She goes back into the cottage and he hears her voice. She must be calling his name. Is she worried? Does she think he left? No, surely she sees all his things still there.

A second later, she appears back out on the porch. She takes a bite of a peach, sees him swimming, waves.

He waves back.

She lifts her arms over her head and places her right foot alongside her left knee. It’s her yoga tree pose, the one she showed him last night and made him try. (He failed.) He sees her green vine tattoo standing out against the golden skin of her ankle. It feels like he has vines wrapped around his heart.

He’s in love with her, he thinks.

If they count the Fridays and the Mondays, then today is the start of their fourteenth day together, the end of their second week. Is that how long it takes to fall in love?

He swims in and Mallory hoots at his nakedness. She holds out a striped beach towel, which he wraps around his waist. He takes the peach out of her hand, sets it on the little outdoor table, and kisses her, long and deep. When they finally separate, Mallory grins at him. “Good morning!” she says.

“I’m…”—should he tell her? He wants to, but he’s afraid—“…crazy about you.”

“Or just crazy,” she says, and she kisses him again.

He cooks bacon and chops up onion and tomatoes for the omelets. He finds a wedge of Brie and holds the cheese up for Mallory to see. “Okay if I use this?”

“I’m crazy about you too,” she says.

“Is that a yes on the Brie?” he asks.

She shrugs. “Sure.”

Jake sets about beating the eggs and heating the butter in the pan. He turns to the stove and he hears her over by the stereo, the click-click-click of her looking for CDs. She has changed into a sunny yellow bikini and her cutoff shorts. They’re planning on kayaking on the pond and then provisioning for their lobster dinner, as usual. They skipped the Chicken Box last night. Mallory was disappointed by this, he knows, because the Box is part of the tradition. They almost had an argument about it. She accused him of being afraid of bumping into someone from Washington. While it’s true this always lurks in the back of his mind—how would he explain dancing and kissing Mallory if he saw one of Ursula’s coworkers?—the real reason he wanted to stay home was that he didn’t want to share Mallory. He wanted to play with her hair, trace her ribs, listen to her breathe. If that’s not the definition of love, he doesn’t know what is.

Jake folds the omelet over. He gives Mallory the one that is a little superior—with more gooey cheese and more golden-brown onions—and that’s another demonstration of his love. At home, he always takes the better portion because giving it to Ursula would be a waste.

They eat at the table, Mallory moaning over every bite, which drives him mad with desire, although she’s not doing it for effect. She is genuine, and that’s what he appreciates most about her. There is no artifice, no manipulation, no games. Every woman in Jake’s office is reading The Rules, which is, as far as Jake can tell, a guide to ignoring men in order to get them to pursue you. Jake happens to know this strategy works; it’s one reason why he’s still with Ursula.

He can’t love Mallory…because he loves Ursula, though that often feels less like love and more like succumbing to some kind of witchcraft. Jake and Ursula are connected in ten thousand ways: the shared memories, the inside jokes, the secret language, the references that only they understand. Ursula is a connection to his sister; she made Jess smile, made her laugh, made her feel like a normal eleven- or twelve- or thirteen-year-old girl the way no one else could. Jake’s emotions about these memories venture into territory that has no language. He can picture Ursula standing before Jessica’s coffin in her white vestments; her nobility in that moment is something Jake will never forget.

A life without Ursula is impossible to imagine. And yet, what Jake feels for Mallory isn’t merely infatuation. It’s something bigger.

They’re crazy about each other. Crazy about is where they are this year. They’ll leave it at that. For now.