10. Salem
SALEM
Ihad everyone’s number.
That was the thing. The foundation had sent a digital contact sheet after the meeting—a tidy little phone tree with names, roles, and direct lines.
Ethan’s number was right between Alba’s and Lila Hart’s, sitting in my phone like it was just information and not something I had looked at approximately sixteen times in three days without doing anything about it.
I had his socials and could message him there.
There were too many means of communication.
Why did I want to talk to him all of a sudden?
The first day, I told myself I was being professional. We have a working relationship. A contract. Clear parameters. Texting him the day after our first official meeting would have been something.
So, I reorganized the brake parts inventory instead. All of it. Jordan watched me do it with an expression I couldn’t read and didn’t ask about.
The second day, I had a lengthy conversation with a 1972 Chevelle about its fuel delivery issues, which at least had the decency to be a problem with a solution.
I found it, fixed it, took it out for a test drive along the coastal road with the windows down and the radio up, and told myself that this—this was what life was about.
The engine, the road, and the satisfaction of something easy to understand and easy to fix.
I thought about him for most of the drive.
The third day, I cleaned bay four. Deep cleaned. I also opened a text to Ethan twice, typed nothing both times, and closed it. The second time, I accidentally hit call instead and had approximately four seconds of complete cardiac arrest before I managed to end it before it connected.
I sat still for a moment after that.
Then I put my phone face down on the workbench and didn’t touch it for two hours.
Now, I was standing in the doorway of a hospital lobby turned craft room. The room looked like controlled chaos had given up on the control part.
Kids were talking over each other, paint lids popping open, chairs scraping across linoleum while volunteers moved in every direction.
There was glitter on things that had no business having glitter on them.
Paper bats were taped to the windows in no real pattern—some upside down, some sideways—like someone had handed a box of decorations to a six-year-old and walked away, which was probably what had happened.
A little girl sat alone at a table near the window, IV pole beside her like a quiet companion, with a princess costume askew on her shoulders and her chestnut ringlets impeding her vision.
She had her tongue stuck out in concentration, eyebrows drawn together, paintbrush moving in careful, deliberate strokes over a witch coloring page that was turning into something genuinely lovely.
“That’s really good,” I said, stopping beside her.
She looked up, and her whole face changed. She smiled brightly and went back to painting. Her shoulders had dropped about an inch. She was adorable.
I sat with her, admiring her art.
“Coffee delivery.” Ethan stood a few feet away, holding out a cup.
Three days since I saw him in Seattle, and somehow, he was still alarmingly handsome. The space did nothing to ease the attraction. How was anyone supposed to say no to spending time with this man and getting paid for it? A mystery.
I took the cup. “Hero. I cannot thank you enough.”
“Hero? That’s a stretch.”
“It absolutely is not,” I said, looking around the room. “This is a public service situation. This is complete and total madness, it seems.”
He moved through the space, handing out the remaining cups—one to a volunteer with paint on her sleeve, one to a nurse sitting at the far edge of the room who looked like she had been awake since sometime last week.
The nurse took it without saying anything, wrapping both hands around it and closing her eyes.
I made a mental note to bring coffee every single time we did something like this.
“Is anyone actually in charge here?” Ethan asked, coming back to stand beside me.
I followed his gaze to a kid with paint on both hands and one ear, attempting to open a third color with his teeth.
“The kids are,” I said.
He laughed, and the sound of it made the last three days of not texting feel genuinely ridiculous. Like I had been avoiding something that was just—this. Easy.
A flash of lilac moved through my peripheral, and the easy feeling did a quiet, tidy exit.
Lucy’s voice cut through the noise. “Okay, everyone, we’re going to start thinking about photos in a few minutes.”
She moved through the space as if it belonged to her. Which, from the way people automatically shifted to give her room, it sort of had.
Her hair was soft waves, untouched by the mess around her, and she had on just enough to look like she hadn’t thought about it.
She wore fitted jeans and a simple top under her volunteer badge; it looked intentionally beautiful and made the rest of us look like we’d gotten dressed in the dark. Me especially.
Her eyes found Ethan before she’d fully crossed the room. “Ethan. You made it.”
“I said I would.”
“I know.” Her voice dropped into something softer. “I love seeing you a part of my side of the foundation. Always a treat.”
She closed the distance, her shoulder brushing his arm, her hand resting on his chest. She said something close to him—too quiet for me to catch—that made her laugh.
Then she turned to me, scanning me up and down.
“Hi,” she said, extending her hand. “I’m Lucy. I’m not sure we’ve met.”
I held her gaze.
We had.
More than once. Rebecca Lawson’s baby shower. Jason Richardson’s going-away BBQ. Jessica Jarman’s bridal party at the bowling alley. The same introduction each time. The same smile. The same perfume that arrived a step ahead of her and stayed a step after she left.
She never remembered me, or she chose not to. I had spent enough time around Lucy Hayworth over the years to know those were different things.
I could remind her. Could list every occasion, watch her smooth it over in a way that made me look forgettable and her look like she was simply too loved and too busy to keep track of everyone who crossed her path.
Or I could match her energy.
“Hi.” I took her hand without breaking eye contact. “I’m Salem.”
Something moved across her face. Small. Gone fast.
“Weird that you guys haven’t met,” Ethan said, glancing between us with obliviousness.
“Yeah,” I said. “So weird.”
Lucy’s smile held. “You’re working with Ethan on the partnership. The viral piece. I think I heard your name… Unique name.”
“Something like that.”
“That’s a lot of attention.”
“It comes with the job.”
“I’m sure it does.” She shifted the extra coffee in her hand and turned back toward Ethan, angling to effectively block me from the conversation. “I grabbed yours the way you like it.”
He lifted his cup. “I’ve got it covered.”
Her attention moved to the cup, then back to his face. Then she turned just enough to include me again, like an afterthought that had been planned in advance. “I like to make sure he’s taken care of.”
Ethan’s eyebrow rose slightly.
She set the extra coffee on the table, patted the top of it once, and smiled at me.
“That’s thoughtful,” I said with a smile that cost me nothing and gave away nothing.
“We’ll need you soon, Ethan.” She turned back to me one last time, her smile perfectly pleasant. “So lovely to meet you, Sedona.”
And just like that, she moved on, carrying the rest of the room’s attention with her as if it had always been hers to take. I wasn’t going to call after her to correct my name. Why put in the effort?
I let out a slow breath and reached for a paintbrush. “Wow. She is something.”
“Lucy?” He said it like he was hoping I meant someone else.
“She really likes you. A lot, I’m guessing.”
As if I didn’t already know how much, and why, and how long.
He rubbed the back of his neck. “There’s some history.”
“I figured.” I held a brush toward him, handle first. “Ready to get to work?”
I nodded at the little girl at the small table. Her legs swung steadily under a chair that was not built for anyone over the age of eight. He looked at the chair. Then at me. Then at the chair again.
There was no way his strong form would fit in this little chair, but he sat anyway. The chair made a sound. His knees had nowhere reasonable to go. It was all very comical.
I bit back a smile. “You good?”
“Perfect.” He reached for a paint cup, caught it with his wrist before it tipped, overcorrected, and took out the brush tray with his elbow.
I caught the tray before it hit the floor. “Careful. Highly technical operation.”
“I can see that,” he muttered, trying to find a configuration for his legs that didn’t look like a structural emergency.
The little girl giggled.
I handed him a rogue paper towel from the table next to us. “Chair built for a king.”
“Clearly,” he said, his knees approximately level with his ears.
He leaned in and concentrated, his shoulder pressing against mine as I sat while he followed the line, taking it as seriously as he seemed to take most things, at least from what I’d gathered in our few interactions.
Everything fell away. It was just the three of us and the painting and the easy quiet that had followed us in from the restaurant the other night.
“Okay, we’re ready for photos,” Lucy called after a while.
Ethan stood, rolling his shoulders. He reached down and took my hand as I stood—steady, natural.
He didn’t let go.
Neither did I.
It lasted a second longer than required, then he turned toward me, his thumb moving across my cheek—careful, deliberate. I went still.
“Paint,” he said simply.
I hadn’t felt it. Hadn’t known it was there. Which meant I’d been sitting here this whole time with paint on my face and no idea, which was just—fine. Completely fine.
“Thanks,” I managed to say.
He stepped back slightly and lifted his phone. “Speaking of photos. Quick snapshot? For socials.”
“Yeah. Sure.”
Ethan pulled his phone from his pocket and raised it above us. He stepped closer, his shoulder brushing mine, warm even through our layers. I focused very hard on looking normal in a photo, which was somehow the most difficult thing I’d done all day.
“Smile,” he said quieter than necessary.
I did. Just enough. He checked the screen, adjusted it once, and asked if he could tag me.
“Of course.” I stepped back, picked up the brush, and returned to the little girl like something hadn’t just happened. She was waiting with a weighted look that a small child should not wear.
“Okay,” I said. “Where were we?”
“Ethan, we need you.” Lucy appeared at his side, her hand moving toward his arm.
He stepped back before she reached him. “Yeah. Okay.”
She looked at me. Her expression was pleasant, steady, and underneath it something that was neither of those things. “We’ll grab you if we need you, but I think we’re all set over here.”
It sounded like a courtesy. It wasn’t.
I held her gaze. “Sounds good.”
She turned back to him. “This way.”
And he was gone.
I turned back to the little girl, who had used the interruption to add a large purple dragon to the background of her painting, completely unprompted.
“I like him,” I said.
“His name is Gerald,” she said, with what sounded like pride.
“Gerald is perfect.”
The room had settled into a different kind of noise—focused. I was halfway through helping Gerald get his wings sorted when I heard a commotion.
Lucy’s voice. “Dad.”
I didn’t mean to look up.
A man stood near the doorway in a suit that had no business being in a room full of craft paint and children. Silver-haired. The kind of polish that came from decades of practice. A woman stood beside him, equally composed, her attention already drifting past Lucy to someone across the room.
Lucy crossed to them. “You came.”
Her voice changed. The bright, easy warmth she’d worn all afternoon disappeared, replaced by something quiet and careful.
“Briefly.” Her father’s gaze swept the room with the mild interest of someone checking a box. “Your mother wanted to see the space and talk to some shareholders.”
Her mother was already turning, her hand lifting toward someone near the far wall. A board member, maybe.
“I am so excited to show you what I have been working on here,” Lucy said. There was something careful in it, something she’d been holding ready. “The kids painted sections last week, and it actually turned out—”
“That’s wonderful, sweetheart.” Her father’s hand came to her shoulder once, withdrawing before it had landed. “We’ll find you before we leave.”
Then he was moving, following her mother toward whoever had caught their attention, and Lucy was left standing in the middle of the room with something she hadn’t gotten to give away.
Three seconds.
Then she lifted her chin. Her shoulders settled. The careful version of her face came back, smooth and quick. She turned and looked at me from across the room. She must have known I’d seen it.
I looked back down at Gerald before she could read anything in my face.
“His left wing is bigger,” the little girl informed me.
“Gerald’s asymmetrical,” I said. “That’s what makes him interesting.”
She considered this with her full attention, then nodded and kept painting.
I didn’t look up again.
The image stayed—Lucy standing there, composed and untouched and alone for just a moment, in a room full of people who would have turned toward her without hesitation if she’d asked them to.
It didn’t make me like her, but it made me understand her just enough to make everything more complicated.