4. Camden #2
Marcus said something about timing, but Camden reached for the belt instead of answering. He drew it across his chest with his good arm, careful around the shoulder, and pushed the buckle home as the sedan pulled away from the facility.
O’Malley’s looked wrong before Camden even crossed the threshold.
Camera flashes burst against the front windows in uneven waves, bleaching the glass white before the bar swallowed the room back into shadow.
Marcus pushed through the door first without breaking stride.
Camden followed, and the smell of stale draft beer and fryer grease hit him with a familiarity he had no business finding comforting tonight.
“You said dinner,” Camden said. “You didn’t mention a press line.”
Marcus kept moving. “It isn’t a press line. They’re outside.”
Camden looked toward the windows.
Three men stood pressed near the glass with cameras raised, their lenses trained on the corner of the room. Another flash went off when Marcus entered their line of sight.
“That distinction is doing a lot of work.”
“Keep walking.”
Camden did, until he saw the booth.
He stopped beside an empty table near the entrance.
The back corner hadn’t changed enough. The same scarred booth sat against the wall beneath the old beer sign, close enough to the kitchen that the fryer smell always settled into your clothes before you left.
He and Tess had once stretched ten-dollar pitchers across entire evenings there because ten dollars had mattered.
Draft night had started in that booth.
Before the cameras. Before the contracts. Before Marcus had turned every room Camden entered into something that could be packaged and sold.
“No sponsor dinners replacing us.”
“No.”
The memory returned with Tess’s voice, sharp and distinct.
Marcus turned when he realized Camden had fallen behind. “Keep moving. They’re already shooting through the glass.”
Camden pointed toward the corner. “You picked this booth?”
“I picked the room.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
Marcus glanced toward the executives waiting at the table as if Camden were wasting time over seating arrangements. “The brand team wanted something local. Something real. Not another private dining room where everybody looks like they were assembled by committee.”
“You bought out O’Malley’s for authenticity.”
“I secured the floor.”
Another flash punched through the front window.
Camden stared at the booth again. Tess had sat across from him there with both hands around a cheap pint, laughing because Marcus had been calling every thirty seconds from the draft ballroom. She had been wearing the same formal dress she later ruined on the practice-field turf.
Now two apparel executives sat where she used to sit.
Get through the hour.
That was the deal he had already made with himself.
Chloe rose when they approached. Her outfit belonged somewhere with velvet ropes and photographers, which was probably the point.
“There he is.” Her gaze swept over the room before returning to Camden. “This place is incredible. The whole rough-around-the-edges thing works against the campaign styling.”
Camden looked at the scratched tabletop between them.
“Glad the scratches made the creative brief.”
Chloe smiled. “You joke, but the timeline is going to love it. Runway next to hometown football grime? That contrast sells itself.”
Marcus gestured toward the open side of the booth. “Sit down. We’re already behind.”
The flashes outside continued.
Camden could still turn around.
The door remained behind him. His own car was back at the facility. His phone sat in his pocket with a lie already delivered to Tess, and leaving now would mean admitting that lie had bought him nothing.
One hour.
Shake hands. Eat dinner. Get Marcus off his back.
Then go home.
Camden forced a smile.
“The optics are doing what you wanted,” he said. “Let’s get the dinner moving, close the pitch, and get everybody out of here.”
Marcus nodded as though Camden had finally started speaking sense.
Camden held the smile and walked toward the booth.
The waitress arrived with four drafts balanced across one round tray.
Condensation was already beading on the glasses by the time she set them between the menus and presentation folders. Camden kept his hands off his pint. The deep ache in his shoulder was flaring up, and the idea of mixing alcohol with fresh treatment sounded worse than another hour of sponsor talk.
“Four drafts,” the waitress said. “Who ordered what?”
“Just leave them,” Marcus said. “We’ll sort it out.”
“Mine can stay there,” Camden added.
The waitress moved on, and one of the executives resumed talking about regional rollout dates. Camden nodded at the right places, offered a few sentences about Sunday exposure, then let Marcus carry the numbers. Outside the window, another camera flash washed across the booth.
This was supposed to be dinner.
Instead, every movement at the table came with an audience.
Chloe shifted closer to the edge of her seat. “You’re sitting like somebody’s about to hit you.”
“Occupational habit.”
“Your shoulders are still up around your ears.”
“The training staff spent an hour trying to convince one of them to work.”
A burst of flashes answered before the executives did.
Chloe glanced toward the glass, then leaned across the table. Her hand came down over Camden’s where it rested beside his untouched pint. She let her fingers brush his knuckles before covering his hand with her own.
Camden looked down.
There was nothing accidental about the angle. Chloe had turned just enough toward the windows, catching the light from outside while leaving her hand in clear view on top of his.
Move it.
The instinct was immediate.
He left his hand where it was.
Pulling away now would become the photograph. One awkward recoil, one camera catching him jerking back, and Marcus would spend the rest of the night explaining why the campaign partners looked uncomfortable around each other.
Better to let them get the shot.
Better to finish the dinner.
Chloe tipped her chin toward him. “Give them something usable. You look like you’re waiting for a blitz.”
“Sunday did enough damage for one week.”
“Then stop bracing against the booth.”
Camden adjusted his posture, not enough to disturb her hand. “My back and shoulder are wrecked. I’m not auditioning for a mattress ad on top of the shoe campaign.”
One of the executives laughed.
Marcus kept talking about launch timing as though nothing unusual sat between Camden and Chloe.
That helped.
If everyone at the table treated the contact like another piece of campaign staging, then that was what it was. A pose. A still frame. A few seconds of manufactured chemistry that would get recycled into a feed and forgotten when the next headline arrived.
Tess knew this world was fake.
She hated it, but she knew it.
He remembered the lie he’d texted Tess, shoving the guilt aside.
“Officially trapped in the film room for the rest of the night.”
He stared at the sweat gathering on his pint.
No. He was not opening that door here.
One dinner. One set of photographs. Then home.
Chloe tapped one nail against his knuckle. “There. That’s better. Keep talking like you don’t know they’re outside.”
Camden looked toward the executive across from him. “Where were we?”
“International launch sequence.”
“Right. Give me the next date.”
The cameras kept firing beyond the window while the conversation moved back to numbers.
Camden left his hand where it was and kept talking business.
Chloe lifted her hand from Camden’s and reached for her pint.
“If they want a celebration shot, give them one.”
Camden wrapped his fingers around the glass. Condensation slicked his palm as he reached across the table to meet hers.
“One shot,” he said. “Then I’m finishing this drink.”
Their glasses met above the presentation folders.
“To a playoff run,” Camden said, keeping his attention on the executives across from him. “And to a nine-figure launch. Sitting in this window better be worth whatever those cameras are selling tonight.”
Chloe raised her glass another inch. “The footage is already working. Sports networks will carry this straight into the weekend.”
A flash flared across the window behind her.
Camden took a drink and set the pint back on the table. The beer had grown warm enough to taste like something forgotten at a tailgate, but nobody here cared what was in the glass. They cared that he held it beside Chloe while photographers filled memory cards outside.
One of the executives slid a folder toward Marcus.
“We’ll circulate the first engagement report by morning.”
“Send it to Marcus,” Camden said. “He’ll want the numbers before breakfast.”
The conversation shifted toward distribution targets.
Camden reached beneath the table and pulled the phone from his pocket.
He only wanted the time.
The screen lit up in his hand.
“October 12”
He froze before he could tap the screen.
October twelfth.
The anniversary.
Camden stared at the date while the table conversation carried on above the phone.
Tess had not been waiting for an ordinary dinner tonight.
She had been waiting for him on the one date they had always kept for themselves, even when schedules collapsed around everything else. He had promised her he was coming home. Then he had lied about film review, driven across town, and taken a seat beside Chloe in front of a row of cameras.
His shoulders dropped before he caught himself.
A flash struck the window.
Camden straightened, making sure the slip didn’t show on his face.
Damn it.
He looked at it once more before locking the screen.
This was fixable.
It had to be.