The coffeemaker began its familiar gurgle.
“Thanks for not switching assignments,” she said, voice low. “I know I was… off yesterday.”
Tilly leaned back against the counter. “We’re fine.”
She looked at them for a beat too long. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” they said. “We’re okay.”
Her shoulders dropped slightly — not all the way, but enough to look like she could breathe again. “Okay.”
The pot finished. She poured herself a cup and held it between both hands like she was grounding herself.
They left the break room together. At the doors, their paths split. Savannah glanced back once — a small, instinctive thing — but didn’t speak.
As the door swung shut behind her, Tilly let out a quiet breath.
It wasn’t closeness.
It wasn’t the hotel.
It wasn’t what they wanted.
But it didn’t hurt the way yesterday did.
Thirty Four
Savannah had never seen the newsroom look so tired.
Even the Christmas decorations seemed exhausted. A sagging string of colored lights blinked around the assignment desk, one bulb stubbornly dark in the middle. Someone had taped a paper snowflake to a monitor and forgotten about it. The smell of coffee and cheap peppermint creamer hung in the air.
Two days before Christmas, and nightside felt half empty.
She counted three missing jackets from the chairs around the desk. A couple of reporters were already on vacation. A producer had taken the week off. Graphics worked with their headphones on, clicking through lower thirds like they were half-asleep.
Sav shrugged off her coat and draped it over her chair, fingers lingering just long enough to register the leftover cold in the fabric. Nightside in December always felt like stepping through a portal into a different season.
Harper appeared at her elbow, a red scarf wrapped around her neck — something she’d definitely insist wasn’t festive even though it had tiny candy canes on it.
“You look less like a ghost today,” Harper said. “Proud of you.”
Sav raised an eyebrow. “That’s the nicest thing anyone at this station has ever said to me.”
“It’s not,” Harper said. “I once told you your blizzard standup made me believe in local news again.”
“You also said I looked like a half-defrosted raccoon.”
“Both can be true.”
Sav huffed something that almost counted as a laugh. Harper’s eyebrows inched up like she was cataloging the sound for later analysis.
“So,” Harper said. “Are we surviving the week?”
Sav’s gaze flicked — without permission — toward the hall that led to the gear room. Empty for now. Her shoulders relaxed a fraction.
“Yeah,” she said. “So far.”
It had been almost a week since things shifted between her and Tilly again. Since that strange, brittle silence in the truck had been replaced with something more bearable. They still weren’t what they had been before the hotel — no late-night texts, no lingering touches, no charged pauses that felt like they might tilt into something more.
