Page 45 of Specters & Spotlights

A slow smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Huh. That’s… unexpected.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Disappointed?”

“Not even a little.” He said it lightly, but not carelessly. Like he knew exactly what he was admitting and had decided not to soften it.

Elise’s fingers tightened around her glass. The condensation slicked against her palm.

Oh. That was interest.

Not vague politeness. Not leading-man charm scattered indiscriminately across the room. Interest, directed at her with unnerving precision.

Elise took another sip of her drink, mostly to give herself something to do with her mouth besides smile like an idiot. The buzz of the party hummed behind them like distant applause. “And here I thought that you just couldn’t be bothered with us backstage types.”

“I mean,” Graham said, meeting her eyes, “I wasn’t asking Lark about her name.”

Heat climbed Elise’s neck before she could stop it.

Ridiculous. She was a grown woman. She had survived haunted theatres, quick changes, and actors who believed “five minutes” was a flexible concept. She could survive one handsome man implying he’d wanted to know her name.

Probably.

Graham sipped his drink, eyes flicking toward her—not casually, but with a kind of quiet deliberateness. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. It wasn’t performative. It felt like something just for her.

“So,” he said, voice mild, “no girlfriend waiting back home?”

Elise let out a short, surprised laugh—more reflex than reply. The question should have felt casual. It did not. It landed with the warm, startling specificity of someone checking to see whether the door was actually open.

“No girlfriend.”

Graham tilted his glass, considering. “Boyfriend?”

She glanced at him, not quite meeting his eyes. “No,” she replied, voice softer now. “No boyfriend either.”

The words hung between them, simple and suddenly not simple at all.

Graham smiled. “Interesting. Come on,” he said, nodding encouragingly toward the front of the brewery. “Let’s escape the chorus of drunken show tunes while we still can.”

They moved toward a pair of worn, overstuffed chairs near the window, a pocket of calm where the music dulled to a distant hum. As they passed, Nick caught her eye from across the room and made an exaggerated face—wide-eyed and giddy, looking dramatically between the two of them, mouthing something that looked suspiciously like “I LOVE THIS FOR YOU!” with the intensity of someone performing all the way to the back row. Elise bit her lip to suppress a grin.

The mismatched chairs by the window creaked a little as they sank into them, the light from the nearby sconce washing them in soft amber. Outside, rain misted the glass. Inside, the muffled chaos of karaoke faded into background noise.

Elise shifted, glass in hand, trying to play it cool even as her pulse danced in her throat. She hadn’t expected this—him, here, now—and she definitely hadn’t expected to enjoy it. Enjoying things made them harder to walk away from.

She tilted her head, studying him. “You always this charming? Or am I just getting the good version tonight?”

Graham’s grin was slow and self-aware. “I save my best material for when the only other alternative is bad karaoke.”

Elise laughed, the sound slipping out before she could temper it. She looked at him for a moment longer than she meant to. He didn’t look away.

“This is a good look for you,” he said softly.

She blinked. “What is?”

“Relaxed. Still a little sharp, but… less guarded.”

The word found a bruise she hadn’t realized was showing. Guarded. Not wrong. Not even unkind. Just accurate enough to make her want to look away.

She could’ve deflected. Probably would’ve, any other time. But something about the way he was watching her—like she was a secret he was glad to have stumbled across—made her stay with the honesty instead.