"What did we talk about, Ivy?"
She holds my gaze. The firelight reflects in her eyes, turning them into pools of liquid amber.
"We talked about how tired we were," she whispers. "Not sleepy-tired. Soul-tired. We talked about the pressure of always being the person who fixes things. You with your family, me with my clients. We talked about how lonely it is to be the one holding the ceiling up, so it doesn't crash down on everyone else."
My chest tightens. It's a physical sensation, a squeezing of the heart muscle.
"We realized," Ivy finishes, "that we were the same."
She stops.
Silence stretches between us, weighted and pregnant with things unsaid.
It is a good story. It is perfect. It hits every demographic beat, the chance meeting, the vulnerability, the shared burden of competence. Tabitha fromHamptons Magazineis going to eat it up with a spoon.
The problem is, it doesn't feel like a lie.
It feels like a memory I wish I had.
"That's good," I say. My voice sounds rough to my own ears. "That works."
"Yeah," Ivy says. She looks down at her notebook, aggressively circling a word. "It's believable."
"Ivy."
She looks up.
"Quick fire," I say. "If we talked for three hours, I need to know the details. Tabitha will ask. What's your favorite color?"
"Emerald green," she says instantly. "Like the dress. Yours?" She studies me. "I'm guessing navy blue. It's reliable.Traditional. But secretly? I bet it's something weird. Like... orange."
I blink. "Itisorange. How did you know that?"
"Because you have an orange Hermes notebook on your desk, and you ordered the sweet potato fries at Marvin's just to look at the color. You like vibrancy, Brooks. You just hide it."
I stare at her. She sees too much. It's unnerving. It's intoxicating.
"Favorite food?" I ask.
"Cheeseburgers. Obviously."
"Same. Favorite movie?"
"The Princess Bride," she says. "And before you judge me, it's a cinematic masterpiece. It has fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, and miracles."
"I'm not judging," I say. "Mine isCasablanca."
She smiles, a soft, quiet thing. "Of course it is. The cynic who runs a bar in the middle of a war zone, pretending he doesn't care, until the right woman walks in and proves he's the biggest romantic in the room."
"I'm not a romantic," I protest. "I'm a pragmatist. Rick Blaine was a businessman."
"Rick Blaine gave up the girl to save the world," she counters. "That's not business. That's martyrdom."
"Maybe he just realized she was a liability," I say, testing her.
"Maybe," Ivy whispers. "Or maybe he realized she deserved better than a man who lived in a casino."
The air in the room shifts. The playful banter evaporates, replaced by a tension that hums in the air like a live wire.
