Chapter 7 Ellis
CHAPTER SEVEN
ELLIS
Sunday was always a reset for Riverfield.
The Commons stretched itself awake. A band playing gentle jazz, pastry boxes being carried around. Everyone acting as if they’d been ready the whole time. Cast Iron came to life behind me with the sounds of sheet pans and the song of the coffee grinder. I had a to-go cup and a roll of tape.
Cade was already there.
He stood at the southwest curb cut with his hands in his pockets. He was counting without moving his mouth at all. Trash cans, stroller lanes, and places panic invites itself. He looked up once, our eyes met, and it landed like we’d both agreed to show up early and not discuss it.
“Morning,” I said, because manners are free.
“Morning.” He tipped his chin at the curb. “We’ll lose that lane by ten if we don’t widen now.”
“Copy.”
I kept moving. Power run for the mini riser, the sponsor wall.
“Need hands?” he asked from just close enough to help and just far enough to behave.
“I can fight gravity,” I said. “Well… usually.”
He didn’t smile, as if he were a man who considered gravity a challenge.
Beck arrived like weather—quick and visible. He was wearing a custom-tailored shirt with The Langford Hotel embroidered on it. He set a placard on an easel near the sponsor wall.
“Morning,” he said. “Let’s keep cords married to the skirts and our smiles plastered on.”
“Working on it,” I said.
Beck scanned the square. “Text me if anyone tries to import applause,” he added, already moving.
Beck was an Operations Director with a last name that could start a fight and, mercifully, stop one.
I reached up to strap a banner, flipped the buckle, and tugged. It spat the strap back like we were playing a game, and I was losing.
“Half-hitch,” Cade said, suddenly there. He didn’t touch me until he asked, “Here?”
“Yes,” I said, attempting to grant permission to a knot, not to his hands.
He stepped in behind me, reached around, and guided my hands through the motion.
“Thumb here,” he said. “Wrap it once, then feed it under. Pull back to yourself.”
His breath grazed my ear on yourself.
The knot shifted into place as if it’d finally been convinced to comply.
I stared at the obedience I hadn’t earned.
“Capability is intriguing,” I said.
“It’s timely,” he said with a smile, and stepped back faster than he’d moved in.
We pretended to like distance for a moment. I tightened the second strap like I’d been born knowing how to do it. Cade did a slow sweep. Fountain, hotel doors, sky. Exits. My producer brain took notes, the rest of me forgot how to exhale.
“Heyyy content goblins,” Beau sang, materializing in a denim jacket and sunglasses that would be illegal on a weaker face. His cameraman hovered; lens already live. “Give me one comment before the town remembers it’s wholesome.”
“No fire safety myths,” I said.
“Adorable,” Beau approved, then to the lens: “Battery romance only. Feelings later.”
He drifted off to talk to a grandmother like she was a celebrity.
By nine, the Commons had started to buzz. Strollers, dogs, and a pair of women who posed in front of the sponsor wall. Wick I mirrored him on the other side. Our hands bumped in the middle, chalk dusted. I started to brush the white off his knuckle, but he stopped me and left it there.
“Evidence,” he said—and didn’t dust it off.
I stood too quickly, clipped the A-frame again, and cursed… again.
The pocket kit reappeared, again.
Another clean, another small bandage, his thumb bracing the pad—slower now, like both of us remembered the first time and were pretending we didn’t.
“Do you carry that kit for all your enemies?” I asked lightly. “Or just me?”
“Enemies don’t show up early,” he said.
I was going to feel that in my ribs the rest of the morning.
A woman in a #TeamSignal tee leaned in. “Y’all are good on camera,” she confessed, then winked at both of us. “Play nice.”
“We’ll try,” I said.
“We certainly will,” he said.
The stroller tangle never came back, and the wind downgraded itself to background noise. Our private thread stayed holstered; even with Cade just ten feet away from me.
“Ellis,” Beck called from the mezzanine steps, voice pitched to carry. “Lantern Room tonight at nine-fifteen. I need faces for the lighting test.”
He had a dozen hotel employees to choose from. Asking for me while Cade was still in earshot wasn’t subtle. The day sheet would say “Lantern Room light test,” but everyone knew a cover story when they heard one.
I lifted a hand. My phone buzzed a moment later.
Cade: Lantern?
I typed Copy, deleted it because it felt flat, then sent it because it was correct.
Cade and I inevitably crossed in the lane like people who hadn’t planned to.
“Got it,” I said. “I’ll be there.”
“Good,” Beck said, already turning back to whatever other problems he was trying to solve.
Miss Pearl did one last pass with a basket of biscuits she pretended was about carbs but was actually about morale. She set one on each finalist’s table and placed a tiny LED candle next to mine as if we were celebrating something we hadn’t named.
“Daylight’s kinder when you eat,” she said, then added to me alone, “and when you stop pretending you don’t like what you like. Eyes first, hands later.”
She patted my wrist and floated off to adjust a picture frame.
People walked all around us, filling the air with chatter. Wick not about how Cade looked in it.