Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
ELLIS
I told myself I was done looking at my phone, then checked it again anyway.
Tokens it just settled between us.
Our hands found reasons to stay near each other without actually being together. If you looked fast, it was two guys planning cones.
If you looked slowly, it was a problem.
“Public stays clean,” I said, voicing a rule I needed to hear.
“Clean,” he echoed. “And Ellis—”
“Yeah?”
“Not tonight,” he said, his voice even.
Not stern.
Real.
It slid into me like a gear finding its place.
He hadn’t said never. He’d set a perimeter and trusted me to honor it. Somehow that felt hotter than a yes would have.
“Copy,” I said, because it was better than okay.
We went back to the map because the map wouldn’t kiss anyone. He traced the neat blue run of power, checking my math, and I pretended that the shiver in my wrist was caused by air-conditioning.
“Do you want a volunteer posted at your tap water cooler?” I asked, finally finding a safe thing to say. “Sometimes people refill like they’re at a well.”
“One human and a trash can,” he said. “If you give people an obvious place to do the right thing, they usually do it.”
“Make it easy to be good,” I said.
Cade gave me that look. The one that meant he was going to pretend to dislike that phrase.
“You’re going to make me a sign, aren’t you?” he said.
“Only if you deserve it.”
His shoulder brushed mine.
Nothing. Everything.
He smiled at me. “Don’t get sentimental on me.”
“Never,” I said. “That’s Beau’s job.”
He ran through one more pass, reviewing the map. Booth edge to fountain, fountain to the alley, alley back to the hotel’s driveway.
I knew the route by heart.
“You’ll text if anything shifts?” he asked.
I thought of wind wrestling the canopy, of his hands on the legs.
Of the calm that poured out of him when a room wanted to panic.
“Yes,” I said.
His eyes locked with mine.
“I should let you sleep,” he said.
“You should,” I replied, but didn’t move.
Neither did he.
We existed in the kind of pause people hate and love at the same time.
Two breaths. Then a third.
The lamp hummed behind me and the thermostat glowed as if watching.
He broke first, mercifully.
“Thanks for the map,” he said.
“Thanks for the knot,” I said, intentionally holding his gaze.
He tucked the cord back into my palm instead of pocketing it.
“Keep it,” he replied. “Insurance.”
My skin memorized the pressure.
“I’ll practice,” I said.
He started for the door and turned back to look at me. “Goodnight, Ellis.”
“Night, Cade.”
The latch closed and I stared at the door. The room felt suddenly too quiet, like it had been rearranged.
I cleared the desk. The paracord lay in a small, patient coil. I looped the knot again, slowly, exactly like he’d done. Then yanked the quick release and pretended the burning sensation in my chest was about rope.
My phone lit up with Beau’s pinned stories. Slow-motion confetti from yesterday, a poll about which finalist had the best merch table.
I drafted a text and hovered over it.
You left your pencil.
But he didn’t.
You’re bad for my concentration.
Too honest.
If we’re not kissing, can we at least look?
Delete immediately, send myself to horny jail.
I locked the screen before I could betray myself and set the phone face-down. Through the wall, the TV in the next room made one final noise then went silent.
I turned off the lamp and let the suite fall into darkness. I lay back and told my pulse to slow down, but it ignored me.
The paracord waited on the nightstand like a souvenir from his hands.
On the other side of the wall, a floorboard eased and creaked. Soft, ordinary.
Nothing.
I smiled into the dark for no reason I’d ever admit in writing.
Boundaries, I reminded myself.
Cade had drawn a line and trusted me to see it.
“I see it,” I told the ceiling.
Maybe saying it out loud would make it real.
The ceiling kept my secret, and somewhere a few feet away, a neighbor I wasn’t kissing turned off his light.