Savannah’s jaw tightened. “Neither.”
“Right.” Harper’s eyebrow flicked up.
Savannah pretended to type something. Anything. Her fingers hovered uselessly over the keys.
Two days since the kiss. One day, since Tilly wouldn’t look at her. Zero hours since Savannah decided she was done caring.
If they wanted distance, she would drown them in it.
She clicked into another tab. Then another. Then another. Her reflection stared back faintly in the monitor. Eyes sharp. Mouth tight. Something quietly breaking behind both.
She swallowed it down. She could hold this line. She could be ice. She had done it before. And if it hurt this time, that wasn’t anyone’s problem but hers.
Savannah tried to focus on her script. She really did. But every sentence she wrote turned into the wrong words. Every headline blurred. Every email felt like a mosquito whining in her ear. Her skin itched with restlessness. She tapped her pen. She stopped. She did it again.
The newsroom felt crowded even though it wasn’t. Too many voices, too many lights, too many people with absolutely nothing to do with what she was trying so hard not to think about. Her eyes flicked to the far hallway before she could stop them.
Tilly was there. Just for a second. Just walking past.
They didn’t look at her. Why would they? They were so good at not looking.
Savannah snapped her gaze back to her monitor. Her heart was beating too fast for how still she was sitting. Savannah’s throat tightened, the anger wobbling under the weight of something softer. She hated that part of herself, the part that wanted too deeply and too quietly, the part that cracked open without permission. She wasn’t built for casual. She wasn’t built for almost. She wasn’t built for reaching toward someone unless she believed — truly believed — they would reach back.
She’d made that mistake once before.
It had been Providence — a different newsroom, a different desk, a different version of herself who still believed effort could substitute for certainty. There had been a producer she trusted, someone older, steadier, who’d gone out of their way to mentor her. Late nights. Shared jokes. The quiet kind of closeness that felt earned instead of risky. Savannah had told herself it was professional. That it had meant nothing.
Until the night she stayed late to help cut a package that wasn’t hers.
Until the drinks afterward, which turned into talking too long in the empty bar.
Until she said something — not a confession, not even a question — just enough to make the air change.
She still remembered the look on his face. Not angry. Not cruel. Just startled. Careful. Like she’d misstepped onto a floor that wasn’t meant to hold her weight.
The next morning, everything was fine.
That had been the worst part.
He kept things polite. Professional. Distant in a way no one else noticed. The extra check-ins stopped. The easy shorthand disappeared. When her name came up in meetings, he went quiet. When promotions were discussed, she wasn’t mentioned.
No one said she’d done anything wrong.
No one had to.
Savannah learned the lesson fast: reaching without certainty didn’t just hurt — it cost her ground. Credibility. Space she’d worked for. And the only way to survive it was to shut the feeling down so completely it couldn’t leave a mark.
She’d iced him out before he could do it to her.
She’d told herself it was maturity.
It had worked. Until it didn’t.
But she had reached for Tilly. Just for a second. Just long enough to lose her balance. Now she was convinced she had misread everything. That the moment in the truck had belonged to her alone. And that truth sat in her chest like a bruise she couldn’t stop pressing.
Harper reappeared at her desk like summoned by bad vibes. “You still look angry,” she announced helpfully.
“Congratulations,” Savannah said without looking up.
