Page 46 of Burning Hearts
I typed before I could workshop the tone.
Me:Quick walk-through for tomorrow? Stanchions vs cable mats, stroller lanes. Ten minutes, tops.
Three dots appeared, then paused. Then vanished and reappeared.
Cade:I’ll knock in a minute.
I did a frantic run of housekeeping. First, I nudged two maps I’d already squared, then I aligned the matching pens, then smoothed the bedspread crease.
On his second knock, I told my face to quit rehearsing and opened the door.
Cade had swapped his station polo for a plain T-shirt and clean jeans. His hair was damp at the edges. The scent of soap and something warmer slipped into the room ahead of him.
“Didn’t mean to make it formal,” I said, my shoulders lifting on their own. “Just wanted to be aligned.”
“Aligned works,” he said, voice low as he stepped inside.
I spread the Commons map across the mahogany desk. The desk didn’t care about personal space, so when we leaned in, we leaned in together. His forearms bracketed the paper, mine fell into place opposite. The lamp highlighted the tendons in the shallow grooves of his wrist while my producer brain pretended the map was the most interesting thing in the room.
“No stakes in the brick,” I started, brisk. “We’ve learned that lesson.”
“Sandbags only,” he said. “Tie the lines low so nobody has to high-step through the show.”
“And a morning curb check,” I added. “Walk the stroller path, fix the stroller that thinks it’s a parade float.”
Cade nodded once. “Keep the lines simple. Clear corners, clear sight lines.”
I slid a sticker onto the southwest corner of the map. “We can park a volunteer here. Just a smile and a hand, help people through.”
“If somebody wheels up,” he said, “we clear them.”
“Yes,” I said, too fast.
The room seemed to shrink around the desk, going from large to…precise.
Me, Cade, the map.
He rested a knuckle on the spot I’d just marked. The paper gave a small soft crinkle. I traced our power run in blue. His hand kept drifting next to mine whenever I reached.
“Tell me about your line,” he said. “Beer’s tomorrow, but people will try to line up today.”
“Rope and stanchions if the crowd wants to feel like a movie premier,” I said. “Or chalk on the pavement if it wants to feel like home.”
His mouth tilted, small but real. “Home.”
I drew a neat little zigzag and wrote PLEASE BEER HERE in tiny letters. The tip of my pen brushed his knuckle, and my brain turned the contact into sparks it had no business making.
He reached into his pocket and set a small coil of paracord on the map. “Do me a favor.”
“Name it.”
“Teach your team this,” he said, looping the cord around two fingers with muscle memory. “Not pretty, but it holds. Quick release. If somebody panics in a rope line, you don’t want a puzzle.”
I watched his hands work, then copied the motion until the cord cooperated. Our fingers met when he nudged the loop into place.
“There,” he said in a voice that could have flipped a switch.
“Again,” I said, because it was working. “I want to get it right.”
