“Yeah.” Tilly shifted the camera to their shoulder. “There’s a guy over there scraping his windshield.”
Savannah nodded. “You take the lead?”
“Sure.”
They approached the car owner together, and the interview went exactly like every winter-parking-ban interview ever: ‘I get it, but it’s annoying, where do you want us to put the cars?’and‘This city doesn’t plow my street anyway.’Tilly kept the frame tight, catching the puff of his breath in the air. Savannah thanked him, charmingly, and moved on to the next. Efficient, professional, nothing wasted.
And somehow that irritated Tilly more than if she’d messed up.
Because earlier in the week she’d been pushing, leaning in, asking for tighter shots, fighting for control—and now she was just… good. Polite. Distant.
They finished the last interview as the light started to fade, a dull blue settling over the street. Savannah glanced at her notes, lips moving silently as she ran through her tag.
“I can record the standup now if you’re good,” she said.
“Whenever you’re ready.”
She stepped into frame, breath fogging. “Rolling in three, two—”
The first take was fine. The second was almost perfect. On the third, Savannah paused mid-sentence, lowering her hand.
“Wait,” she said. “Can you check the frame?”
Tilly glanced down at the monitor. The shot was clean — technically. But a street sign cut awkwardly behind her shoulder, bright and distracting.
“Yeah. It’s… busy,” they said. “Hang on.”
Savannah stayed where she was as Tilly stepped forward, boots crunching lightly over salt. They adjusted the tripod first, lowering it half an inch. Still wrong. The angle needed more than that.
“Don’t move,” Tilly said quietly.
They reached past her, one hand steadying the camera, the other shifting her a fraction to the left by the sleeve of her coat. Not rough. Not gentle either. Just precise.
She didn’t step back.
Up close, the cold had finally caught her. A faint flush along her cheekbones. A loose strand of hair lifted in the harbor wind. Tilly could smell something clean and expensive under the bite of winter — soap or perfume or both. It didn’t belong out here.
“Okay,” Tilly murmured. “Try now.”
Savannah looked up at them first instead of the lens. Just for a second.
Then she reset.
“Rolling in three, two.”
This time it was perfect.
They packed up in silence. Not tense, exactly. Just full. The kind of silence where every sound—coil of cable, slam of van door, click of lens cap—felt too loud.
Back at the station, the newsroom had thinned out. The five o’clock rush was over. The ten-o’clock rundown glowed on the assignment board. Savannah peeled off toward her desk to log the interview names. Tilly headed straight for the edit bay, card in hand, grateful for the dark.
They loaded the footage, scrubbed through the presser, and dropped in her standup. It was all clean. It always was. They should’ve felt satisfied. Instead, they felt… off. Like they were watching someone else’s day.
The door opened without a knock. Savannah leaned in, arms folded. “How bad was the static?”
“Barely there,” Tilly said, not looking away from the screen. “I can filter it.”
“Okay.” She hesitated. “Thanks. For fixing it.”
