“No. Arrogance bothers me.”
Jamie tilted her head, studying them the way she did when she was about to make a point. “You don’t hate her. You hate that she’s right sometimes.”
Tilly froze mid-chew. “Excuse me?”
“She’s good,” Jamie said simply. “You know she’s good. It’s messing with your sense of order.”
“I do not have a sense of order.”
Jamie grinned. “You color-code your SD cards. You labeled my batteries with smiley faces so I’d remember which ones were charged.”
“That’s efficiency.”
“That’s obsessive.”
Tilly threw a fry at her. “You’re supposed to be on my side.”
“I am on your side,” Jamie said, laughing. “But I’ve also seen you lose a full hour of your life reorganizing the gear closet because someone put a light stand in the wrong slot.”
“That was Harper’s fault, and it was chaos in there.”
“See?” Jamie said, still smiling. “Order.”
Tilly leaned back, arms crossed. “You’re enjoying this too much.”
“Maybe a little.”
They sat in a comfortable silence for a few moments, the kind that came easy after months of working side by side, after long drives and rain-soaked live shots and cold coffees shared in parking lots. Jamie pulled up a new rundown on her tablet while Tilly picked at the fries they swore they didn’t want.
Tilly nudged the carton closer without looking. Jamie took one automatically, like it had been offered aloud. She didn’t say thank you. Tilly didn’t comment. They’d stopped narrating those small kindnesses a long time ago.
Jamie scrolled, pausing when she hit a segment note that didn’t sit right. She tilted the tablet just enough in Tilly’s direction. They leaned in, scanned it once, and made a quiet sound of agreement. That was enough. It always was.
Finally, Jamie said, “You’ll figure her out. You always do.”
“Not sure I want to,” Tilly muttered.
Jamie smiled without looking up. “You already are.”
* * *
That evening, the city felt like it had finally given in to winter.
December cold had teeth: dry air that burned in their throat when they spoke, and turned every exhale into fog under the streetlights. The pavement shone with frost where the rain had frozen thin, and each passing car sent a shimmer of white across the road.
They were parked outside a stretch of older apartment buildings in Dorchester, the kind with stoops that had seen a hundred winters. The story was about tenants still living without heat after a string of broken boilers and city code complaints that had gone unanswered.
The lights inside the buildings flickered unevenly. A window near the top floor was cracked open, a towel stuffed in the gap for insulation. Somewhere down the block, a baby cried, and somewhere else, a dog barked. It was the kind of neighborhood where everyone just endured.
Tilly pulled the tripod from the van, the metal legs biting at their hands through the gloves. Their breath came out in uneven bursts, fogging up the camera’s eyepiece when they leaned in too close. Savannah stood a few yards away, flipping through her notes beneath a halo of cold light.
She had layered up in a long coat, scarf tucked neatly, but she still looked composed and professional, like the weather didn’t touch her. Her breath fogged steadily and even, the same rhythm as the words she murmured under her breath while rehearsing.
Tilly adjusted the focus ring, the motion automatic. The lens clicked faintly in the quiet. Usually, they liked that sound. It meant control, precision, purpose. Tonight, it only reminded them of how aware they were of her.
“You good on framing?” she asked, glancing over her shoulder.
“Yeah,” Tilly said. It came out clipped, their voice scratchy from the cold.
