Page 18 of Burning Hearts
I’d focus on facts, then.
I dated women. I preferred when rooms behaved.
Whatever this was rode the same circuit as satisfaction and caffeine and a perfectly coiled hose line. Biology doesn’t become a committee vote because a town is watching.
“Hey, Briggs,” someone called from Cast Iron Café’s door. “We’re moving your ice to the back.”
“Copy,” I said, grateful for a word that didn’t ask me to interpret myself. “Back entrance only; keep the front clear.”
“#TeamBrew!” the same voice added, louder, offering it up for the scoreboard.
I didn’t turn. I lifted a hand without looking and headed back toward The Langford Hotel.
We’d checked our tie-downs, counted our cones, and pretended this was just a day.
Behind me, Beau laughed at something off-mic. Ahead, the warehouse doors remained open like a mouth about to speak. I let the town swallow me and told myself the next thing I lifted would be heavy enough to quiet whatever else had started moving inside of me.
Morning at The Langford Hotel always looked expensive. Even the blackout curtains were elegant. I woke with the clean ache you get after moving things that didn’t want to be moved and stared at the ceiling long enough to list everything I hadn’t said yesterday.
Coffee would’ve solved some of my issues, but the universe knocked first.
Not just a knock—an invitation. Cream stock on my door handle, a summons from a kingdom. I cracked it with my thumb.
The envelope contained two CAST IRON CAFÉ – FREE MEAL tickets: biscuit plate and coffee or country-fried steak. The tickets were paper-clipped to a note in tight, upright handwriting:
For the two who kept Signal on its feet yesterday. Redeem together, please. –P
Miss Pearl didn’t sign like a person. She signed like a policy.
“Together,” I said to the empty room, because apparently, I talked to tickets now.
Through the shared wall there were light sounds of life. I heard a garment bag zipper, hangers rattling. Ellis’s low voice counting time like someone marking beats for a day that would have cameras in it.
I told myself it was proximity, not interest. I told myself a lot of things that sounded like rules because they always had.
I set the tickets on the desk. Picked them up again. Then set them down.
I read the note once more, a man reading the same instructions hoping the words would change.
Shower, too hot. Shirt, the one that didn’t fight the tie. Boots that would let me lift something heavy if the day called for it. I folded the note back into the envelope and slid both tickets into my wallet, then took them out and slid them into my pocket instead. I told myself it was just good manners. The tickets felt heavier than that.
I opened my door as the lock next door beeped. We stepped into the corridor at the same time.
Close enough to see that Ellis had shaved, not close enough to touch. He wore the kind of navy jacket that read as someone who knew what he was doing. His hair had that deliberate-messy look it wore on camera. For a second, neither of us said a word.
Long enough for me to realize I wasn’t in a hurry to move.
“You didn’t have to help,” he said, voice low.
“Couldn’t help it.”
He glanced at the elevator bay at the end of the hall; two cars glowed ready.
“You take that one,” Ellis said. “You know, optics.”
“Right,” I mumbled, nodding my head, maybe a little too sharply. “Finalists don’t carpool.”
“Public rivals,” he said.
