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Jayce hadn’t meant to stay this late. Really, he hadn’t. But the stack of council papers in front of him always seemed to multiply when Mel Medarda was around.
It wasn’t her fault. If anything, she made the hours lighter, not heavier: her quill scratching in elegant strokes, the occasional sigh as she flipped a page, the way she muttered numbers under her breath when balancing figures. He could sit here for days without a care.
He told himself it was duty, not longing, that anchored him here long past the hour the lamps hissed low. But the truth was simpler and far more foolish: he stayed because she did.
Across the table, Mel shifted, tucking one leg beneath her and leaning an elbow on the desk with far less grace than she usually allowed herself. A stray curl tickled her cheek. Jayce nearly dropped his pen at the sight because gods help him, he found it adorable.
He tried to refocus, but his distraction betrayed him. Ink splattered across the margin.
“Something amusing about tariff reports?” Mel asked, her tone sharp in theory, but soft in practice. She was fighting a smile, he could tell.
Jayce stammered, waving a blotched page like it might defend him. “What? No! I was just thinking.”
“Dangerous pastime,” she murmured, biting the inside of her cheek.
He flushed. “About…trade routes.”
Mel arched a brow. “Mm. And here I was hoping it was about me.”
The words landed like a hammer-blow. Jayce’s jaw worked uselessly for a moment before Mel’s face cracked into a grin, laughter slipping out. She ducked her head quickly, as though embarrassed she’d let it escape.
“You’re impossible,” Jayce muttered, trying to hide the smile tugging at his own lips.
Her shoulders shook as she scribbled something, still refusing to look at him directly. She’s laughing at you, his mind supplied, but the warmth of it, the fact that Mel Medarda—the poised, untouchable Mel Medarda—was laughing hard enough to hide her face? He wanted to bottle the sound.
The silence that followed wasn’t awkward, not really, but it thrummed with unspoken things. Their eyes met once, held longer than it should have, until Jayce’s heart hammered loud enough to make him drop his gaze. He shoved his quill behind his ear, ink smudging his temple without him noticing.
“Jayce.”
He looked up. Mel was watching him, lips twitching. She gestured vaguely at her own face.
“What?”
“Nothing,” she said quickly, but she was laughing again, and he had no idea why.
He reached up, found the smear of ink on his above his ear, and groaned. “Perfect. Just perfect.”
“You wear it well,” she teased, though her voice was gentler now, betraying the fondness she was trying to hide.
The clock struck the hour, breaking the moment. Mel gathered her papers with exaggerated precision, though Jayce didn’t miss the way her hands lingered, slower than usual, as though she wasn’t eager for the night to end either.
He jumped to his feet too quickly, chair scraping loud against the floor. “Let me—uh—get your coat.”
“You don’t have to—”
“I insist.” He was already halfway to the stand, nearly tripping over his own satchel in his haste.
When he helped her into the coat, their fingers brushed. Not a grand, sweeping moment—just clumsy, brief, almost shy. But she didn’t move away. Her breath caught, and Jayce felt it as surely as he felt the warmth of her hand.
“Thank you, Jayce,” she said, voice soft in a way that made him ache.
He nodded too fast, too earnest. She smiled like she knew exactly what a fool he was—and worse, that she didn’t mind.
Later, lying awake, he’d replay every second: her laugh, the smudge of ink, the brush of fingers. And he’d think, dizzy with hope, that maybe—just maybe—Mel Medarda was as much of a fool for him as he was for her.