Spencer Stephens was famous for his germ phobia.
Anything he'd touched, no one else was allowed to touch after him.
He especially couldn't stand sharing a spoon with someone, eating from the same bowl of ice cream.
Not even me, the woman he claimed to love most.
Once, I accidentally touched his spoon.
That same day, he threw the spoon away with a look of disgust and had the whole set of utensils sterilized eight times over, inside and out.
Mrs. Stephens had said, mocking, "That's just how my son is. Born with a germ phobia. You'll have to excuse him."
"Don't let it upset you. He loves you. Otherwise he'd never have begged me to let the two of you marry."
After that, I never dared touch his things again.
But that weekend, when I went to drop off the wedding plans for my boyfriend.
I saw with my own eyes his childhood sweetheart scooping ice cream into her mouth with his spoon.
Halfway through, she even scooped a spoonful and pushed it into his mouth. "Open up, Spencer. Good boy."
I was about to remind her that Spencer had a germ phobia.
But the next second, Spencer obediently opened his mouth and swallowed it down.
Then he reached out and ruffled her hair.
"Ice cream tastes sweeter when Irma feeds it to me."
In that moment, it was like a lightning strike.
Watching the two of them smile at each other, I finally understood. He didn't have a germ phobia at all.
He only had one toward me.
——
My hand, halfway to pushing the door open, fell back the instant his words landed.
Seeing me take a step back to leave, Anna Lambert, the housekeeper, looked at me, puzzled.
"Miss Butler, the young master's been waiting for you a while now. Aren't you going in?"
"No."
"When he has a moment, would you mind giving him these plans?"
I set the wedding plans on the table by the door, turned, and went home.
Only after I got home did the text from Spencer come through.
"You just had someone leave the file by the door? What if it got lost?"
There was a thread of reproach in his tone.
"And we'd agreed. You were coming to my place today so we could go over the wedding plans together."
"You drop off the file and don't even show up yourself. What's that supposed to mean?"
I listened quietly until he finished, then spoke, flat.
"The wedding. Is there even any point anymore?"
"Here we go again."
Spencer's patience snapped thin.
"What are you throwing a tantrum about this time?"
"Irma was here today too. The two of us sat in the living room waiting over two hours for you, and you didn't even show your face."
"Do you actually want to get married? Or are you just toying with me?"
I stayed quiet for a second, then said, calm:
"Spencer, you know yourself that today was supposed to be about discussing our wedding."
"So tell me, what was Irma Fox doing there for something like that?"
There was a beat of silence on the other end, then Spencer sighed.
"Deborah Butler, Irma and I grew up together. She's my mother's goddaughter too."
"She's home on summer break now. What's wrong with her coming by to sit a while?"
"I marry you, and what, I'm supposed to cut Irma out of my life?"
I almost laughed. Said first like that, it made me out to be the petty one.
As if I were the one backing him into a corner.
But the next second, I pulled up Irma's social media post and forwarded it to him.
"Then how do you explain this post? Anyone who didn't know better would think the two of you were discussing your engagement today."
In the post I'd forwarded.
Irma had shared a selfie of her and Spencer.
Both of them beaming at the camera, heads tilted toward each other.
For all the world a couple.
And above the photo, she'd added a caption:
