As if she can feel me watching her, Lila turns and levels me with an unreadable look. I’m keeping myself busy by pointlessly rearranging med kits in the back of one of the trucks. In truth, I’m just trying to avoid the worst of the chaos.
She marches toward me across the hectic space, a woman on a mission. “Evan.”
The closer she gets, the more I can tell that she’s a little flustered underneath the surface. Her cheeks are flushed, and I might be mistaken, but it seems like she might be struggling to meet my eyes.
Before I can answer her, Noah brushes along behind her, heading toward the gear room with a pile of laundry that Haleprobably assigned to him. It’s just a brief pass, a fleeting touch between them, but the blush on Lila’s cheeks deepens.
Interesting.
“What do you need?” I ask when she reaches me.
“Now,that’sthe kind of greeting I like to hear.” She points at the back hall, where one of our informal meeting rooms has been designated as today’s filming area. “Old Bill’s doing his interview now. Do you want to go after him?”
I hesitate. “But I already did an interview, didn’t I? During my episode?”
“Well, I’d like to get more content. You’re handsome and charming, and the public will want to see as much of you as possible.”
“Will they?”
Lila grins. “I certainly do. Why are you hiding in here, anyway?”
I chuckle, a tingle fluttering along my skin at the sight of that smile.
Good fucking God, I’m a grown man with a crush.
“I’m not hiding, I swear. I’m just doing my job.”
She observes me for a moment, then opens her mouth to speak.
“Lila?” one of the filming crew calls for her.
With a sigh, she waves vaguely at them, then tosses another smile my way.
“An interview? In, like, ten minutes?”
“Sure. No problem.”
“You’re the best.”
That’s hardly true, but I accept the compliment with a smile of my own.
She flounces off again, nearly taking out a rookie with her clipboard.
I feel a little itchy at the thought of stepping in front of the camera again. In fact, the only reason I made it through my episode was because I had Leo and the attendees of the Family Safety Fair to act as a buffer.
I’m a private man. And it seems like the whole world is watching us nowadays.
Andrew Banks is running new ads, throwing around words like “reckless”and “unprofessional.” A bulk of the news media is eating it up, because it’s a hot topic, and Save A Hero, as positiveas it is, lends them more material. Every move we make becomes another debate in the comment section.
Even when we do something right, Banks finds a way to spin it into convoluted proof that we don’t deserve funding.
I make my way over to the filming hub, pulling out my phone to check my email. But when I see a horribly familiar name pop into my inbox, I duck into an alcove as my heart stutters into a panic.
From:Anita Collins
Subject:Leo
Dear Evan,
