Upstairs Encore

When I stopped the recording, Eamon’s attention rested on me with an expression I had learned to read despite his care.

Pride, carefully restrained.

Two members of the state’s protective service arrived minutes later. Eamon checked their credentials against the registry himself, asked them questions nobody else in the room understood, and only then turned to me.

“The detail transfers to them,” he said. “Are you comfortable with that?”

“Yes.”

He gave the investigators the route history, the threat photographs, the names and descriptions of the men at the service bay, and every piece of information that might keep the next hour from taking something else from me.

Then he removed his firm credential from his wallet and set it beside the evidence inventory.

“I resign effective immediately,” he told Dr. Abbas. “My former employer attempted to obstruct a protected client’s delivery of material evidence. I will provide a full statement.”

Outside, the city began answering for what had been done in its darkened corners. The three men at the transit yard were arrested before six. Warrants followed for the donor’s private security company, campaign intermediaries, and the accounts hidden inside the ledger.

At 6:17 exactly, the hearing began.

The clerk called the room to order while rain still marked the annex windows, and Dr. Abbas carried my evidence into the record with both hands.

By then, Eamon was gone.

One of the neutral protection officers told me where to find him.

The annex roof was slick with rainwater and empty except for Eamon, standing near the low wall with the capitol dome before him. He had taken off his raincoat. Terre d’Hermès remained close to him, orange peel and stone beneath the washed-clean smell of the morning.

“You resigned,” I said.

“Yes.”

“And I am not your client anymore.”

“No.” His eyes came to mine. “You are Tressa.”

I went to him until only a breath of distance remained.

“You kept every line you drew,” I said.

“I needed you to have room to choose.”

“I do.”

His face changed then, not with surprise exactly, but with the guarded hope of a man who had spent a lifetime preparing for loss.

“May I kiss you?” he asked.

“Yes.”

He raised one hand to my cheek, giving me time to turn away if I wanted to, and when I did not, his mouth met mine with such care that my eyes closed. There was no urgency in it, no claim, no reward demanded for danger survived. Only the slow, certain discovery that he wanted me and would still wait if waiting was what I needed.

I kissed him again because I wanted him to know.

Later, after the state team confirmed the route across the street was secure, we took the few private hours the morning offered in a quiet hotel room behind a closed door. He asked me more than once whether I was certain. I answered him each time. We left the rest of the world outside with the rain, the hearings, the campaign, and every frightened thing that had driven us through the night.

When we returned to the roof, the clouds had begun to loosen over the capitol.

I played “This Must Be the Place” from my phone.

Eamon listened beside me as I opened the four recorded messages.

“You said you would get the evidence there,” he said when the first one ended.

“I did.”

“You said nobody could delay you without your permission.”

“I meant it.”

The third message carried the crack of the service bay door, the dispatcher’s clipped questions, the sound of a city being asked to pay attention.

When the fourth ended, Eamon took my hand.

“I did not know what came after this,” I admitted.

“You do not owe me an answer today.”

“I know.” I looked at him, at the man who had protected my freedom even when it hurt him. “But I want a future with you anyway.”

The sun rose slowly over the capitol dome, pale and clear after the rain, and the song carried on from my phone while Eamon stood beside me, his hand around mine, and for the first time all night, I knew exactly where I wanted to be.