Chapter 8 Lacy #2
"I love you too," I say, and the words come easier than I expected. Natural. True in a way that needs no elaboration or defense.
"Okay." His voice shifts, gaining solidity like something settling into place. I can picture him standing straighter, shoulders squared. "Okay. We'll do it your way."
"Our way," I correct gently, because this isn't about me leading or him following. It never has been.
"Our way," he agrees, and I hear the smile in it now, warm and a little wondering, like he's still getting used to the concept of 'ours.' Of building something together instead of defending separate ground. "I'll see you tonight?"
The question carries not doubt, but hope. An invitation to normalcy in the middle of chaos.
"Please," I say, meaning it more than he probably knows. The apartment's been too quiet, too empty of his presence. Too full of my own circular worrying.
"I'll bring dinner. Real food, not my cooking." There's self-deprecation in his tone, the familiar deflection he uses when he's trying to lighten the mood.
"Your cooking's not that bad," I protest, even though we both know his last attempt at fusion cuisine resulted in something that looked like it belonged in a fantasy novel's cursed swamp. He'd been so proud of the color.
"Lacy." Just my name, flat and knowing.
"Fine. Bring real food," I concede, biting back a smile.
He laughs. "I'll see you soon."
After we hang up, I sit, turning the compass over in my hands. The needle swings, finds north, holds steady.
Outside, the city keeps moving. People pass the windows without looking in. The world doesn't care about our small drama, our risky love, our determination to hold onto something that matters.
But we do.
And Wednesday, we'll make them listen.
I tuck the compass back in and get to work.
Tess arrives Tuesday morning with three reporters, a photographer, and a color-coded timeline that makes my head hurt just looking at it.
"Okay, we've got Channel Seven at ten, the Gazette at eleven-thirty, and the culture blogger at one.
" She's in full PR mode, sharp blazer and sharper focus, moving through my bookstore like a general surveying territory.
"The blogger's sympathetic. She did a piece on interspecies adoption last year that was actually nuanced. The others, we'll see."
I'm rearranging the same shelf I've touched four times already. My hands need something to do that isn't wringing themselves bloody.
"And you vetted all of them?"
"As much as I can. They know the angle: small business owner, community fixture, successful cultural exchange." Tess pins me with a look. "They're going to ask about Stone. You know that."
"I know."
"And you're ready?"
Am I? The practiced answers sit in my throat like stones. Our relationship developed naturally. The program facilitated professional collaboration that became personal. We maintain appropriate boundaries in business contexts.
All true. All bloodless.
"I'll manage," I say instead.
The photographer arrives first, a wiry woman with paint-stained jeans and a camera bag that looks older than me. She surveys the space with an artist's eye, taking in the mismatched furniture, the hand-lettered chalkboard menu, the shelves Stone rebuilt after the awning incident.
"This is perfect," she murmurs. "Real. Lived-in."
She poses me by the window with morning light, at the counter with a stack of books, standing beside the fantasy section where Stone first picked up that battered pulp novel. Each click of the shutter feels like evidence being gathered.
"Can we get one of you and your partner? The orc gentleman?"
My stomach clenches. "He's at work."
"Ah. Shame." She lowers the camera. "The photo editor wanted couple shots. The human-interest angle, you know."
Right. Because we're not just people in love. We're a story. A angle. A thing to be consumed and judged and reduced to clickable content.
Tess intercepts smoothly. "We can arrange something later if needed. For now, let's focus on Ms. Ellis and the business itself."
The photographer nods and keeps shooting. I hold my smile until my face aches.
The Channel Seven interview is worse. The reporter is young, enthusiastic, and armed with questions that sound supportive until you actually parse them.
"So the cultural exchange program really changed your life?"
"It brought additional help when I needed it, yes."
"And that help came in the form of, well, a very specific individual." She leans forward, eyes bright with that particular hunger for revelation. "Can you tell us about meeting Stone?"
I recite the sanitized version. The awning. The books. His earnest apologies and unexpected carpentry skills. I leave out the part where his hands on mine made my breath catch. Where I went home that first night and couldn't stop thinking about green skin and soft eyes.
"And when did the relationship become romantic?"
There it is. The question she actually wanted to ask from the start.
"That's private," I say, keeping my voice level.
"Of course, of course. But you understand, there's public interest. The program's under review, and your situation is, well, it's become something of a focal point."
"My business partnership with Stone is professional and productive. Anything else is personal."
She switches tactics. "Some people have expressed concern about the power dynamics. He was placed here through a city program. You were his host business. Do you think that created an inappropriate situation?"
My jaw locks. Tess shifts beside me, ready to intervene, but I answer before she can.
"I think consenting adults are capable of navigating relationships. Stone and I established clear boundaries. We still maintain them."
"But you are involved romantically?"
"I don't see how that's relevant to the program's success."
"Isn't it, though?" She tilts her head, sympathetic predator. "If the program is creating situations where personal relationships complicate professional ones, doesn't that suggest a need for better oversight?"
This is Blair's talking point. Dressed up in concern, delivered with a smile, but the same poison underneath.
"The program creates opportunities for connection. Sometimes those connections are professional. Sometimes they're personal. Sometimes they're both." I meet her eyes. "That's not a flaw. That's being human. Or orc. Or whatever species you happen to be."
Tess coughs. The reporter blinks, recalibrating.
"So you'd say the program is working as intended?"
"I'd say it's working better than anyone expected."
After they leave, Tess collapses into the reading chair. "That was either brilliant or suicidal. I can't decide which."
"Did I screw up?"
"No. You were honest. Which is somehow more terrifying." She scrolls through her phone. "Okay, the blogger's next. She's actually cool, I promise. Queer, lefty, thinks the whole 'human-first' thing is fascist nonsense in a pantsuit."
"So I can relax?"
"God no. Never relax." But she's grinning. "Just be yourself. That's working so far."
The blogger, Maya, shows up in ripped jeans and a shirt that says Normalize Weird. She orders the most complicated coffee on our menu, settles into a corner booth, and opens with: "So, Blair's a bigot and you're in love with an orc. Want to tell me how we burn her narrative to the ground?"
I like her immediately.
We talk for an hour. Really talk, not performing for a camera or dodging landmines.
Maya asks about the bookstore's history, about Aunt Rene, about what made me take the placement program risk.
She asks about Stone not like he's a curiosity but like he's a person I love, which is such a relief I almost cry.
"Here's my angle," she says finally. "The program works because it treats people like people.
Not projects or PR. It makes space for messy, complicated, real human, sorry, real person things to happen.
And yeah, sometimes that means romantic relationships.
So what? We don't shut down offices because coworkers date. "
"That's what I keep saying."
"Right. So Wednesday, you get up there and you say exactly that. No apologies, no defensive crouch. Just: this is what happened, this is why it matters, and if you have a problem with people connecting across difference, that's your issue, not mine."
Tess nods along, making notes. "I can work with this. Maya, can you have the piece up before the hearing?"
"I'll have it live tonight."
They high-five. I feel like I've been drafted into a resistance I didn't know I was joining.
After Maya leaves, I have ninety minutes before the next thing on Tess's agenda. I use it to hide in the stockroom and practice my testimony until the words blur together.
My phone chimes. Evan.
Can we talk? Important.
I gaze at the message, debating whether I have the energy for whatever this is. Then, because avoiding him has never worked: When?
Now? I'm outside.
Of course he is.
I find him on the path, hands in pockets, wearing the same concerned expression he used to deploy when I was stressed about work. It's meant to be comforting. It sets my teeth on edge.
"Hey."
"Hey yourself." I cross my arms, already feeling my shoulders tense. Whatever this is, I don't want it spilling into the bookstore where Tess can see. "What's important?"
"Can we go somewhere? Coffee, maybe? There's that place on Fifth you used to like."
The suggestion irritates me more than it should—the assumption that I still go there, that he still knows my habits, that we're the kind of exes who do coffee. "I'm kind of caffeinated out. Here's fine."
He glances at the bookstore windows. Tess is visible inside, on her phone. "It's about the hearing."
"What about it?"
Evan shifts his weight, rehearsing something. I recognize the tells. The slight shoulder roll, the way his jaw sets. He's about to make an offer.
"I know things are complicated right now. The program review, the press, all of it." His eyes meet mine. "I want to help."
"Help how?"