Chapter 5 Ellis #2
Beau pinched his fingers together like he’d found spice. “Sell your rival in one sentence,” he said, suddenly turning predator against predator. “Ellis, sell Brickyard. Cade, sell Signal. Minimal slander.”
I took a breath, watched Cade watching me, not to see if I’d flatter him but to see if I’d lie.
“Brickyard,” I said, “is the calm you want between the thing that happened and the thing you want to happen next. It’s a third place run by someone who knows neighbors matter and who will politely close at ten so you can’t make your worst decisions there.”
A low murmur from the audience.
Cade absorbed it without reacting, then looked at me the way he looked at a sprinkler head pointing the wrong direction. Attentive, problem-first, and no drama.
“Signal House,” he said, “brings a spotlight and a voice to people. They’ll make folks feel heard, then get out of the way before Beau talks them into questionable life choices.”
Strange for a pitch. But it was right.
Beau staggered theatrically. “Gentlemen, I asked for a flirt and you’re giving… civic poetry. This is a roast, not couple’s counseling.”
“We’re not flirting,” I said, probably a little too quickly.
“He flirts slow,” someone yelled, which did not help my pulse.
Beau checked his imaginary wristwatch. “Okay, one-minute notice. Give me your best closer before Miss Pearl shuts off the streetlights.”
I went practical again, the way I know how to win rooms.
“We’ll be open at reasonable hours,” I said, “with audio described tours of exhibits, bilingual shows. Riverfield Remembers on Sundays at noon. We’ll do the boring paperwork so that the interesting people can talk and shine.”
“Interesting,” Beau said, “is a polite word for ‘uninsurable.’ Right, Wyatt?”
Wyatt lifted a single finger in the air and nodded.
Cade wrapped up. “We’ll add four full-time jobs, eight part-time. Free nonalcoholic drinks for designated drivers. Soft-serve ice cream machine that actually works. And a posted last call that is the actual last call.”
The cameraman did a delighted little hop when Cade mentioned the functioning soft-serve machine. Social media would eat that alive by morning.
Beau breathed the crowd in like perfume. “Riverfield, tell me, do you feel informed?”
“Count the tokens!” someone yelled.
This audience never met a callback it didn’t love.
“Count the tokens,” Beau agreed, winking at me. “Count the cones, count your blessings. And count yourselves lucky that Miss Pearl has not put us all in time-out.”
Miss Pearl lifted her clipboard. The Commons quieted by instinct.
“And now,” Beau said, “for the part wherein I ask you to clap.”
Applause rose. The cameraman swung wide to catch the entire square. Brickyard’s canopy with its sandbagged legs, Wick it was the Riverfield kind—soft edges, hard truths, and everyone going home with their eyebrows intact.
I stepped back from the edge of the riser. My pulse hummed.
Cade was at the other end of the stage, handing the mic stand to a volunteer because he’d seen her struggle with the latch. He looked up when the stand finally cooperated. Our eyes met in the space between applause and chatter.
I could’ve been coy. But instead, I did the thing that costs nothing and counts for everything. I nodded once, and it meant: thank you.
Cade did his micro-acknowledgment.
Beau slid between us with the flair of a talent agent trying to manage us. “Delicious, boys,” he murmured. “If I had a spoon, I’d eat this tension.”
I smiled and replied, “Save it for your after show.”
“Already writing it,” Beau quipped. “The working title is Fire Code & Feelings.”
“Please don’t,” Cade said, which only encouraged Beau.
Beau mimed framing us with his fingers, like he was already stealing the moment for B-roll.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. Not the group thread—just a single, quiet vibration that sent shivers over every inch of me.
Cade: Seven. Dinner.
An innocuous sentence, but it felt like a rope tossed across a gap.
Beau watched my face like a weather report.
“Big cloud?” he asked, raising one eyebrow.
“Chance of forks,” I said.
He glanced over at Cade, then back at me, before peeling off with a grin.
Miss Pearl swept past, tucking an errant cable with the side of her shoe.
Her eyes found me for a fraction of a second, and in them I saw two things: good choice. And: don’t waste it.
I looked down at the text again, as if it might evaporate if I blinked too quickly.
Seven. Dinner.
Rules, I told myself. Redeem together.
Rivals, I reminded my brain. On camera.
I pocketed the phone and stepped into the noise of Riverfield. The Commons smelled of magnolia leaves, and I felt a sense of relief. The sun picked a beautiful angle and made the day gorgeous. Across the way, Cade said something to Wyatt that made him tip his head with laughter.
My heart did a small, rude roll that I ignored. On principal.
I told myself dinner was just about logistics with coffee on the side.
The town chanted, “Count the tokens,” a joke it would never grow tired of telling. I counted seconds, then steps, then the ways this could go wrong and the handful that might go right. The clock on the courthouse said I had just enough time to change my shirt.
When I turned, Miss Pearl was there. At the corner of the riser, straightening a sign.
“Seven,” she said without even looking up. “Don’t be late.”