Page 52 of Burning Hearts
“I heard you,” I said, and didn’t specify whether I meant his speech or every time he’d said my name this week.
A grip tech rushed past with a portable light, and we stepped close to let it pass. This time, neither of us hurried to reclaim space. What remained between us was narrow and very informative.
A local reporter walked up to me and started asking questions as Ellis walked away. I answered as politely as I could until she was satisfied and left.
I glanced around the area for Ellis, but he was nowhere to be seen.
My phone buzzed, the group thread. There were fireworks, Beau’s “After party at civilized volumes,” Miss Pearl’s “Count the tokens (and your blessings).”
Then a direct text in a thread I didn’t mute.
Ellis:Proud of you.
It sat on my screen like a hand pressing at the back of my neck.
Me:Back corridor after I sign.
Ellis:Copy.
I finished signing the documents in the bank folder, initialed in the places where initials go, and slipped out the stage door into the service hall.
Cinderblock, mop-water air, the hum of the building. I leaned one shoulder to the wall and took my first real breath of the night.
Footsteps.
Ellis rounded the corner and stopped as if we’d both reached an unspoken mark.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey.”
We didn’t rush to fill the space. The hallway hum did the talking for us.
He stepped closer, close enough that I heard the quiet rasp of starched cotton. Clean, expensive soap, hotel scented, something vaguely citrus. His tie was still perfectly straight. My fingers twitched toward his lapel, but I called them off.
“You kept the exits clean,” he said, almost smiling. “You make rooms behave.”
“Rooms make me behave,” I said, “but people are harder.”
He laughed once, under his breath. It hit me mid-chest like a warm hand.
“Speak for yourself,” he said.
Another tech clattered by with a dolly of chairs and zero interest in anything but coordinating its movement. We pressed shoulder-to-shoulder to let him maneuver around us. Contact, then pressure. Heat that didn’t ask or apologize. I didn’t move my arm until he moved his.
The back hall felt smaller now that the prize had my name on it. The roar from the Annex bled through the door in pulses.
Ellis stepped in close enough that I could see where his tie had started to roll up. For a second, neither of us said anything.
“Don’t look so worried,” he murmured. “You earned it.”
“You made it sound winnable.”
His eyes flicked to my mouth and away again. The kind of look you only catch if you’re quick enough to notice.
And I was.
Out front, Beau started his outro, and the crowd answered in waves. Back here, it was just hum and heartbeat.
