"I guess nobody will actually be as - watchful - as it feels like they will -"

"People mostly aren't. Minor might be, uh, confused."

"I didn't mean to tell him he was mumbling about how you're not supposed to ask one girl for help dating another girl and I just blurted out 'no you idiot I wanted Miranda'."

"There're people who - want both - they usually just settle down respectably, no point in ruining your life over it if you have alternatives - but Miranda couldn't think of an especially plausible way to bring that fact to Minor's attention."

"It might not be hard to sell him on 'not girls in general, just her'."

"He seems plausibly persuadable that Miranda is just attraction-warpingly perfect."

"I'd buy it."

"She's a lovely young woman." Sigh. "I have a secret boyfriend."

"Okay."

"We're careful. No one knows except Miranda, and that was because we told her."

"This makes some things make more sense in retrospect."

"Oh?"

"If she'd meant 'do you want Timothy to discreetly matchmake you' she could've said that but she was very careful about who she wanted to tell."

"If you'd seemed like a much better fit for my secret boyfriend I'd have done discreet matchmaking instead."

"Whatever I let Minor think about it it's not literally just her, only mostly, if I ever find somebody who would be a good secret girlfriend -"

"You absolutely should, if you can. It helps."

"How do you even find a secret person."

"I got very lucky. Could - look who hasn't married, in a couple years, invite them over for dinner, see if - now that we know it's something to look for -"

Nod.

Sigh. 

"At the winter ball my seventh year Jocosa was very drunk and I panicked and stunned her and he found us and guessed what was going on and after I'd walked her back to her dorm he found me and said 'you're not into women, are you -""

"- aw."

"Yeah. Otherwise - I'd gotten plenty good at brewing them they just all have quite a few drawbacks -"

"- what's wrong with them -"

"Uh, cost and suspiciousness of materials, dosing, some of them affect your judgment on, like, the trustworthiness and reasonableness of the target - there's nothing that just does attraction, I don't know why not, love isn't really the thing I want anyway -"

"Usually with problems in the 'limited availability of potions' department I ask my dad but."