Ellery #2
He huffed a small laugh of his own — but it sounded different. Strained, almost. Like he didn’t quite know how to move on from what had just passed between us.
Neither did I.
Mr. Han reappeared a moment later with a garment bag, the sound of hangers clinking breaking the silence. I latched onto it like oxygen.
Beckett straightened his shoulders, slipping the easy, detached version of himself back into place. I did the same, burying the unease behind polite smiles and shallow breaths.
“Everything looks perfect,” Mr. Han said cheerfully, patting the lapel of Beckett’s jacket. “You wear it well, Mr. Mason.”
I forced a breath, the kind that passed for laughter. “He’d look better if he stopped slouching.”
Beckett shot me a sidelong look, that familiar half-smirk tugging at his mouth. “That your professional opinion?”
“My professional opinion,” I said, straightening the clipboard I didn’t need to be holding, “is that you’re untrainable.”
He tilted his head, eyes glinting under the warm shop lights. “You love a challenge.”
Mr. Han chuckled at that, clearly delighted by the exchange. I tried to match his amusement, even though my heart was still thudding in the quiet space between us.
The air smelled faintly of cedar and starch, the same scent that had been clinging to his suit when I’d fixed his tie. Only now, it carried a weight — like every word we didn’t say was suspended between the threads.
Beckett moved to the mirror again, adjusting his jacket. He looked perfectly composed, a far cry from the man who’d just told me I deserved someone who made time. And I… I looked like a woman pretending she hadn’t just heard it.
Mr. Han asked something about tailoring the hem, but his words barely registered. Beckett answered for himself, low and casual, and I caught the trace of humor still lingering in his voice — armor slipping back into place.
“Everything good?” Mr. Han asked, glancing at me expectantly.
I nodded too fast. “Perfect. Really.”
Beckett turned slightly, eyes catching mine in the mirror again. For one second — one small, dangerous second — the edges of his smirk softened. The storm in his gaze wasn’t gone; it had just gone quiet.
And I knew exactly what that silence meant.
I busied myself gathering fabric swatches, pretending to read the notes on my tablet. My reflection betrayed me — cheeks a little too flushed, shoulders a little too tense.
Mr. Han droned on about final pickup times and alterations, blissfully unaware that my pulse was still trying to recover from something that shouldn’t have mattered.
Beckett stepped off the platform, his reflection passing behind mine. The room seemed smaller for it — or maybe I was just too aware of him, of the sound of his shoes on the floor, the brush of his sleeve as he reached for his jacket.
He looked over at me. “So, Boss, am I cleared for duty?”
I swallowed a smile that felt too real. “Assuming you can keep the suit in one piece until the gala.”
He grinned. “No promises.”
Our banter sounded normal again — the same familiar rhythm of teasing and deflection. But underneath it, something had shifted. It wasn’t antagonism anymore; it was awareness.
And as Mr. Han folded the measuring tape and wished us both a good afternoon, I realized I didn’t know if I was relieved or terrified that nothing — and everything — had changed.
The evening light had settled into that golden kind of calm that made everything look softer than it really was. The air smelled faintly of rain and fabric starch as Mr. Han locked up behind us, humming a tune I didn’t recognize.
Beckett fell into step beside me, jacket slung over his shoulder, his tie loosened, the picture of someone who looked like he belonged anywhere but still somehow fit everywhere.
“Thanks for not complaining too much,” I said, trying to fill the quiet.
He shot me a sideways look. “Wasn’t that bad. You did good work.”
I raised a brow. “You’re shockingly polite today.”
“Don’t get used to it.”
The dry edge of his tone pulled a laugh out of me — soft, reluctant, but real. It had been days since laughter didn’t feel like effort. Somehow, with him, it slipped out before I could stop it.
He looked at me then — really looked. The kind of glance that made it hard to breathe because it wasn’t flirtation or arrogance or anything simple. It was recognition. A quiet acknowledgment of something neither of us had words for.
For a second, I thought he might say something. He didn’t.
Instead, he nodded once, stepped back toward his truck, and said, “See you at the gala, James.”
“It’s Ellery,” I corrected, before I could think about it.
He paused mid-step, turned slightly, and gave me a small, crooked smile — the kind that said he’d been waiting for me to insist on that.
Then he left, the sound of his feet fading into the hum of evening traffic.
I stood there for a while after he was gone, pretending to double-check my phone, but really just trying to slow the way my heart was pounding. When I finally climbed into my car, the golden light had deepened into amber.
The tailor’s windows glowed behind me in the rearview mirror, reflecting the empty shop, the mannequins in half-lit suits, and my own face — flushed cheeks, slightly trembling hands. I looked… different. Not better or worse. Just someone caught between clarity and confusion.
You should not feel like this.
I’d repeated that sentence a dozen times in my head since meeting him. It never stuck.
Because I did love Kyle. I always had. He was safe and steady, my constant since college — the boy who believed in me before anyone else did. But lately, love with him had started to feel like something I had to maintain rather than something I lived in.
And then there was Beckett — loud, infuriating, impossible Beckett — who didn’t try to fix me or flatter me or smooth over the rough parts. He just showed up. Unapologetically. Messily. Consistently.
I rested my forehead against the steering wheel and exhaled.
He makes time.
The thought came quietly, uninvited, but it wouldn’t leave.
I started the car, headlights catching the last of the sunset on the glass storefront. The world looked suspended for a moment — warm light, fading color, the echo of his voice still in my head.
See you at the gala, James.
I drove off before I could decide whether that thought made me ache or hope.