Page 46 of Specters & Spotlights

“I don’t let that happen much,” she said. “The relaxing part.”

Graham nodded once, slow. “Maybe you should.”

“That sounds like a trap,” she said, teasing.

“Only if it works,” he said, smiling again.

They fell quiet, but not awkwardly so. The silence had weight to it, like the hush that happens before something begins.

Elise tilted her head, a corner of her mouth lifting. “You’re very sure of yourself.”

He shrugged. “Not usually. But I know a moment when I’m in one.”

Something shifted between them then—something not quite said, but undeniably felt. Elise leaned back, studying him with the kind of playful scrutiny that made him sit up straighter.

She gave him a sideways glance that was more smile than smirk. “Is this your version of subtle?”

“I’m incredibly subtle,” he said proudly. “And observant. Like how I’ve seen you mouthing along with the finale song. Every night.”

Elise blushed, caught off guard. “Maybe I just like that part.”

“Or maybe,” he said softly, “you’re the only person in the building who loves this show as much as I do.”

That should not have felt intimate. It was a musical. A job. A tour stop. A thing she learned by reputation and proximity.

But it was. It felt like being recognized by someone who understood the difference between knowing the words and loving them.

She smiled into her glass. “Maybe I’m just sentimental.”

“Me too,” he said, without apology.

Their knees brushed, light and unplanned. Neither of them pulled away. The moment stretched, golden and slow, as if the room itself had dimmed to let them linger.

The world tilted.

Not in any grand, storybook way. Just enough to soften the edges, to make the space between heartbeats feel slower, warmer.

It had been three years. Three years of keeping her hands busy, her heart quiet, her exits visible.

Maybe she was allowed to flirt with the idea of wanting something.

Elise had been laughing—really laughing—for the first time in what felt like forever. Her hand brushed against Graham’s as she leaned forward, and he didn’t move away. Just touched her fingers, gentle and unassuming, like a question.

“You’re kind of extraordinary, you know,” he said.

She looked at him, a retort already rising. Something self-deprecating. Something safe. Something designed to hand the compliment back before it could touch her.

But his fingers were still near hers, and his eyes weren’t teasing, and the words landed somewhere she wasn’t prepared to defend.

Her breath caught instead.

For once, she didn’t want to make herself smaller than what someone saw in her.

Something in her began to lean in.

But then her gaze caught on something just beyond the window, and her entire body went entirely rigid.

A man was standing across the street. Tall. Familiar. Bathed in the honeyed glow of the streetlamp.