Eleanor:
News travels fast in Sylva.
Three dots appeared.
Reid:
Meet me for a drink? Catch My Draft.
Eleanor leaned back in her chair. The office had that end-of-day hush—Lucy and Frannie’s voices drifting from the reception area, the faint crackle of the small speaker on her bookshelf where a low, smoky jazz playlist hummed.
Lucy’s voice cut through the brass.
“They released another teaser episode?—”
Frannie immediately cut her off.
“Lucy Patel, I swear?—”
Eleanor tuned them out. The words teaser episode needled at the fragile calm she’d been trying to hold onto.
Eleanor:
She typed:
Give me twenty minutes.
Her phone buzzed again before she could set it down.
Reid:
Good.
A second message blinked up.
Reid:
And Harper…
She waited.
Her pulse kicked up more than the situation warranted.
Reid:
You’re buying the first round.
She laughed softly, and some of the tension eased out of her shoulders.
Eleanor:
Dream on, Calloway.
She set the phone beside the Mercer file and stared at the manila folder for a moment.
Reid Calloway, with his bad timing and better smile, had been quietly dismantling the walls she’d rebuilt in Sylva.
Last weekend at the Overlook was supposed to prove this thing between them wouldn’t work. Instead, it had only made it harder to pretend she cared less than she did. She’d told herself, over and over, that charming men were exactly the kind of mistake she couldn’t afford.
