Ellery #3
He let out a short laugh that didn’t reach his eyes. “We like winning. Just not the same way.”
“And what way is that?”
He leaned back, gaze flicking toward me before settling somewhere distant. “He plays for recognition. I play so no one forgets me.”
For a heartbeat, the room felt smaller.
That wasn’t the kind of answer you expected from him—the guy who met tension with smirks and insults, who seemed to wear arrogance like armor. But there it was, raw and unguarded. Something that sounded a lot like truth.
I opened my mouth, unsure what I was about to say—something half-comforting, half-curious—but before I could, Kyle’s voice broke through the hum of the room.
“You two plotting world domination without me?”
I looked up. Kyle was back, smiling like he didn’t notice the weight that had just filled the air.
Beckett didn’t miss a beat. “Something like that,” he said flatly, standing just enough to create space between them.
Kyle laughed lightly, oblivious or pretending to be. “Careful, Mason. If you’re nice to her, I’ll start thinking the PR campaign’s working.”
Beckett just shrugged, his expression unreadable. “Guess we’ll see.”
The photographer called out for final positions, breaking the moment. Everyone began to shuffle back to their marks, voices rising again, cameras clicking.
But the air between the three of us didn’t reset so easily.
As Kyle moved toward the lights, his arm brushed mine, steady and familiar. Beckett stood just behind him, the tension coiled in his shoulders so tight it practically hummed.
I found myself caught between them—one polished, one unpredictable—and for the first time, I realized this wasn’t just rivalry. It was personal.
And the worst part was, I had no idea which of them I was supposed to root for.
The final setup was supposed to be simple—one last group shot, polished and professional. But nothing about the air in that room felt simple anymore.
I stood between them—Kyle on my right, Beckett on my left—smiling for the camera like my pulse wasn’t stuttering in my throat. The backdrop gleamed, the lights were perfect, and the kids were waving from the sidelines. All I had to do was look composed.
“Closer together, please,” the photographer called.
Beckett shifted in first, his shoulder brushing mine. A faint spark zipped up my arm, ridiculous and immediate. I forced myself to keep smiling, eyes fixed on the lens.
Then Kyle’s arm slipped easily around my waist—familiar, public, confident. The kind of touch that looked perfect on camera.
I felt Beckett tense beside me, the air between them drawing taut like a live wire. His jaw flexed once. He didn’t look at Kyle, but he didn’t have to. The photographers caught it anyway—the contrast between them too sharp to miss.
The flash went off again and again, blinding bursts freezing us into something that probably looked effortless from the outside. Beckett’s stare didn’t find the lens—it drifted somewhere just beyond it, distant and unreadable.
And through it all, I felt it—the current humming under my skin, the weight of both men beside me for entirely different reasons.
The photographer finally called, “Perfect! That’s a wrap.”
The room exhaled as one. Crew members cheered softly, kids clapped, and Cam started giving wrap notes to the media team. Everyone moved, voices rising, laughter returning. Everyone except me.
Kyle turned first, giving me that perfect grin that worked on everyone—polite, warm, unshakably confident. “You killed it,” he said, giving me a quick squeeze before letting go. “Dinner later, if practice allows?”
“Sure,” I said automatically, but he was already halfway across the room, chatting with one of the reporters before I could finish the sentence.
Beckett, on the other hand, stayed behind.
While the crew packed up equipment, he crouched to help stack the leftover boxes by the wall. No one asked him to. He just did it, sleeves pushed up, expression calm but unreadable.
I hesitated, watching him for a moment before crossing over. “You didn’t have to stay.”
“Didn’t say I was staying for you.”
I crossed my arms, half-smiling. “Of course not.”
He looked up at that, the corner of his mouth tugging like he wanted to smirk but wasn’t quite in the mood. For a second, the silence between us wasn’t awkward—it was steady, comfortable even.
Then, quieter, he said, “You handled that pretty well. All the chaos.”
I tilted my head. “You mean your chaos?”
That finally earned the smirk. “That too.”
For a moment, I didn’t know what to say. So I didn’t. I just watched him finish stacking the last box, his movements slow and deliberate, like he wasn’t in any rush to leave.
Then he stood, brushed off his hands, and nodded once. “See you around, James.”
“Yeah,” I said softly. “See you.”
He walked out; the door swinging shut behind him with a quiet click.
And even as the noise of the cleanup filled the room again, I caught myself still looking at that door—still feeling the ghost of that spark against my skin.
I told myself it was just adrenaline, just exhaustion.
But deep down, I wasn’t so sure.