Beckett #2
I handed her the last stray cone. Our fingers brushed — a small, stupid thing, barely a second. But it hit like an electric jolt straight through my gut. She didn’t flinch, but she noticed. I could tell by the way she inhaled just a little too slow before she spoke again.
“You know,” she said, trying to play it off, “for someone who hates volunteering, you’re doing a lot of it.”
I huffed a laugh. “Yeah, well… hate’s a strong word.”
Her brow lifted. “So what is it then?”
“Complicated.”
“You mean inconvenient.”
That got a real laugh out of me — low, unguarded. “You’re not wrong.”
The smile she gave me after that wasn’t the polite, professional one she wore around donors or staff. It was softer. Smaller. Real. And that made it worse. Because the more real she got, the harder it was to keep pretending I didn’t care.
I shouldn’t want this. Shouldn’t care how she looked at me, or how her voice softened when she said my name. Shouldn’t give a damn about the way she wiped sweat off her brow and smiled like the world wasn’t caving in on her shoulders.
But I did.
I cared too much.
And standing there, close enough to smell the faint hint of coffee on her breath and see the dirt smudge on her calf, I realized something I didn’t want to admit.
It wasn’t just that I wanted to help her.
I wanted to keep showing up — not because she needed me, but because she let me.
And that scared the hell out of me.
Ellery stretched her back, wincing a little as she straightened. Her hands were streaked with dirt, and she wiped them on her jeans without a second thought. There was a faint smudge on her cheek — just a streak of dust, but my eyes caught it, anyway.
“You missed a spot,” I said before I could stop myself.
She looked up, one eyebrow lifting, a teasing glint in her eyes. “You volunteering to fix it?”
“Don’t tempt me.”
The words came out rougher than I meant — low, quiet, heavier than a joke had any right to sound.
Something in the air shifted then, so subtle it would’ve been easy to pretend it didn’t happen. But I felt it. The way the laughter between us suddenly turned fragile, charged. The way her breath hitched just enough that I noticed.
Neither of us moved.
The field was quiet now, the volunteers gone, the birds humming in the trees like static. The clouds had thickened overhead, gray with the promise of rain. She stood there in front of me — hair messy, dirt on her cheek, eyes soft but unreadable — and I couldn’t make myself look away.
For a second, I imagined reaching out. Just brushing my thumb over that streak of dirt. Nothing more. Nothing dangerous. Just… contact.
But I didn’t.
She stepped back first, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. The sound that came out of her — half laugh, half exhale — broke whatever fragile thing had been holding us still. “We should get this inside before it rains,” she said.
“Yeah. Probably.”
My voice didn’t sound like mine. Too low. Too careful.
She turned and started walking toward the storage shed, arms full of equipment again. I followed a few paces behind; the silence stretching between us.
Every step felt heavier than it should’ve.
I hated how much I wanted to stay in that moment — the almost-touch, the almost-smile, the almost-everything.
It was stupid. Dangerous. Wrong.
But the worst part?
It was the best I’d felt in weeks.
I drove home late that night, the sky already bruising at the edges.
The rain started soft — a few lazy drops on the windshield — then built into something heavier. The kind that blurred the streetlights and filled the silence you didn’t want to think through.
Wipers kept time with the storm, a steady rhythm against the noise in my head.
Her laugh kept replaying. That quick, unguarded one she let slip when I slipped in the mud during our stupid field game. The way her eyes crinkled, the sound caught halfway between surprise and something lighter. It stuck with me, more than it should have.
Then I remembered the look on her face when Kyle walked off — when she bent to start cleaning up alone like it was the most natural thing in the world. Like she’d done it a hundred times before.
I gripped the steering wheel tighter.
I hated what it said about me — that I cared enough to notice. That every time she smiled, some part of me wanted to be the reason behind it.
But what I hated even more was knowing he didn’t.
Kyle had the girl everyone envied — the kind people write press releases about — and he still didn’t see her. Not really.
I’d seen it on the field, in the office, in the way she carried every problem like it was her job to fix the world. She shouldn’t have to.
The rain hit harder, drumming against the roof, drowning out the sound of my thoughts.
You don’t get to care; I told myself. Not like that. Not when she’s his. Not when you’ve spent your whole career proving you don’t need anyone.
But that didn’t stop the image from sticking — her standing in the rain, sleeves rolled up, refusing to quit.
I slowed at a red light, headlights pooling on the wet pavement. My reflection stared back at me in the glass — tired, jaw tight, a man who didn’t know what the hell he was doing anymore.
I told myself it was nothing. Just guilt. Respect. A professional thing.
But the truth sat heavy in my chest.
It wasn’t nothing.
It was her.