Page 19 of Burning Hearts
“Private line,” I replied, and we both pretended not to remember the number exchange Beau had forced on us with a group text and a wink.
The left car dinged, and Ellis stepped into it.
I stayed put.
His shoulder almost met the closing door before he slid a foot back and let it shut. The right car opened a moment later. The hotel seemed to have a sense of humor about choreography.
I rode alone and counted floors because that’s what a person’s brain does when it wants a distracting task. The envelope in my pocket felt like it weighed more than two pieces of paper should.
The elevator doors opened to the lobby and my ears filled with coffee grinders, suitcases rolling over carpet, and a band testing something upbeat. The other car opened and delivered Ellis like we’d rehearsed it.
We stepped out into the same slice of air, close enough that one of us could’ve offered a hand.
Neither of us did.
Beau drifted past with a mic pack and a cameraman in tow, homing in on the gap between us like it had a tracking beacon.
“Gentlemen,” he sang, not breaking stride, “save the flirting for my camera.”
Heat sparked at the back of my neck.
“We’re not,” I said.
Ellis didn’t answer. He just held my look one second longer than polite, then tipped me a small, precise nod.
Professional. That was all.
Ellis turned toward the café line in the hotel lobby. Someone near the concierge desk chirped, “#TeamBrew!” with the civic enthusiasm of a person who loved a scoreboard more than the sport.
My phone buzzed as Beau’s Tokens & Hairspray thread lit up.
Wyatt:Beau’sPitch & Play Roasttonight. Rules posted.
The event had completely slipped my mind.
Beau:Tonight, two minutes each. No fire safety myths. Minimal slander. Bring your best shoes and your worst jokes!
I had completely forgotten that Beau was hosting a roast and that Ellis and I would have to trade digs.
I thumbed the tickets open again. On the back, a note in red pen I hadn’t noticed:Both finalists present at purchase. No substitutions.
Of course Miss Pearl would have terms and conditions.
I looked up and saw that Ellis was four people away from the counter, his hands in his pockets as if he didn’t quite trust them in public. The line bent around a table where a child played with a bottle of syrup. A bellman rolled past with a garment bag, and I caught a whiff of three different perfumes.
The elevator doors slid shut behind me. I didn’t step back in.
The thing about rules is you can follow them for years and still be surprised by which ones start asking to be broken. I’d used “keep lanes clear” and “sandbag first” as a way to move through rooms and days and crowds without noticing my own appetite. They worked. They still worked.
And yet.
I walked to the edge of the café line with my hands empty and a plan the size of a sentence. Ellis didn’t look at me; he looked at the menu like a contract. When he did flick a glance sideways, it landed, registered, and moved on.
“Morning,” I said.
“Morning.”
I held up the envelope without brandishing it. “Miss Pearl left homework.”
