Page 42 of Take Two

“It’s a pretty good sales pitch,” I reply, and I find myself rocking slightly on the balls of my feet, which is new. I have no idea when nerves became part of this, but here we are.

“It is undeniably practical,” Cyaire says, with the tone of a man weighing options he has already decided on.

“I am a practical man.”

Behind us, Cameron makes a sound that carries the full weight of a man who has an opinion and has chosen, professionally, not to voice it. I suspect he would like us both to get our collective act together.

We ignore him completely.

Cyaire looks at me for another moment, something settling in his expression, and the quality of it makes the entire evening feel like it was building toward exactly this.

“Yeah,” he says. “I’d like that.”

Something in my chest loosens and tightens in the same breath. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” This time there is no hesitation at all.

Cameron steps closer, his attention already moving back to the street, checking and cataloguing without making it a performance.

“Send me the address,” he says to me, easy and direct. “I’ll follow behind.”

I nod, genuinely grateful that he doesn’t make it into anything more than logistics.

Cyaire slides his sunglasses back on, even though the evening has long since moved past the point where they serve any real purpose. Then he looks at me, and the smile he gives me has nothing careful or managed about it. It is real and it’s bright, and it reaches everything.

I turn toward where I parked and give myself exactly the length of that walk to be honest about it.

I am not ready for this night to end. I want more evenings like this one, quieter ones and louder ones and ones that run longer than either of us planned for. I want the version of him that laughs at seagull chaos and argues seriously about hoodies and looks out at the water like he is trying to remember what stillness feels like.

More than I have any sensible business wanting. Far more than I planned for when I agreed to take a walk.

Chapter 11

Cyaire

The drive from Pike Place takes longer than I expect.

For the first few minutes, I assume Jamie is leading us toward one of the glass towers near Elliott Bay, because that’s where men like him usually live. Professional athletes, actors, musicians, anyone with too much visibility and very little privacy, we all tend to hide in the same kinds of places. High above the city, behind elevators that need key cards. Inside buildings with concierge desks, underground parking, and views designed to remind you that success has an address.

Jamie drives past all of that and I’m stunned. Cameron looks at me and shakes his head at my obvious confusion.

The waterfront falls away behind us, and the streets grow quieter with every turn. Downtown gives way to neighborhoods where the houses sit back from the road beneath mature trees, their porches wide, their gardens carefully kept, their windows glowing with the kind of evening light that makes each home look occupied in the fullest sense of the word. Brick sits beside painted wood. Restored trim frames old windows. Deep steps lead up to front doors that look like generations of hands have opened them.

These homes haven’t simply survived more than a century of Seattle weather. They’ve been maintained, restored, and loved with respect and care.

By the time Jamie’s black SUV slows in front of a blue-and-white house sitting slightly above the street, I have completely abandoned the penthouse theory entirely.

He turns into the driveway while Cameron eases our car to the curb behind him and kills the engine. The street settles into a quiet that feels almost deliberate after the noise of the waterfront, the only sound now the distant rustle of trees and the faint tick of the cooling engine.

For a moment, neither of us moves.

I sit in the passenger seat staring through the windshield at the house in front of me, genuinely unsure what to do with what I’m looking at.

“Well,” Cameron says beside me.

I glance over.

He nods toward the house, expression carefully neutral in the way it gets when he is equally surprised but refuses to fully admit it. “Didn’t see that coming.”