Page 155 of Specters & Spotlights

The drinks are arriving in five. We can’t be held responsible for your round disappearing.

She snorted, typing back, imagining Nick’s foot tapping as he watched the door for their arrival.

I *just* got home. 10 minutes.

Keep your greedy hands off my margarita.

Elise locked her phone with a satisfied click, the kind that said, “I have won this round of the group chat.” Another buzz. She could already feel the string of gifs loading like a theatrical monologue queued for applause. Nick could wait. Preferably in agony.

Some friendships survived distance. The best ones thrived on it.

She took one last sip of her coffee and placed the empty mug on the counter. A moment later, Graham reached past her and wrapped his fingers around the handle.

“Refill?” he asked, voice low and casual.

But his hand brushed hers in the process. Deliberate, maybe. Or maybe she was just imagining the spark that bloomed in her wrist and crawled up her arm like static. She glanced up.

He was closer than she’d realized.

Not in an overbearing way. Just there. Steady. Warm. The scent of him tangled with the coffee—citrus and cedar and something faintly smoky. His curls were still slightly damp. His sweater still unfair.

Elise tilted her head, amused. “Is that an actual offer, or are you trying to stall me?”

Graham’s mouth quirked at one corner. “Depends. Is it working?”

Her pulse fluttered in that traitorous, inconvenient way it still did when he looked at her like that—like she was both the setup and the punchline, and he knew exactly how the joke ended.

“You know Nick will commit snack-related violence if we’re late,” she said, not moving.

“I’m not afraid of Nick.”

“You should be. He’s unpredictable when hungry.”

He leaned in just slightly, his free hand finding the edge of the counter near her hip. “So are you.”

Elise smirked. “You’re flirting with me over a coffee refill.”

“I’m multitasking,” he murmured.

She kissed him, because she could. Because the world outside their windows might be all sharp edges and subway steam, but here—in the warm glow of their ghost light and the faint hum of the radiator—everything felt soft.

He tasted like mint and lingering adrenaline, like applause still echoing in the bones. And when he pulled back just enough to brush his nose against hers, she exhaled the kind of sigh that only came from finally, finally feeling home.

Graham didn’t let go of the mug right away.

Instead, he set it gently on the counter behind her, then turned back, his gaze locking with hers in that way he sometimes did—like he was reading a line written just beneath her skin.

“There she is,” he said softly.

His thumb brushed along her cheekbone, featherlight.

Elise’s smile faltered, but only because her heart was suddenly climbing its way into her throat. She knew what he meant. He didn’t have to say it anymore. That elusive flicker of green he claimed to see in her eyes when she was truly happy—she still didn’t know if it was real or something he made up to make her blush. Either way, it always worked.

She was still smiling when he pulled her close.

The second kiss came without pretext. No counterpoint. Just heat. She giggled once—out of habit, out of disbelief that this was her life now—and then she felt it: that quiet rush of connection, of need, of you’re here, you’re mine, don’t change.

It hadn’t been long since they parted—half an hour, maybe—but those had been the other versions of them: Graham in spotlight and stage makeup, Elise in tech black and wig pins, both sharp-edged and professional. This was the version that mattered.