Long enough for her to see the tiredness in his face. The wanting. The same miserable, stubborn ache she was carrying around herself.
Then Luke said something, and Reid looked away again.
And somehow that hurt worse than if he hadn’t looked at all.
“I broke up with him in an alley behind the courthouse,” Eleanor said softly. “And now every time I see him, I keep thinking maybe I made a mistake. Or maybe I didn’t. Maybe there wasn’t any version of this where it didn’t hurt.”
April’s expression went fierce.
“You love him.”
Eleanor shut her eyes.
“That is not helpful.”
“No,” April said. “But it’s true.”
Eleanor opened her eyes again.
“I just want this over,” she whispered. “I want the trial over. I want Lila gone. I want to stop feeling like every person I trust is keeping something from me.”
April squeezed her wrist once more.
“You’re gonna get through it,” she said quietly. “And when you do, you can decide who deserves to still be standing there.”
Their fries arrived. April immediately stole the crispiest one, and Eleanor had just reached for her own when the bell over the door rang again.
She felt the shift before she saw its cause.
Conversations didn’t stop, exactly, but something in the room changed direction.
Lila Grant stepped inside wearing dark jeans, boots, and a pale, fitted sweater under a short jacket. She looked polished in that deliberate not-trying-too-hard way cameras loved. A young producer type came in behind her with a phone rig in one hand and a small bag slung cross-body.
April went very still.
“You have got to be kidding me,” she said.
Lila’s gaze moved easily through the room—bar, booths, dartboard, exits—then landed on Eleanor.
There it was.
That tiny spark of recognition.
Of satisfaction.
Eleanor set her fry down.
Lila said something low to the guy behind her and moved toward the bar with practiced ease, as if she belonged anywhere attention was already gathering.
“She sees you,” April murmured.
“I see her.”
At the bar, Reid had gone still, too. Luke glanced past him, clocked Lila, then looked back toward Eleanor and April with a sharper, more assessing expression.
“Let me guess,” April said. “Small-town coincidence.”
Eleanor didn’t answer.
