“Marry me?”

“No,” I said, laughing. “It’s only our first date.”

Since then he’s proposed at home, on holiday, in castles, in parks, but I’ve always said no. It’s become an in-joke.

His note is propped on the mantelpiece. I don’t read it, finally realizing that the joke got old.

Laura Besley writes short fiction and squeezes her writing into the bookends of her day. She has lived in Holland, Germany, and Hong Kong, but now lives in land-locked central England and misses the sea. Her flash fiction collection, The Almost Mothers, was published in March 2020. She tweets at @laurabesley.