Old Friends, New Feelings

She cleared her throat, the sound too loud in the lobby. “I’m dropping off the - ” She held up the folder, feeling ridiculous for needing something to do with her hands. “For the board.”

“I know.” He leaned forward slightly, lowering his voice as if the lobby’s noise could drown them out. “They called it in because you were the one handling it.”

Alice’s mouth went dry. “They did?”

Elliot’s gaze flicked to her keys, then back to her face. “Yeah.”

It wasn’t the content that unsettled her. It was the ease. Like he’d been standing on the same side of the conversation for years, waiting for her to catch up.

“You work here now?” she asked, buying herself time.

“Contract,” he corrected, and the word sounded careful. Not defensive, but… chosen. “For a few months.”

“Right.” Alice nodded and tried to breathe like she hadn’t just walked into the exact spot her memory had been guarding. “And you live in - ”

“Still in the same place,” he said, too quickly. Then he exhaled, as if correcting himself on the way out. “Not far. You’d laugh if you saw the new paint. I did it myself.”

The way he said “myself” made her feel like he was trying to offer her a version of him that didn’t need help. It made her want to reach for him anyway, to pull the truth out like it was a thread she could tug.

Alice adjusted the folder in her grip. The cover felt slick under her thumb. “You didn’t used to - ”

“Paint?” he supplied, and there was a lightness to it, but it didn’t fully land. “No. I didn’t used to do anything that didn’t involve running late and making jokes to cover it.”

Her laugh came out too sharp. “You made jokes?”

“I made jokes,” he agreed, eyes warm enough to be cruel. “And you made that face like you were going to tell me to stop, but you never did.”

Alice’s stomach flipped. That face - the one she’d made when he talked too close to the line - was still lodged in her bones. Her expression tried to pull itself into place. She forced her shoulders down.

“You’re still good at remembering,” she said, because it was safer than admitting what she remembered.

His thumb brushed the edge of his folder. The motion was small, but it drew her attention like a magnet. “I’m good at noticing things I shouldn’t.”

The subtext sat between them, thick as the air before rain. Alice swallowed. “We shouldn’t be standing here.”

Elliot glanced toward the glass doors and then back, the movement slow, as if he was measuring whether she meant it as a courtesy or a boundary. “We can move. You look like you’re about to run.”

Her hands tightened around the folder. “Maybe I am.”

He didn’t argue. Instead, he stepped aside and nodded toward the corridor that led to the offices. “Come with me. Five minutes. Sign. Done.”

It should’ve been easy. It should’ve been professional. But when Alice walked beside him, the scent of his cologne - something warm and woodsy - caught her every time she turned her head. The sound of his shoes on the tile matched her pace, and the fact that her body knew it without asking made her want to throw up.