Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
CADE
Beau was halfway through a sidewalk hit outside Riverfield Coffee— “live in three… two…”—when the wind that lives between buildings decided to show off.
Signal House’s pop-up caught it like a sail. One back leg skated, the fabric bellied, and an extension cord they’d daisy-chained across the brick went taut, then lazy, snaking into the pedestrian lane.
I moved before my brain wrote a memo to the rest of my body.
Two sandbags—hips, not back. One on the wild leg, one on its partner. I dropped a shoulder under the crossbar, pressed the frame down, and pointed without looking.
“Walk that cord to the wall,” I said to a volunteer, “and tape every three feet.”
“Copy,” the volunteer said, already moving.
Another gust tried to move the canopy. I cinched a tie-down until it complied, hooked a second on the opposite corner, and felt the whole thing remember what gravity was. The folding table had drifted into the curb cut—the exact amount that turns a stroller into a problem.
I nudged it back with my knee and set a sandbag on the base.
“Signal, on me,” a calm voice said.
Ellis.
“Hands on frame,” he added, “three, two, and one. Pull to center. Don’t fight the strap, let it guide.”
Just a few inches to safety, as if it had been rehearsed.
Out of the corner of my eye, Beau’s cameraman wavered between Beau and the wind. Beau didn’t miss a beat.
“Here we observe Riverfield’s famed battery-operated romance in the wild,” he told the mic. “Sandbag first, narrate later.”
The crowd chuckled and exhaled.
Someone by the sponsor wall yelled, “#TeamBrew!”
My face stayed completely still.
The optics of me helping my competition weren’t lost on me. A million dollars were at stake here, and my co-investors at Brickyard Brewery might not appreciate me assisting Signal House.
“Strap,” I said into the air, and a volunteer quickly placed a tie-down in my hand.
I fed it through the corner grommet, braced my foot, and leaned. The canopy made a sound.
Wyatt shouldered in, badge on his belt, eyes on the physics to see how he could help. No takeover, no speech. He clocked the cord run, the bags, the lane, and gave me the pro nod that means clean work; I saw it.
He pivoted to the volunteer proudly taping a perfect line. “Good spacing. Finish that wall; check the curb cut again.”
The extension cord did one last lazy loop toward a stroller wheel. I scooped it up, ran it along the planter, and planted a cone at the worst temptation point out of habit. Not my job, technically. Recusal is cleaner if I never touch anything, but safety is even cleaner.
“Thank you,” Ellis said, close enough to be heard over the band testing a peach-bright chord, far enough away to be professional about it.
I didn’t look at him, I looked at his hands. Flat on the frame, steady without white-knuckling. He didn’t yell; he counted. His crew waited for the count as if it had always been there.
Competence, I told myself.
That was the charge. Anyone can feel the pull of a room obeying the right voice.
That’s all this was.
My pulse had other opinions.
“We’re good,” Ellis said to me, to the air, to his headset.
He lifted both palms and the canopy stayed. The straps agreed. The wind threw one more shoulder at the square and lost the battle; the Commons went back to pretending nothing had happened.
Beau tipped his chin toward us, with his B-roll acquired and secured.
“For viewers at home,” he said, smooth as butter, “this is a live demonstration of why we love sandbags and do not stake into historic brick. Say it along with me: we respect the Commons.”
A volunteer with a green lanyard lifted a roll of black tape like a toast. “How many bags per leg?”
“One to stand,” I said. “Two if it gets flirty.”
He snorted and I kept moving.
Adrenaline wore off like a bruise. I rubbed my palm on my pant leg to get rid of dust that wasn’t there and told myself to check our own setup down the block.
There’d be something to count, something to lift, something to fix that didn’t involve noticing how Ellis adjusted a mic stand with a two-finger touch that was all confidence, zero performance.
“You good?” Wyatt said at my elbow without looking.
“Always,” I said.
He made a noise that meant liar in Deputy. “Want me to log a courtesy note to Signal? Or let the town run the thank-you economy?”
“Let the town,” I said. “It’s cleaner.”
Beau’s cameraman swung wide; Beau gave a sign-off I didn’t fully catch and a wink I did. The square reset to its default—self-impressed, and deservedly so. Pins traded lapels. A dog wagged at everyone with a badge.
I should’ve kept walking. Instead, I looked back once.
Ellis had stepped two paces from the canopy and was scanning the lane exactly how I scan.
Exits, then pinch points, then travel of crowd.
He caught me looking and didn’t bail fast enough.
Not a smile, or even its outline. Just the acknowledgment that we’d both done the sensible thing without making a production of it.
Competence, I told myself again.
The thought didn’t end. It persisted and made me wonder, briefly and against my will, what his voice sounded like in a quiet hallway, pretending we were talking about work.
I’d focus on facts, then.
I dated women. I preferred when rooms behaved.
Whatever this was rode the same circuit as satisfaction and caffeine and a perfectly coiled hose line. Biology doesn’t become a committee vote because a town is watching.
“Hey, Briggs,” someone called from Cast Iron Café’s door. “We’re moving your ice to the back.”
“Copy,” I said, grateful for a word that didn’t ask me to interpret myself. “Back entrance only; keep the front clear.”
“#TeamBrew!” the same voice added, louder, offering it up for the scoreboard.
I didn’t turn. I lifted a hand without looking and headed back toward The Langford Hotel.
We’d checked our tie-downs, counted our cones, and pretended this was just a day.
Behind me, Beau laughed at something off-mic. Ahead, the warehouse doors remained open like a mouth about to speak. I let the town swallow me and told myself the next thing I lifted would be heavy enough to quiet whatever else had started moving inside of me.
Morning at The Langford Hotel always looked expensive. Even the blackout curtains were elegant. I woke with the clean ache you get after moving things that didn’t want to be moved and stared at the ceiling long enough to list everything I hadn’t said yesterday.
Coffee would’ve solved some of my issues, but the universe knocked first.
Not just a knock—an invitation. Cream stock on my door handle, a summons from a kingdom. I cracked it with my thumb.
The envelope contained two CAST IRON CAFé – FREE MEAL tickets: biscuit plate and coffee or country-fried steak. The tickets were paper-clipped to a note in tight, upright handwriting:
For the two who kept Signal on its feet yesterday. Redeem together, please. –P
Miss Pearl didn’t sign like a person. She signed like a policy.
“Together,” I said to the empty room, because apparently, I talked to tickets now.
Through the shared wall there were light sounds of life. I heard a garment bag zipper, hangers rattling. Ellis’s low voice counting time like someone marking beats for a day that would have cameras in it.
I told myself it was proximity, not interest. I told myself a lot of things that sounded like rules because they always had.
I set the tickets on the desk. Picked them up again. Then set them down.
I read the note once more, a man reading the same instructions hoping the words would change.
Shower, too hot. Shirt, the one that didn’t fight the tie.
Boots that would let me lift something heavy if the day called for it.
I folded the note back into the envelope and slid both tickets into my wallet, then took them out and slid them into my pocket instead.
I told myself it was just good manners. The tickets felt heavier than that.
I opened my door as the lock next door beeped. We stepped into the corridor at the same time.
Close enough to see that Ellis had shaved, not close enough to touch. He wore the kind of navy jacket that read as someone who knew what he was doing. His hair had that deliberate-messy look it wore on camera. For a second, neither of us said a word.
Long enough for me to realize I wasn’t in a hurry to move.
“You didn’t have to help,” he said, voice low.
“Couldn’t help it.”
He glanced at the elevator bay at the end of the hall; two cars glowed ready.
“You take that one,” Ellis said. “You know, optics.”
“Right,” I mumbled, nodding my head, maybe a little too sharply. “Finalists don’t carpool.”
“Public rivals,” he said.
“Private line,” I replied, and we both pretended not to remember the number exchange Beau had forced on us with a group text and a wink.
The left car dinged, and Ellis stepped into it.
I stayed put.
His shoulder almost met the closing door before he slid a foot back and let it shut. The right car opened a moment later. The hotel seemed to have a sense of humor about choreography.
I rode alone and counted floors because that’s what a person’s brain does when it wants a distracting task. The envelope in my pocket felt like it weighed more than two pieces of paper should.
The elevator doors opened to the lobby and my ears filled with coffee grinders, suitcases rolling over carpet, and a band testing something upbeat. The other car opened and delivered Ellis like we’d rehearsed it.
We stepped out into the same slice of air, close enough that one of us could’ve offered a hand.
Neither of us did.
Beau drifted past with a mic pack and a cameraman in tow, homing in on the gap between us like it had a tracking beacon.
“Gentlemen,” he sang, not breaking stride, “save the flirting for my camera.”
Heat sparked at the back of my neck.
“We’re not,” I said.
Ellis didn’t answer. He just held my look one second longer than polite, then tipped me a small, precise nod.
Professional. That was all.
Ellis turned toward the café line in the hotel lobby. Someone near the concierge desk chirped, “#TeamBrew!” with the civic enthusiasm of a person who loved a scoreboard more than the sport.
My phone buzzed as Beau’s Tokens he looked at the menu like a contract. When he did flick a glance sideways, it landed, registered, and moved on.
“Morning,” I said.
“Morning.”
I held up the envelope without brandishing it. “Miss Pearl left homework.”
Ellis read the note, smile not appearing, but not not appearing.
“Redeem together,” he said.
“That’s the rule.”
“Are you a rules person?” he asked, eyes back on the menu.
“Yes,” I said, and the word felt weighted.
Ellis nodded once. “Same.”
The line shuffled forward as an espresso machine hissed. A woman at a corner table said something admiring about Tansy’s flowers and something about admiring Tansy less.
The lobby held both comments with equal grace.
Ellis tapped the envelope with a finger. “We should do it when it won’t look like we’re… whatever Beau thinks we are.”
“Tonight?” I said. “After Beau’s Roast.”
“Seven?” he asked.
“Seven,” I said.
We moved another step. A pair of tourists debated grits as if they were picking a college for their child. My pocket felt lighter.
“Thanks for the strap work yesterday,” he said, still looking at the chalkboard drink specials.
“Thanks for counting. Your crew listens to you.”
“That’s the job,” he said.
I nodded. “Same.”
We didn’t talk about the token, or the intern bus, or the way a gust can introduce two people faster than a host ever could. We didn’t talk about straight, or not.
We kept it to coffee—the one thing between us with a clear label.
He took his to-go cup with a nod that meant I’ve got a day to run.
I took mine with a nod that meant Me too.
We split without calling it splitting.
On the way to the doors, Beau skated by, perfectly manicured as always.
“Tonight!” he said, as if he’d been listening without hearing. “Pitch & Play Roast! Don’t bring me a lecture, bring me a laugh.”
“Copy,” I said.
Ellis smiled and was gone into the morning.
I stood there longer than I should have, coffee warming my hand, envelope a cold edge against my hip, and decided the safest thing I could do was the dangerous one: show up, at seven, for a dinner I didn’t need.