But Tilly didn’t call her on it. They reached over and turned the dial up anyway. Savannah didn’t argue. She just held the warmer a little tighter.
The closer they got to the river, the more the wind picked up. Tilly could see debris caught along the embankment, water pushing high against the barrier. A gull swooped low over the river, shrieking into the wind. Another station’s photog struggled with a light stand near the walkway, their hair whipping in every direction.
Savannah straightened in her seat like someone had flipped a switch. Her reporter face clicked back into place. Calm. Polished. Untouchable. Except her fingers kept flexing against the hand warmer like she needed something to hold on to.
Tilly pulled the truck into park.
“We should check ground conditions first,” they said.
Savannah nodded. “Yeah.”
Her voice was steady, but the tension in her jaw was not. A tiny muscle near her temple jumped.
They opened their doors at the same time. The wind cut through the gap as soon as they stepped out. It lifted Savannah’s hair and sent a spray of river mist across Tilly’s face. The air smelled sharp and metallic, like stormwater and cold stone.
Tilly grabbed the tripod and a camera battery. Savannah grabbed the mic kit, holding onto it a little too tightly. Her knuckles had gone white around the strap.
For a second, as they rounded the truck and met at the front bumper, her eyes lifted to theirs.
Just a fraction of a second.
But it was enough to feel everything they weren’t talking about. In her eyes was something raw. Not anger. Not distance. Something closer to fear and something closer to apology, and something that looked like she hadn’t slept since the hotel.
Tilly looked away first.
“Let’s get set up,” they said.
“Okay.”
The word floated between them like smoke. Not warm. Not cold. Just fragile. It hung there in the air for a breath before the wind shredded it apart.
And the day was only starting.
Thirty Two
Savannah sat in the parked car outside the restaurant with her fingers still curled around the steering wheel.
Her hands hurt.
She flexed them once, slow, feeling the phantom weight of the mic kit and the way the wind had clawed at her cheeks on the riverfront. Her hair still smelled like cold air and wet concrete. The truck, the hand warmer, the way Tilly’s voice had stayed even while everything inside her tilted, floated up in pieces she could not push back down.
For a second, she pictured Alana younger—hovering in the doorway of her room, asking if Savannah could check her homework, or if she’d remembered to pack her lunch, or what time they needed to leave in the morning.
Savannah had always had an answer.
Alana had a husband now. A baby. A whole life that Savannah wasn’t in the center of.
Savannah stared at the restaurant window, light spilling out onto the sidewalk.
She wasn’t sure when that shift had happened. Or what she was supposed to be now that it had.
Her phone buzzed in the cup holder.
Here. Got us a table
Savannah stared at the screen for a beat, then forced herself to move. One breath in, one breath out, fingers unclenching from the wheel like they were pried off.
Inside, the restaurant was warm and too bright. A low hum of conversation bounced off brick walls and glassware. It smelled like garlic and baking bread, rich and comforting, so opposite from the river’s sharp metal tang that it almost made her dizzy.
