How many pet names could a man in love conjure from the ether? How many tender, foolish, sacred syllables could he weave into a garland for the object of his devotion? How many words of affection—whispered, shouted, laughed into the hollow of a collarbone—could a heart hold before it burst? How many small, devastating acts of care: a blanket draped over sleeping shoulders, a glass of water left on a nightstand, a thumb brushing a tear from a cheek it had no right to touch? And how many adjectives, how many desperate, glittering fragments of language could he stack like offerings at an altar just to describe you? Your laugh, your frown, the way you tilt your head when confused, the way your fingers move through pages of a book as if stroking the spine of a living thing.

A man in love—truly, irrevocably, stupidly in love—could surely find more than plenty. He would mine the dictionaries, raid the thesauruses, invent new vowels and consonants if he had to. He would borrow from the stars, from the deep-sea trenches, from the scent of rain on hot asphalt. Especially for a creature such as you. A lovely, elusive, devastating creature. At least, in Francis’s mind. In his fever-dream of a skull, you walked on light and spoke in half-rhymes. You were not merely beautiful; you were a weather system, a small apocalypse, a god disguised as a student in Hampden’s dusty Greek class.

Francis never thought he would truly ever love. He had convinced himself he was incapable—a charming void, a pocket of bad air. There was Charles, yes. Beautiful Charles, with his lazy, aristocratic drawl and his body like a marble statue left out in the rain. A delightful lover in bed, certainly. The kind of affair that tastes of expensive wine and regret, all silk sheets and no morning-after truth. But that was not love. That was a transaction of skin and boredom. Love? Love was a foreign language Francis had mocked in other people’s throats. He had watched his classmates stumble through it, red-faced and weeping, and thought, how vulgar.

But then fate—that clumsy, magnificent bitch—interfered. Fate blew you like a storm through the ivy-covered gates of Hampden College. You arrived not with a bang but with the quiet, terrible force of a river changing course. You settled into the back of the Greek class, and within a week, Francis had forgotten the alphabet. His eyes kept drifting to you like a compass needle to a magnetic pole he didn’t believe in. Your voice (low, amused, occasionally sharp) became the only sound he wanted to hear over the howling of his own cynicism.

Somehow—and he would later thank every cruel and indifferent god for this—the two of you found yourselves alone in the sprawling, shadow-haunted country house. The others had drifted outside, lured by the pale autumn sun. He could hear their distant laughter, the polite thwack of a croquet mallet against a wooden ball, the shattering of some innocent glass on a terrace. Charles was out there, probably winning without trying. Henry was lecturing someone on the moral decay of the Etruscans. Camilla was braiding a crown of dying hydrangeas. Bunny was being Bunny—loud, hungry, oblivious.

Francis leaned back in his chair, the old wood groaning like a confession. He rested his elbow on the armrest, then let his head fall lazily against his knuckles. He was all false ease—a cat pretending to sleep while watching a bird. “So,” Francis began, his voice cool as the underside of a stone, but with an undercurrent of something warmer—something almost shy. He tilted his head, watching you through the elegant haze.

“What are you doing, genius?” he asked.

The word genius landed soft as a feather, sharp as a dart. It was a pet name, but not one of the obvious ones. Not darling or sweetheart—those would come later, in whispers you might pretend not to hear. No, this was Francis’s way: a teasing, backhanded reverence. He was calling you brilliant in the same breath he was mocking your concentration. His eyes never left you. They traced the line of your jaw, the way your hair fell across your brow.