Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
CADE
Decision Night looked like a finale the town had been rehearsing for years.
The Annex washed the room in soft amber over a sea of battery candles.
String lights stitched through the air and chalkboards at the aisles tallied #TeamBrew, #TeamWick, and #TeamSignal like election returns.
The No-Flame Patrol floated by in cheerful sashes.
I took the space the way I take any room that might decide to disobey. Exits clean, center aisle wide enough for a stretcher.
I had to admit; I was nervous. This was a million-dollar decision that would change the lives of me and my co-investors.
A game changer that the Langfords were generous enough to fund.
But I’d heard the rumors around town; I knew there were people who assumed Ellis was a shoo-in because he was related.
And I knew Ellis hated that.
I only hoped his boss wouldn’t hate him if Signal House ended up losing.
“Y’all can have ambiance,” Miss Pearl murmured as she eased a candle back from a drape. “You just can’t have arson.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She’d already moved on because that was the point.
Brickyard’s table sat near the front. Renderings, timelines you could read without squinting, a mason jar holding #TeamBrew pins.
Across the way, Signal House had a glass-booth mockup with clean lines, one stool, and smart cable routes.
Wick it had only brought him into focus. He held his hand out, and I took it. We shook for a professional five seconds, then let it run on to a sixth we both pretended not to notice.
His palm was warm. Mine stayed there.
“Congratulations,” he said, his voice low enough to almost disappear under the noise of the room. “You earned it.”
“I heard you,” I said, and didn’t specify whether I meant his speech or every time he’d said my name this week.
A grip tech rushed past with a portable light, and we stepped close to let it pass. This time, neither of us hurried to reclaim space. What remained between us was narrow and very informative.
A local reporter walked up to me and started asking questions as Ellis walked away. I answered as politely as I could until she was satisfied and left.
I glanced around the area for Ellis, but he was nowhere to be seen.
My phone buzzed, the group thread. There were fireworks, Beau’s “After party at civilized volumes,” Miss Pearl’s “Count the tokens (and your blessings).”
Then a direct text in a thread I didn’t mute.
Ellis: Proud of you.
It sat on my screen like a hand pressing at the back of my neck.
Me: Back corridor after I sign.
Ellis: Copy.
I finished signing the documents in the bank folder, initialed in the places where initials go, and slipped out the stage door into the service hall.
Cinderblock, mop-water air, the hum of the building. I leaned one shoulder to the wall and took my first real breath of the night.
Footsteps.
Ellis rounded the corner and stopped as if we’d both reached an unspoken mark.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey.”
We didn’t rush to fill the space. The hallway hum did the talking for us.
He stepped closer, close enough that I heard the quiet rasp of starched cotton. Clean, expensive soap, hotel scented, something vaguely citrus. His tie was still perfectly straight. My fingers twitched toward his lapel, but I called them off.
“You kept the exits clean,” he said, almost smiling. “You make rooms behave.”
“Rooms make me behave,” I said, “but people are harder.”
He laughed once, under his breath. It hit me mid-chest like a warm hand.
“Speak for yourself,” he said.
Another tech clattered by with a dolly of chairs and zero interest in anything but coordinating its movement. We pressed shoulder-to-shoulder to let him maneuver around us. Contact, then pressure. Heat that didn’t ask or apologize. I didn’t move my arm until he moved his.
The back hall felt smaller now that the prize had my name on it. The roar from the Annex bled through the door in pulses.
Ellis stepped in close enough that I could see where his tie had started to roll up. For a second, neither of us said anything.
“Don’t look so worried,” he murmured. “You earned it.”
“You made it sound winnable.”
His eyes flicked to my mouth and away again. The kind of look you only catch if you’re quick enough to notice.
And I was.
Out front, Beau started his outro, and the crowd answered in waves. Back here, it was just hum and heartbeat.
“Press wants one more bite,” Ellis said, like he’d remembered his job just in time. “Then I’m supposed to stop Beau from starting a conga line.”
“Public service,” I said. “Somebody’s got to do it.”
Silence held between us for a moment.
“After?” he asked.
“After,” I said. “Neighbor.”
He nodded, then slid his hand to my forearm. It was light, and deliberate. Exactly one second longer than polite.
My pulse noticed first. The rest of me hurried to catch up.
“Cade,” he said, his voice even lower now, “I know I’m the nephew; I know about optics. I know… all of that. But I never wanted a shortcut. Not from them.”
I believed him before he finished. “Yeah,” I said. “You never felt like a shortcut.”
Something in his shoulders loosened.
Footsteps and a burst of laughter rounded the corner. We stepped apart by instinct, two men who just happened to work on the same block. Ellis glanced toward the sound, then back at me with a look that translated to: later.
He took two steps toward the door, then pivoted back.
“You were steady,” he said. “In Portico. And tonight. It made the whole thing feel… safe.”
My hand twitched toward his lapel and stopped halfway. I curled it into a fist instead.
“Don’t get hurt,” I said.
It came out rougher than I meant, but also exactly right.
He breathed out, slowly. “Try not to shut every door at once.”
We leaned in without meaning to, and for a split second it felt inevitable.
Then Beck’s voice carried down the hall, calling time like only a Langford can.
The spell broke.
Ellis gave me one last, direct look, then walked back toward the light and the cameras with the prize I’d just won at his back.
I stayed planted against cold cinderblock until my heart remembered to beat. The folder in my hand held numbers and signatures. The tightness in my chest held everything else.
I pulled out my phone and typed a message I didn’t send: It’s not about the prize. It’s about you.
I watched the words blink, then deleted them.
Beau wrapped the night with sparkle. “Darlings, we counted hands and kept our hair in place. Brickyard, enjoy your victory lap. Signal House, enjoy your close-up. Wick inside was one corridor and a choice.
I made my choice.