The Seaport at night was all glass and shadow. Office lights glowing in empty towers, the harbor black as ink beyond them. I parked outside Lumen’s building, tugging my sweater tighter. The air tasted like salt and rain.
Ethan was already there, bent over a crate near the service entrance, sleeves rolled, tie gone. The sight of him so focused, tired, but still so impossibly put together… did strange things to me.
“Where do you want me?” I asked, stepping into the loading bay.
He straightened, startled. “My knight in shining armor.”
“That’s ‘Sir’, to you.”
Something passed over his face, but it was too fast for me to name it. “We just need to get the centerpieces inside and arranged into boxes for delivery first thing. Shouldn’t take long.”
Before I could answer, another car door slammed.
Miles.
He walked over with that signature swagger, hands in his coat pockets, the collar snapped up to stave off the cold. “Guess I’m not the only one who got the distress call.”
His eyes found mine instantly, and everything from earlier that day came rushing back: the way he’d advanced on me, the near-kiss that still burned behind my ribs.
“Nice of you to show up, even though you didn’t answer any of my calls or texts,” Ethan said, eyeing him with a half-smile. And maybe I was imagining it, but there seemed to be a bit of disappointment in his eyes too. Like he wanted it to stay just us.
“Well,” Miles said, nodding toward the crates. “It’s no use us just standing here, waiting for the Great Pumpkin to arrive. Let’s get these inside.”
I tried to focus on the task, really. I did. But the air in the loading bay was thick with sawdust and cologne and some other things pressing too close. I saw it every time I looked up and caught Miles watching me a little too closely. Or the way Ethan made sure there wasn’t a single moment of unfilled silence. Like he was afraid it might invite something else.
He worked beside me, sleeves brushing my arm whenever we lifted another box. Miles was behind us somewhere, humming under his breath, every note a reminder of that tension in his office.
At one point, Ethan reached for a crate the same time I did. Our hands met, sending a jolt through me. I looked up, and his gaze caught mine—long enough that the rest of the room faded.
Miles noticed. I couldfeelhim noticing.
“Careful,” he said with a playful tone. “Those things are tricky. One wrong move, and it’ll have you walking funny for days.”
Something in his smirk told me we weren’t talking about the boxes. I bit back a laugh and tried to keep my work rate from slowing down. As cool as it was being out late and doing something I’d never done before, it was late, and I worried Adrian would go to bed without checking his messages.
When Ethan turned away to check the next manifest, Miles brushed past me and murmured, “Didn’t expect to see you here tonight.”
“I could say the same.”
His smile tilted into something else, and he brushed my fingers with the back of his hand. He was warm, despite the creeping chill out here. “Sorry again, about… you know.”
He didn’t look too sorry about it, and if I were honest with myself, I wasn’t feeling too bad about it either. Rather, it was all I thought about for the rest of the day. The look on his face, the feel of his mouth mere inches from mine and the impossible charge it sparked when that happened.
“Already forgotten,” I said, since we were out here blatantly lying about shit. And we got back to work without another word about it.
The loading bay lights flickered once, like even the building knew what was happening. The three of us fell into a rhythm of lifting, stacking, pretending the tension didn’t live in every breath. But by the time the last crate was sealed, I could feel it crackling under my skin like static.
Ethan exhaled, rubbing the back of his neck. “Thanks for the help, both of you. I owe you dinner.”
“I’ll take whiskey instead.”
Ethan shot him a look. “It’s almost midnight.”
“Exactly.”
He moved toward the office, and we followed. Three people who knew theyshouldgo home but couldn’t seem to make themselves leave. Inside, the space was quiet except for the pulse of the city outside. Without the usual bustle of activity, it held that same eerie quality you got when wandering throughdaytime places after hours. Like the Common, or the mall. Where you felt like nobody else existed, and everything was possible.
Ethan walked into one of the social media hubs on the main floor, and after a beat, I followed with Miles trailing close behind. Several monitors lined one wall, cycling through muted feeds and analytics dashboards. Scattered over the minimal floorspace were camera rigs and ring lights suspended in some kind of media stasis, geared for the next viral post. Three umbrella softboxes were set up over a collaboration table at the center of the room. It was nothing more than a curved workspace littered with half-empty coffee cups, fake autumn leaves, and pencil sketches from the last shoot.
