Page 44 of Specters & Spotlights

He bowed gallantly. “A woman of taste.”

She slipped toward the bar, weaving between dancing bodies and waving arms, the noise trailing after her like confetti.

The bar was quieter than the karaoke room, blessedly so. Elise slid onto a stool, the hum of conversation and the faint clink of glassware wrapping around her like cool cloth after too much sun. She set her bag down carefully beside her, grateful for the momentary stillness. Graham leaned against the bar, sipping something golden, eyes brightening when he saw her.

“Escaped the secondhand Broadway chaos?” he teased.

“For now,” Elise said, settling in next to him. “I needed a brief reprieve from dramatic renditions of Les Mis.”

“They were waving breadsticks,” Graham murmured. “I don’t think Hugo would’ve approved.”

She laughed—really laughed. It caught her off-guard, and she let it linger a beat longer than expected.

The beertender arrived, and she ordered something mild and light. Something uncomplicated.

She rested her forearms on the bar, letting the glass cool her palms.

A quiet fell between them, but it wasn’t awkward. It just was.

“I feel like I owe you an apology,” Graham started, carefully. “For calling you the wrong name the other day.”

Elise tilted her head. “Why? You just remembered it wrong.”

“I didn’t, actually,” he said, glancing down at his glass. “I asked Lark.”

Elise paused. “You asked Lark?”

“She seemed…” he hesitated, “close to you. I assumed if anyone knew, it’d be her.”

Elise let out a breath of disbelief. “And she told you my name was Emily?”

He nodded once, sheepish. “I thought maybe it was intentional,” he admitted. “Like maybe she didn’t want me to know.”

She tilted her head, studying him. “Because…?”

“I assumed it had something to do with you two being a thing,” he said. “And that she was being… territorial.”

Elise stared at him for a second, her brain catching on the words.

You two being a thing.

Territorial.

He hadn’t been dismissing her. He hadn’t filed her away as some forgettable backstage person whose name he couldn’t be bothered to learn. He had noticed her. Asked about her. And then, misguidedly decided she belonged to someone else.

“She gets that way,” Graham added, like a confession. Something in his voice made Elise look at him more closely. Not gossip. Not judgement. Experience.

Elise gave a soft laugh. “She’s sweet, but… I don’t see her that way. I only realized she had feelings for me like, two hours ago.”

Graham blinked. “Seriously?”

She nodded. “I’ll let her down gently next time I see her.”

He leaned back slightly, looking at her with new eyes. Or maybe not new. Maybe he had been looking that way for longer than she realized, and she had been too busy assuming she was too invisible to notice.

“So it’s not mutual,” he said.

“No. Definitely not.”