2. Let the Coin Decide
The bank is big and echoey and, now that we have withdrawn the money for the deposit on the apartment and the smallest euro cent coin they would allow, we are down to less than fifty euros between the two of us.
"Okay," he sighs, holding the coin in his palm. "Whatever the coin says is what will happen. Are we both okay with all the outcomes?"
"You win, I have to take the apartment. I win, you have to take the apartment," I repeat. "I call, you'll flip. We're using this new uncompromized coin so neither of us can say there was any cheating involved."
"What happens if it rolls down those stairs over there?" the woman behind us asks. "You should agree what to do if the answer isn't clear."
"I—" We both look at each other. It's clear neither of us considered what we would do if the answer was unclear. Probably because the odds of a coin not landing on one side of the other are literally non-existent.
"Probably make sense for you to flip again," another helpful bystander says. "Or just agree to share whatever it is you're fighting over."
"It's an apartment," I say simply.
"Oh, maybe not, then."
"Why not?" I ask, getting way too brave. "I mean, it's not likely the coin will do anything but give us a clear answer. On the, what, 0.02% chance it does something else maybe we should just accept it as fate or the universe or whatever."
"We've had a one in a million odds coming here and look at our luck." He replies.
"Exactly. So if it happens again..." I look up to find him biting at his lip, arms firmly held behind his back, exposing his strong shoulder muscles to everyone with eyes. He's not into the idea. "Never mind. I'm being ridiculous."
"You aren't," he says finally. "You're right. Off chance it does something unexpected, we'll let the universe have her way. No fighting with fate, right?"
Are we really sitting here agreeing to get married because of a coin flip?
"It won't matter anyway," the lady beside us helpfully offers, having no idea what she's just stepped in the middle of. "Just don't throw it down the stairs."
"Right," I agree. "Yeah. It's just a coin toss. It'll be fine."
"So are we agreed?" Rafael asks after a moment, lifting my chin with his finger until I'm looking him in the eye. "Are we okay with all outcomes?"
"Yes," I answer, swallowing the lump growing in my throat. It's going to be fine. It's just a coin toss.
He nods again and hands me the coin. "You flip; I'll call."
"We agreed to the opposite," I say, pushing the coin back into his hands. My eyes wander to the staircase that holds my destiny.
I do not want this coin to roll down those stairs, I think as hard as I can. Maybe the coin will believe me. I'm not sure I believe myself right now. The situation is dire and the odds of us finding anywhere else are... slim. We need this apartment and we don't have another choice. I glance back at the stairs again, not sure at all which outcome I'm hoping for.
"Okay." He swallows, holding the coin in his hand. "Call it in the air."
Why can't I breathe?
He balances the coin on his thumb and everything stills.
"One, two..." he counts, "three."
And then the coin is in the air, flipping circles around itself as it rises toward the ceiling.
"Heads," I say as it reaches the top of its trajectory.
The whole bank watches the coin come down, and it's like a slow-motion movie.
I close my eyes when it reaches his hand. The only thing I'm sure of is I have no idea which outcome I'm hoping for. No, that's a lie. I need to win. He needs the apartment more than me. I dragged him all the way here.
Seconds tick past and the sound of metal on marble rips me from my hiding place, my eyes shooting directly to Rafael's. We stare at each other, both ignoring the coin as it bounces across the floor and rolls toward the stairs.
Neither of us is looking at it, but I can tell what it's doing by the way it sounds.
I'm still looking at Rafael, and his curious face is more searching than scared. Like he knows what he wants or doesn't care about the outcome. Or both.
The coin stops rolling. We aren't moving.
"What happened?" I finally ask, shaking myself out of my daze and searching the direction I know the coin rolled. "What did it land on?"
The stone taps beneath my feet with every step I take, searching the floor for the small coin I'm only now realizing blends really well with the flooring.
Finally, my eyes scan across a chipped tile and find the coin.
Wedged in between the cracked pieces of tile. Standing straight up and down on end.
"What are the odds?" I ask no one in particular.
One of the tellers answers with some outrageously unlikely number. Like one in three billion or trillion or million. Honestly, I can't hear over the river rushing through my ears.
There's no way.
I'm still staring at it when Rafael reaches my side.
He looks at the coin. He looks at me. He looks back at the coin.
I can't do anything but watch as his delicate fingers pluck the coin from its resting place and place it in his hand.
"So that means..." he begins, but I cut him off before he says the words I don't want to hear.
"We can just toss it again," I blurt out. "Or you can have the apartment."
"I'm not taking the apartment!" he pokes his finger into my shoulder. "You really think I'm letting you win like that?"
I don't say anything, and he continues.
"If you don't want to accept the coin's outcome, then you forfeit and I win. Which means you take the apartment."
"I can't do that! Then I'll have cheated you out of a place to stay."
"Then I guess we'll just have to get married," he says with a shrug, like it's the easiest decision in the world for him.
"You'd get married to me because of what a coin said?" I shouldn't be hoping he says yes. I am not hoping he says yes.
"I did make a solemn oath to do as the coin decided."
It was not a solemn oath. It wasn't an oath at all. What is going on?
"Unless you don't want to." He says suddenly. "Obviously I don't want to make you marry me. Maybe we should have this conversation somewhere else then."
I can't meet his eyes right now, not wanting to see if it's mocking or hurt I see there. And definitely not sure which one would be worse.
"It's not that," I say, wishing I knew how to finish the sentence.
"We did say we'd have grand adventures on the continent," he says, reaching his hand out and securing mine inside. "I've never dropped you before."
He has, once. But it's a sore spot for him, so I don't bring it up. I just finally gain the courage to look into his eyes. "Are you serious right now?"
"Yes," he says, somewhat reticent, eyes searching my face for clues. "I don't have anyone else I want to marry. If I have to be married to anyone, I wouldn't mind it being you. Don't you think?"
"Would we tell people we were married?" I ask, only now catching up to the fact that we're having this very personal conversation in the middle of a bank. "Could we maybe take a walk in the park while we make this decision?"
"Of course," he offers me his arm and escorts me out the door, one woman shamelessly following behind us into the street.
"Are you sure about this?" I ask him. "Don't we need time to think?"
"We will have time to think. I doubt she'll ask for our marriage certificate today. Why don't we just tell her we're married and then if we decide not to do it we can just back out of the apartment."
"I'm not doing this half way," I say. "If we're actually going to get married to share an apartment, I'm going to need to set some ground rules."
"It's just a piece of paper, Piper," he shrugs. "I trust you. What more could I need?"
He has a point. Divorce isn't a huge deal anymore. It's not like we don't know each other. This could be the solution to everything.
"I can't make you do it," I sigh. "There has to be another way."
"There is," he says simply. "You forfeit and take the apartment. I won't be mad at you for it."
"I'll be mad at me."
"You shouldn't be, though. I'll be fine. I'm a lot harder to replace, so they can hardly get mad at me for being late, right?"
"Rafael, be serious."
"I am being serious. I don't want to get married for love or grand gestures or whatever. At least not for a few years. I know you and I know we wouldn't mess each other up over this. If either of us wants out, we just get the thing cancelled or whatever and go on our merry way. We can even say we'll get a divorce before we leave France if that makes you feel better. Leave our families right out of this. But I really don't see how being married to you is all that bad. You can come make decisions for me when I get injured and have my things if I die."
"How very optimistic," I say. "And this marriage, then, would just be on paper? We wouldn't need to, you know, act married?"
He doesn't say anything and something flickers in his eyes but he averts them too quickly for me to read.
"We'd stay friends, though," I say finally. "And this paper is just what gets us the house?"
"Once we have enough for different accommodations or one of us goes somewhere else or finds someone they might want to marry, we'll be done with it. We don't even have to tell anyone."
"Well..." Why am I seriously considering this madness? Has my brain been abducted by aliens?
"I've never dropped you, Piper," he repeats. "I'm not going to drop you."
"I know you aren't," I say, wringing my hands. I can't well tell him it isn't his dropping me I'm worried about, it's finding out what being married to him would be like and then having it taken away in the blink of an eye. That would be worse than anything I've gone through so far. It would be much worse than being dropped.
"Well, you think about it," he says when we reach Mrs. Pérez's front door. "I'll put your name on the lease for now and we can decide what to do with me later."
"Okay," I say, nodding. "Yeah. Okay."
"Good. Let's go."
We walk up the small flight of stairs and ring the bell again, his hand securing mine with a reassuring squeeze. His smile telling me everything will be okay.
"We have the deposit," I blurt when she opens the door.
"Piper will be taking the unit," he tells her in Spanish.
They talk about the logistics and the best way to get to work, and he relays everything to me again in English even though I understand it all.
The whole time, his hand never leaves mine.
"We'll both be taking the unit," I blurt again. I really need to get a grip on myself. "Or, we'd like to, once we are officially wed. The date is coming soon."
"It's what now?" Rafael looks like I smacked him in the face.
"If the groom is agreeable to, um, moving up the date," I say finally.
"He needs to speak to the bride first," Rafael says, eyes questioning everything I've ever done with just one look.
His hand is still in mine, soft and warm.
"We've always been the best partners, Rafael. Best friends, best pas de deux. Best."
"I am the best pas de deux partner, it's true."
"Don't make me lie about you never dropping me right now, Rafa."
"Wow. Why don't you just break my legs while you're at it. It'll hurt less."
"Be serious. Who says friends can't get married?"
"I mean... societal custom would say..."
"But the law doesn't say we have to have any particular affiliation or like for each other. Arranged marriages happen all the time."
"You're really making me sound like a catch."
"You are, Rafael. It's just... You're right. This is our dream. And this apartment is the best way to make it happen. This will be a great story to tell our grandchildren one day. When they're very old and we want to make them uncomfortable for something they said to us."
"It will make a pretty good story," he says. "And marriages have been built on shakier ground."
"Shakier than wanting a cheap apartment?" I ask. Because he cannot mean that.
"Shakier than the best friends the world has ever seen."
"Oh, well, when you put it like that."
Mrs. Pérez clears her throat.
"Sorry," Rafael relays in Spanish. "We'd love to rent the apartment. Only Piper will stay here until we are married and then I will join her. If that's acceptable to you."
He uses the formal conjugation. He's sucking up.
"You'll both sign the lease," she says finally, waving her finger between us. "But I'll accept you. My old bones don't want to climb those stairs for any more showings."
"We got it?"
"We got it!"
I don't even think before launching myself into his arms.
He catches me with ease. He's not going to drop me.
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