The words stayed with Tilly longer than they should have.
They focused on the keyboard until the rest of the room blurred.
They heard Savannah before they saw her.
Her voice carried easily across the room as she spoke with Henry at the assignment desk. Controlled. Professional. A little too steady in the way she always was in the morning.
Then she stepped into view.
Her coat was still on, and her hair was pulled back neatly. Her cheeks were pink from the cold. She leaned over Henry’s monitor to look at the day’s board, tapping her pen against her notebook.
She looked… normal. Exactly like herself.
Then she glanced across the room, and her eyes landed on Tilly for just a moment.
One second.
Barely that.
But it hit like a flicker of light.
She looked back at the monitor before Tilly could decide if it had meant anything.
Tilly stepped into the gear room under the excuse of checking batteries that they already knew were charged.
When they came back out, Henry raised a hand.
“Franklin. You’re with Wells again today.”
Savannah turned slightly but kept her expression neutral. “City yard. Plow readiness before the storm,” she said, tearing a page from her notebook and holding it out.
Their fingers brushed when Tilly took it.
It was nothing, but Tilly felt it anyway.
“I’ll get the car,” they said.
“I’ll grab my things,” Savannah replied.
They walked in opposite directions, both a little too quickly.
The drive was quiet.
Savannah looked at her phone, scrolling with an intensity that did not match the emails she was reading. Tilly kept their hands fixed on the wheel even though they normally drove one-handed.
After a few minutes, Savannah let out a quiet breath. “You’re really not going to talk at all?”
“I thought you were working,” Tilly said.
“I can talk and read.”
“You’ve asked me not to talk before.”
“Yeah, when you’re giving me play-by-play of every light we hit.”
“I just like you to be informed.”
She shook her head slightly, like she wanted to smile but did not let herself. “Something like that.”
