I noticed it first on Monday morning, wide awake at 4 a.m., right there in black and white on my phone app. 25 Across: Avian metaphor for a romantic couple (9 letters); 30 Across: Two of a kind (4 letters); 69 Across: Must-have (4 letters). I gasped at the boldness and my husband, Tom, rolled away from me in bed. 

Tuesday was a bit more subtle, but now that I suspected Will’s intent, I couldn’t unsee his advances. He complimented me in 16 Across: Gave out, as charm (6 letters); flirted in 31 Across: Handy (5 letters); and boldly suggested a rendezvous in 35 Across: Resort with a signature pina colada, perhaps? (10 letters). I can’t remember the last time Tom and I had been to a resort, that he’d suggested a rendezvous, that he’d flirted with me. 

On Wednesday, I worked through the Across clues, and nothing. I thought maybe I’d been wrong about Will, maybe he wasn’t trying to seduce me, maybe I was just another middle-aged woman wanting to be desired so badly I saw things that weren’t there. But then I got to 50 Down: Nervous (5 letters), and realized he was being coy, building up to 53 Down: What hearts represent in the face of a love emoji (4 letters). I hummed through the rest of my day. 

My daughter, Sophie, interrupted my puzzle on Thursday morning to say she was going to be late for school, and I dropped my phone as if I’d been watching porn. I threw on some sweatpants and got her there just before the first bell. When I got home, I climbed back in bed and back to the puzzle, searching. And there it was, 47 Across: Get right down to business (6 letters), and then, 56 Down: Hot (4 letters). I did. And it was. 

I could barely look at Tom Friday morning as we drank our coffee on the patio, him with his birding app, me with NYT Games. While he talked to me about Flickers and Yellowthroats and three kinds of swallows, I tried to breathe normally through 54 Across: It’ll warm your buns (4 letters) and 2 Down: Spread (6 letters). Saturday was even harder, but at least Tom was at his book club when I tapped on the app to discover 58 Across: “Be gentle” (10 letters), and 52 Down: Opening (4 letters). 

And then it was Sunday, and Tom came home from the gym with a paper copy of the New York Times as he did each week, and handed the magazine to me like it was flowers. We sat across from each other in the kitchen and he opened the sports section. A sharpened pencil lay beside my coffee but I couldn’t bring myself to turn to the puzzle, to throw away forty years of marriage.

“Who won?” I asked Tom, pushing the magazine away from me, not even sure what sport I was talking about. 

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(Answers, in order, from NYT 3/12/26, 3/19/26, 3/27/26, 3/23/26, 4/1/26, 4/2/26): Lovebirds, Pair, Need, Exuded, Of Use, Beach Hotel, Tense, Eyes, Dive In, Sexy, Oven, Unroll, Go Easy On Me, Pore)